Ep. 126 | Interview With Cult Survivor India Oxenberg

Ways you can support! India Oxenberg Instagram: @indiaoxenberg India's Books: Still Learning - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GX9212TW?... From Numb to Normal - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GWF6J54W?... India's Documentary: Seduced: Inside the NXIVM Cult - https://www.hulu.com/series/seduced-i... Support Resources: UCLA Treatment Centre: https://www.uclahealth.org/medical-se... Crisis Helpline: https://988lifeline.org Thank you so much to India for taking the time to tell her story and be such an incredible voice for survivors everywhere. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:41Speaker 01

  a guy online who seemed to understand something about the world nobody else was saying out loud. The door is never the thing you'd refuse. The door is always something you actually wanted. To be healthier, to be less lonely, to make more money, to be better than you were last year. The manipulation starts later, once you're already inside. And it moves slowly enough that you'd never get a single moment where you could look around and say, "This is where it went wrong." And for India Oxenberg, the door was a class. And the cult, NXeum, sold itself as a self-help organization with personal development seminars, professional growth, and a community of ambitious people who seemed to have it all figured out.

• 2:26Speaker 01

  And India was only 19 when she walked into her first class, alongside her mother, the actress Catherine Oxenberg. And her mother would walk away, but India would stay for several more years, recruited deeper by actress Alison Mack, and brought into DOZ, a secret inner circle group within the NXeum organization. And it functioned as a master-slave pyramid scheme, used blackmail, punishments, and practiced even branding. And India would also be abused by the man at the center of it all, the cult leader, the pathetic waste of oxygen, Keith Raniere. But luckily, she would eventually get out with her mother's help.

• 3:10Speaker 01

  And now she's spent the years since turning that experience into something useful. She's executive produced the docu-series Seduced: Inside the Nxivm Cult, which I highly recommend watching after this. And she wrote the memoir Still Learning and narrated the audiobook herself, which I also highly recommend listening to. And her poetry collection, which is so incredibly beautiful, From Numb to Normal, sits with the slow part, the return to feeling after years of being controlled. And she speaks publicly about coercion and psychological manipulation, and how it actually works, and how ordinary it looks from the inside. And that's why I wanted to talk to her. Because her story is a warning about seeing patterns.

• 3:53Speaker 01

  The isolation from people who knew you before, the information you handed over that becomes leverage later. The way the ask gets bigger by increments so small, you'd feel pretty dramatic refusing. And once you can see that, you start seeing it everywhere. In a relationship, in a job, in a friendship that slowly rearranged your life around someone else. I really feel like this interview can apply to anyone listening. So without further ado, here is India Oxenberg. Whenever fall comes back around, it always feels like a fresh start. This year, I've been layering in some styles from the new Lululemon Fall Drop, because the weather is shifting and I find I have to be ready for the entire day and not just one part of it.

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• 4:56Speaker 02

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• 5:10Speaker 01

  I really appreciate you being here, so thank you so much for being here.

• 5:13Speaker 04

  Thank you for having me.

• 5:14Speaker 01

  So, so much, yeah. And I mean, your story is incredible, crazy, heartbreaking, and just... So I just, I really appreciate you being here.

• 5:25Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 5:26Speaker 01

  I obviously did an intro for you, but this is India Oxenberg? Is that how you say your name, right?

• 5:32Speaker 04

  Yes, exactly.

• 5:33Speaker 01

  I'm pretty sure I couldn't get it wrong.

• 5:34Speaker 04

  No, you got it right.

• 5:35Speaker 01

  Okay, go ahead.

• 5:35Speaker 04

  Yes, my name is India Oxenberg. Unfortunately, I was in a group called NXeum in my twenties. I got in when I was really young, I was 19. And, you know, it's hard to kind of go back in time. I'm almost eight years away from when I first left, which feels like a lifetime. And even just looking back and thinking about that girl who is also me, I just, it's hard to relate almost, because my life is just so different now than it was before. And like NXeum really consumed all of my real estate, to say the least,

• 6:20Speaker 04

  like mentally, physically, emotionally. It occupied my whole life, to the point where I just didn't have any outside friends anymore. I had kind of severed all of my relationships, including my most important relationships, like the one with my mother. And it's just crazy to me to go back. And it's hard to go back, honestly, because it just has taken me so much to get to the place where I'm not just constantly reacting to the post-traumatic stress or just like the high intensity of... And the aftershock of really like leaving a high-control group. Just, you think leaving, everything's gonna be great

• 7:04Speaker 04

  and you're gonna be able to just kind of jump into your life and it's gonna be normal and all of that. And then you sort of realize that, like, leaving is just kind of the first step. It's a lot more...

• 7:18Speaker 04

  Things linger a lot more than I would like to have admitted to myself. And I think I wished at the time that my healing would have been faster and like I would have felt like, "Yeah, I'm this confident version of myself." But really, I was having like one identity crisis after another, being like, "Who the fuck am I after this?" Like, when something takes over your entire life and the way that you think and the way that you process what's important to you, you have to then start to, you know... I wouldn't say go back to ground zero, because like the person that I was before NXeum, I still have her in me. It's just not, um...

• 8:02Speaker 04

  It's not really the route that I thought that I was gonna take.

• 8:05Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 8:06Speaker 04

  Coming from Malibu, California, and just like, you know, growing up in a family in the entertainment industry and all these things that I thought that like my life was gonna go in one direction. And it just went in like a totally cringe-worthy other direction, where now, you know, branded sex slave gets associated to your name and you're just sort of like, "So how am I gonna overcome this one?" Like, it just doesn't, it's not sexy.

• 8:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:31Speaker 04

  Like, it doesn't look great on a resume.

• 8:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, you're more than that label that people have branded you with.

• 8:37Speaker 04

  Thank God, literally, no pun intended.

• 8:40Speaker 01

  I'm sorry.

• 8:40Speaker 04

  No, no, that was funny, high five. You can make jokes, honestly.

• 8:44Speaker 01

  It was not intentional at all.

• 8:46Speaker 04

  No, I want to be able to make jokes about this, but my timing has also been slightly too early. And the things that I consider humorous, people are like, "India, that's not funny yet." Like, you haven't had enough time.

• 9:00Speaker 01

  As long as you're in the place where that's okay.

• 9:02Speaker 04

  If I don't laugh, I'll cry about it.

• 9:04Speaker 01

  Hundred percent, hundred percent. No, I understand that. Yeah, and I mean, all of this, I mean, it took place, you were so young.

• 9:10Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 9:10Speaker 01

  I mean, you're introduced to it at 19, or your mom found the group, not knowing what it was.

• 9:17Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's, that's the real truth. It's like a trusted friend introduced both my mom and I to it. I was in a place in my life at that time where I had just left a year of university. I didn't really know what I wanted to do, but I did know that I wanted mentorship and I wanted somebody or some, you know, work to kind of shepherd me to the next level. I'm not a real traditional learner. Like, I'm like super dyslexic and probably ADHD and like a slew of other things that we don't need labels for. But of, you know, some NXeum exacerbated some, probably, you know, already part of my constitution. So like for me, getting to know myself and my capacity

• 10:00Speaker 04

  has really just been like through learning and like trying new things. I just think like, the person that I wanted to be was so...

• 10:14Speaker 04

  Far away, cuz I was nineteen years old and I think that I had such a high expectation that I was gonna be like

• 10:23Speaker 04

  able to figure it out and know everything right away when just that's just really not how it works. And now I just turned thirty-five and I'm I'm like, what an enormous amount of pressure like no wonder I was vulnerable. I was also placing like an unrealistic expectation that this should be the thing

• 10:45Speaker 04

  that was going to help me. Granted, that's how they position themselves. So I wasn't entirely at fault. Like they literally were selling

• 10:57Speaker 04

  false

• 10:59Speaker 04

  self-knowledge.

• 11:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, of course. And I mean, there was there was intelligent

• 11:05Speaker 01

  what influential people in the group that I'm sure that your mom knew about when walking going into it and you knew about her.

• 11:12Speaker 04

  She didn't. And my mom is like not a starstruck person.

• 11:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:16Speaker 04

  At all. Like she forget like I have a story where she was in her twenties and she was playing tennis at the White House. I guess against Johnny Depp. And then she forgot who Johnny Depp was later. He was like, hey, yeah, we played tennis at the White House. And she's like, I don't remember you.

• 11:33Speaker 01

  Oh, she's memorable though. He's like, oh, I remember you.

• 11:37Speaker 04

  Like my mom, my mom is like a really interesting and dynamic and charismatic person who isn't really like influenced by status.

• 11:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:47Speaker 04

  So that wasn't really what we were going for. What we were introduced by this trusted trusted friend.

• 11:55Speaker 04

  It was kind of like sold to us as a personal development course that would also help us bond as a mother and daughter. You know, you're nineteen.

• 12:06Speaker 04

  You feel like you should be able to relate to your children in a more adult way. And I think like my mom was kind of open to us exploring that together. She had no idea

• 12:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:20Speaker 04

  what NXIVM was in the inner circles of it. Like we were so far removed at that point. It wasn't until years later that you know, the the grooming and the indoctrination really set in on me because I was also so young and so susceptible. Not that elder people were also not as influenced, but there's something about like a young mind that just you just don't have a lot of life experience.

• 12:49Speaker 01

  There's naivety and that's just normal.

• 12:52Speaker 04

  Exactly.

• 12:52Speaker 01

  You're trying to find yourself. You don't know who you are. Most people at least, you know, because some people who are like, I'm gonna be a doctor. I'm gonna I had no idea who I was. I look back at her and I'm like, who was that?

• 13:04Speaker 04

  Trying new things.

• 13:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:06Speaker 04

  Sort of exploring, getting to know yourself. Like especially if you're passionate about like creative endeavors. I was open to all sorts of work, even just like working for free until people would you know, value what I was bringing. But really, I was in a like I said, I was in a position where I was looking for mentorship and I I actually thought that I had found it in NXIVM. And slowly, but surely, I started to change. And that was because of the influence that they had on me. And like

• 13:42Speaker 04

  at the time, you don't really see it like that because it's not

• 13:47Speaker 04

  it's not like the typical true crime issues where you're like, that was the moment, or that's the major red flag, or he's the murderer. It's like, it's none of those obvious things. It's the little things that add up to identity erosion. It's not it's not just one thing. And I think like if it was, maybe I would have seen the red flag, but I I just absolutely didn't.

• 14:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:13Speaker 04

  And the funny part with me is I'm a little bit stubborn. So when I got out, instead of just

• 14:22Speaker 04

  like you know, focusing on the bad parts of NXIVM, it's like I I kind of started to question everything in my life, like even good things. So that was probably the hardest part to just reintegrate is that no, you will rebuild trust. Like you will actually have healthy relationships again, but it it does take time. Like you can't just, it's not just a switch that you flip and then all of a sudden you feel like the effects of coercive control completely dissolve. It's literally just like the same way it was the little things to get you in, it's also the little things that get you out. So you can't really throw the baby out with the bathwater, even though at times I really wanted to and I was just like

• 15:07Speaker 04

  fuck everything with self-help. Like this is all bullshit. All you suck. Communities, organizing religions, this, that. And then I was like, all right, pump the brakes. Like you need to relax. This isn't all bad.

• 15:19Speaker 01

  Complain.

• 15:21Speaker 04

  But I really did like have to kind of like wrestle with that for a long time. And I'm kind of like at this stage in my life where I'm starting to appreciate the the ordinary things of life that are actually like quite wonderful and not dull. But like coming out of a high control group is definitely a letdown. Because you're so used to this rah rah rah high. And I think that's part of like the recruiting tools. I'm an excited person. I'm easily excited. Like I love new ideas. I love good conversation. All those things speak to me. And I think that was partly what

• 16:03Speaker 04

  drew me in initially was like, like what you said, that I was meeting interesting, older, influential people who seem to have their life together. But then the eerie part was the closer that I got to the inner circle or the folks who are really running the show, I was like you know, some things do seem off, but then the idea of questioning or just

• 16:33Speaker 04

  pushing back on people who are in positions of authority isn't really something that you do in a high control group. Like you're actually discouraged from asking questions. So like even if you were like myself, kind of having moments of like this seems kind of inconsistent. All of a sudden, you start to rationalize and kind of push away your own instincts to the point where like

• 17:01Speaker 04

  weird shit gets normalized. And that to me was when things started to get really, really bad. And it wasn't just my experience in ESP or or NXIVM as it's more known in the public. It was really when I got into like the cult within the cult, which I was recruited by Alison Mack into what is called DOS. When my life like got just way worse. But I feel like at this stage, kind of talking about the observations and like the learnings are really more important for people. Like I don't

• 17:46Speaker 04

  like talking about NXIVM per se, but I will and I want to if it actually helps people. I get calls and DMs from people leaving cults all the time and they're constantly saying to me, I wish that I would have been able to see the red flags. And I'm like you and me both. Like that's the hardest part is like you can't see these things until you see them. But the more that we talk about them and kind of normalize the things that are the smaller, more subtle things that kind of take away your autonomy. That to me is more important because then maybe in your real life, you'll catch it before it gets too late.

• 18:27Speaker 04

  Or before it becomes something that's way out of your control, which is definitely what my experience was. So I'm hopeful that telling my story and just sharing these things will get people just being able to see them a little faster.

• 18:43Speaker 01

  When was the first time where you really felt like you wanted to continue this and your mom was your mom was maybe seeing the red flags?

• 18:54Speaker 04

  My mom.

• 18:58Speaker 04

  It was so funny, because like when we, I mean, it's not that funny, it's actually awful. But when we first took the, this course, which was presented to us as ESP, Executive Success Programs. It literally makes me just like wanna barf when I say it. I'm just like, bleh, bleh, bleh. Uh, sorry. Um, I've got an attitude.

• 19:19Speaker 01

  It's okay. You have the right to have an attitude. Let it out.

• 19:22Speaker 04

  I was like, I have a resting pissed face. Um, but it was funny to me looking back, because we kinda switched roles in the first five days. I, all of a sudden, was like this very obedient, um, rule follower. And my mom was acting like a disobedient, kind of like, back-of-the-class troublemaker with someone that she had made friends with. And they were making fun of the course.

• 19:51Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 19:52Speaker 04

  And I was watching her be reprimanded, being like, fuck this. It was really embarrassing.

• 19:59Speaker 01

  Right.

• 19:59Speaker 04

  But now I'm looking back, thinking like, holy shit. I wish I would've been more like my mother. Like, I wish I would've been, literally like, oh, fucking Nancy with the sash. Like, I wish that would've been me, but really, like, for some reason, the way that it was presented to me, and the fact that I wanted to be accepted and liked so badly, like, talk about my kryptonite. Uh, I just wanted to be in the group. And then, that, I had no idea what that was going to inevitably entail. But at the time, they looked cool. They were like professionals. They were people from Vancouver that were like professional actors and, and you know.

• 20:44Speaker 01

  Shout out Vancouver.

• 20:44Speaker 04

  Yeah. Yay, I love Vancouver.

• 20:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, just like, just cool people.

• 20:51Speaker 04

  Cool, normal people that, for a nineteen-year-old who is trying to, you know, find their way out of Los Angeles, a Los Angeles bubble, which can feel kind of like, maybe restrictive if you're from there. Maybe expansive if you're going there and you've never experienced. It's just like, wherever you're from, sometimes you have like a little.

• 21:11Speaker 01

  The grass is always greener.

• 21:12Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 21:12Speaker 01

  It literally always is.

• 21:14Speaker 04

  For me, it was like, everything was new, it was exciting. I was looking at it as an opportunity. I didn't, I wasn't thinking, oh, these people are gonna groom me and then isolate me from my loved ones and then inevitably brand me, like, no fucking way was I seeing that on day one, or day five, or day sixteen, for that matter. It took years of indoctrination and grooming for me to begin to normalize things that were absolutely toxic. Like, I love Gen Z because they like call out all the things that are fucked up about like millennial work culture. And this was that on steroids, because they're like, you know, encouraging us to be sleep deprived,

• 21:59Speaker 04

  be food deprived, be, you know, constantly working, never actually having any idle time to think or process on your own. It was just sort of like, regurgitate these things that we tell you and then go out there and sell.

• 22:12Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 22:13Speaker 04

  And we were just like, oh, alright. Yeah, exactly. And I was just like, I'm really bad at this, because I felt like such a faker at times. I'm trying to sell executive success programs. I'm not fucking successful. I'm not successful at this, but we were supposed to pretend like we were, and that was like, con artistry.

• 22:36Speaker 01

  Fake it till you make it. It was fake. In the worst way possible.

• 22:39Speaker 04

  Exactly. And then, and then they're on top of it, in these sort of groups, which, you know, are focused on sales and recruitment. They're telling you that anyone who isn't interested in it is like stupid, the devil, you know, should be rejected from your life, doesn't understand you. And then all of that starts to make you believe that everyone in the group actually is replacing that. And so those, those things start to shift, and my priorities just like completely changed. I was not the same person when I was under the influence of that group, as I am now.

• 23:20Speaker 04

  And that is a little bit scary, like, that's the sci-fi, brainwashing, like, that stuff's real. And I know that we are talking about cults and conspiracies and murders and all of those things, but, you know, Naxium really checked off a lot of those boxes.

• 23:40Speaker 01

  Sure, absolutely.

• 23:42Speaker 04

  My younger self would've been like, why, India, like, why?

• 23:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, hindsight's always, always twenty-two.

• 23:49Speaker 04

  Like, couldn't you have done something like more conventional?

• 23:52Speaker 01

  Go on.

• 23:53Speaker 04

  You know, like, join the Peace Corps, or like, like, do something else, like, be, what is it called? Like, wolf on a farm, or like, something.

• 24:02Speaker 01

  It's just, it's, it was literally just timing.

• 24:04Speaker 04

  Wrong place, wrong time.

• 24:06Speaker 01

  Wrong place, wrong time, in, in the, in the realist sense. Like, you just got plopped here, and you could've gotten plopped anywhere. And that was probably the route you were gonna go, because I just, I just remember being nineteen so well, and just being like, so confident with every decision, and I'm, I, I don't know how.

• 24:23Speaker 04

  Confident, but also like, not.

• 24:25Speaker 01

  No, no, no, fake it till you make it. Confidence, and then, I don't know if it was similar for you, but I know for me and my mom or my parents, I was like, I know, I got it. And there was just so much of that, and you're, you, you want to be, and maybe it's as women, you just, you want to be independent, you wanna be successful in your own way, not having somebody.

• 24:47Speaker 04

  Granted to you.

• 24:48Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 24:48Speaker 04

  Bestow it.

• 24:49Speaker 01

  Silver plen, whatever it is, wherever you come from.

• 24:51Speaker 04

  Nepotism, whatever it is.

• 24:52Speaker 01

  Absolutely, it's just like, no, I'll find myself. And I think, it just, it just makes sense to me. And I think it's come from a lot of looking at these types of people and cases, and, and it's just, I have so much, just empathy and sympathy and just understanding. And yeah, I mean, and, and it, it's the process of it too. It's like, so you went from this one five-day program, and then they're like, let's, let's take you over to this, what, what like?

• 25:28Speaker 04

  To the next.

• 25:29Speaker 01

  To the next step, and then is that, the next step is not with your family, is it? Or was it with your family?

• 25:35Speaker 04

  Some of it was, some of it wasn't.

• 25:37Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 25:38Speaker 04

  And I think, when I, and I, I do talk about this in my book a lot, because that period of time, I wasn't really like in, in, like I was later. And I think that's sometimes a common misconception, is that, like, I was deeply involved from the beginning. It really wasn't, it actually took like a couple of years for me to, for my mindset to really shift, to the point where I was considering, like, making this my entire life. And a lot of that had to do with like guilt and pressure, and kind of, uh, the influences around me.

• 26:23Speaker 04

  Not just, like, I, I don't even think that I cared about Keith or Nancy at that point. Like, they were not really the reason that I was there. The reason I was there was because I thought that this was gonna give me the life skills that I needed to then, you know, be an entrepreneur. Or like, whatever it is that they were selling, they were selling like, that this was the equivalent to a practical MBA, with literally no qual, like, no credentials.

• 26:51Speaker 01

  No.

• 26:51Speaker 04

  So like, hello, red flag. But also, like, like what you said, hindsight is twenty-two.

• 26:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:58Speaker 04

  I just, like, I don't know, I just feel like my younger self, like, I wish that I could've swooped in there and gave her some good advice, but I also know myself enough to know that sometimes, even when something good slaps you in the face, if you don't, if you can't see it, or you don't have a reference point for it, it's like, you know, you could also reject that too.

• 27:24Speaker 01

  Absolutely, absolutely. And I mean, like you said, they weren't giving you a moment. They're just figuring yourself out for you.

• 27:32Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 27:33Speaker 01

  And just another one-on-one.

• 27:36Speaker 04

  Yeah, but, and, and the thing that I think would be a red flag now, that's kind of like a nuanced red flag, is what you just said, is that when you're deferring to someone else as the authority of who you are, it's, it's like, it can go both ways. Sometimes you need to defer a little bit, because people are giving you good information about yourself. Maybe they're actually trying to help you, but if you're deferring to somebody who is actually, has bad intentions, then you're really vulnerable. Like, that's when things get bad.

• 28:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:16Speaker 04

  It's just, because your heart might be pure, and you might be saying like, oh, this person genuinely wants to be my friend. They, they're looking out for me, they care about me. You might be thinking all of that, and they are not. And that's the part that my nineteen-year-old self just like, I don't know, I'm like super trusting, and I also just take what people say at face value a lot. Like, I sometimes have to have my husband, like, answer, like, was that supposed to be a joke? Or is that actually like literally what you mean? Cause I'll just take it as that. And he's like, no, India, like, that was sarcasm, that was a joke. I'm like, okay, god, really great. But sometimes that's just how I like, I'm like delayed in my processing.

• 29:01Speaker 04

  And I'm more like of a feeling person, who I'll just like, well, that makes me feel weird.

• 29:06Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 29:06Speaker 04

  Uh, but those environments really pressure you to move quickly and not to evaluate. And I confused the intensity with like purpose and meaning, not a fucking con sales tactic that literally puts you in a pressure vacuum, that makes you.

• 29:30Speaker 04

  Really like alters your decision making because you're not able to really just like sit back and think like, is this really what I want? You're just sort of like, oh, shoot, gotta choose.

• 29:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:41Speaker 04

  So I'd say like, if you're finding yourself in relationships where you feel like you constantly need to respond or react or make a choice that's quick, that's, that's something to look at.

• 29:54Speaker 01

  Absolutely, yeah, because it can, I mean, you know, cults aside or groups aside, it can just happen in a relationship with somebody. Absolutely toxic relationship where you feel like you have to be subservient to this person, otherwise something's gonna happen. Maybe you don't know what, maybe you do know what. And there's just that constant nagging feeling like, oh, I'm letting somebody down. Or it's just they're, they keep you here and they need to be here. And yeah, it just, and yeah, that isolation, I feel like is, it seems like that's one of the first red flags is like, you're getting pulled into something where they're like, well, that doesn't matter. Don't listen to them, they want to bring you down. I'm the person that you should be focusing on and I know better.

• 30:38Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 30:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:40Speaker 04

  100%.

• 30:41Speaker 01

  No, it is, it is really important and it's, I know for me, when I was younger, that watching something like what you went through, it is eye opening. And I mean, I did watch, watch your series when it first came out and at a time where I was in something that wasn't great and I was like, oh my gosh, like you really do make a difference and I want you to know that.

• 31:05Speaker 04

  Oh, thank you.

• 31:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, you really do.

• 31:07Speaker 04

  Thank you, I, I just like honestly felt so, so scared to, to put my story out there and to just like, pretty much like reclaim a public narrative that felt really dismal. Like I just didn't, at a certain point in my recovery, especially like when I was first out and for the first couple of years, I just didn't know how I was gonna recover from this. Like I had so much struggle with my mental health and like with suicidal ideation and things that I just did not understand were the aftershocks of coercive control.

• 31:47Speaker 04

  Like I hate using these words sometimes because they're so clinical and like definition heavy and I'm like, sorry, but that doesn't help me. Like I'd rather have somebody who tells me what something felt like or what they started to give up, like the, like I keep coming back to the little things because I've been thinking about this constantly of like the identity erosion and then also choosing to be liked in the moment, but then abandoning yourself, whether it's the music you like to listen to, the way that you like to dress, how you like to do your makeup, how you speak

• 32:29Speaker 04

  in a, at the table, what you share, what you don't share. Like all of those things to me are pointing out like who's in charge. Because if you're in a dynamic where the power is inverted, but you, you can't see it, it's usually like you sense it. But then if you're told that the things that you're feeling are not real, then the very thing that you could use to actually help yourself snap out of, you know, a toxic haze or what feels like a drug induced, you know, relationship because you're partly like

• 33:17Speaker 04

  addicted to the poison, but you're also being heavily influenced by it. So it's like, you can't blame yourself entirely and that's really hard not to because you're just like, why am I a stupid fool? Like I should have been able to see this. No.

• 33:33Speaker 01

  No.

• 33:33Speaker 04

  You cannot sometimes, like the things that are, like the things that I wish that I could have seen.

• 33:44Speaker 04

  It's like I've spent so much time crying about it that I'm like tired of crying about it. You just kind of have to realize like, wow, I just like really was wrong.

• 33:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:56Speaker 04

  I was just so wrong.

• 33:57Speaker 01

  That's okay.

• 33:58Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 33:58Speaker 01

  I don't think you want to.

• 33:59Speaker 04

  That was not love.

• 34:00Speaker 01

  No, absolutely.

• 34:02Speaker 04

  That was not a friend.

• 34:03Speaker 01

  No.

• 34:03Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 34:04Speaker 01

  No, and I think it's so human to just not want to think that of yourself, not want to think that you, you could be pulled into that or you could let someone.

• 34:13Speaker 04

  It's embarrassing.

• 34:14Speaker 01

  Manipulate you like that. It, it shouldn't be.

• 34:17Speaker 04

  But it is.

• 34:18Speaker 01

  It sure, it is, but it.

• 34:20Speaker 04

  It shouldn't be, but it's hard to not feel like damaged goods.

• 34:27Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 34:28Speaker 04

  And I think that's like where the healing actually starts. And like sometimes people will ask me like, well, what did you do? And I'm like, it's not just one thing. Like, like let me tell you that if it was one thing, I'd be addicted to it. But like, it's literally, it's literally not that. I'm just gonna say from experience, it's like, it's a slew of things that start to help you kind of like get your head on straight and also see things for what they are, not what you want them to be. Because sometimes the things that you want so badly to be something else, just you get blinded by that.

• 35:10Speaker 04

  It's like being love drunk and like not being able to decipher, is this actually filling me or is this just like the thing that I'm obsessed with?

• 35:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:23Speaker 04

  You know what I mean? And it's, it's becoming unhealthy. So it's like, I'm talking in circles, I feel like, but it's just kind of like, it's been harder to process than I thought. Writing really helps me because sometimes like feeling things in the moment or like talk therapy is still kind of triggering. So I take that more like sporadically.

• 35:48Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 35:50Speaker 04

  I use a lot of other things that kind of like give me the healing that I need to feel good inside and like, it's just not always one thing. And I think that's what Nexium was trying to promise was that they were the savior to all of our problems.

• 36:08Speaker 05

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• 36:38Speaker 06

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• 37:08Speaker 04

  And that if we just kept taking the medicine, that we would then be better.

• 37:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 37:15Speaker 04

  But that's a little eerie.

• 37:18Speaker 01

  Uh huh, it is.

• 37:19Speaker 04

  It's a little eerie.

• 37:20Speaker 01

  Do you think with, with talk therapy specifically, because I know that was a big component of what, similar to what they did on top of experiments that they would do.

• 37:36Speaker 04

  I mean, let's be straight, they are not therapists.

• 37:38Speaker 01

  No, they're not. Like not even licensed.

• 37:41Speaker 04

  No, no, the opposite.

• 37:42Speaker 01

  Like a hypnotist is one of them.

• 37:44Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 37:46Speaker 04

  Yeah. So like talking to a good therapist can be wonderful.

• 37:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:52Speaker 04

  But the same way that talking to a shitty coach, it's like, it's really, it's the person who's kind of like the one in charge. If they're ethical, if they're, you know, doing things the right way, if they're, if they're there to create like a stronger version of you, not a dependent version of you, that to me is like a huge factor. So the times that I've sought out therapy, I've, I've actually sometimes said to the therapist, like my goal here is for us not to be together forever. Like I want you to help me provide tools that I can also apply in times of crisis,

• 38:33Speaker 04

  but then also tools that I can work offline so that when I actually do get into a state of overwhelm, I have something to pull from. Because sometimes your brain's not working all that great when you're having PTSD. Like you literally, you're, you're, I'm like, wow, my cylinders are functioning at like a lower level right now. So I gotta get, you know, myself back in order to then be able to evaluate things properly and not just what happens to me sometimes. And I think a lot of other people. But they used talk therapy, they used coaching, they used all these different modalities that kind of have overlap with spirituality and self-help in a poisonous way.

• 39:17Speaker 04

  Because they were really, their intention was to indoctrinate you into a belief system that sponsored their goals, not your goals.

• 39:28Speaker 04

  While they were also saying that this was for our betterment. So it's like.

• 39:38Speaker 04

  It wasn't right.

• 39:40Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 39:40Speaker 04

  Like, that's plain and simple. It wasn't right. Like, they were taking advantage of people's vulnerabilities. And also looking for them. So that's not really what a good therapist would do. So I do like, if you're out there looking for a good therapist, like make sure that you're filtering for those things. You you want someone who doesn't just want to take your money and make you, you know,

• 40:05Speaker 04

  feel like the label that you have is permanent. Even if you struggle with things that are mental health related that feel permanent. My personal belief is that we have a lot more flexibility in our minds and in our emotional capacity that can actually like, you know, work with ourselves a little bit more than being so black and white and rigid. But that's not what they like. They want you to think that the only thing that's gonna cure you is them.

• 40:37Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. And then they use whatever vulnerability you have against yourself.

• 40:42Speaker 04

  Yeah, like forever I thought I was stupid. So like, I would tell them that constantly, like, oh, I'm, you know, I don't think, I'm not educated enough. I don't have enough,

• 40:53Speaker 04

  you know, intelligence or capacity or, you know, critical thinking skills. And so, like, they would tell me like, oh, you're ornamental, you're, you know, not, you don't have a lot of substance, you don't really have anything to offer. Like, all these things that then you start to believe like, am I actually a piece of shit?

• 41:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:12Speaker 04

  And then you forget completely that maybe you aren't a piece of shit.

• 41:16Speaker 01

  It's just being told to you constantly.

• 41:18Speaker 04

  Like, I didn't realize how far from myself I could actually get, to the point where even just looking at myself in the mirror, I just didn't recognize my own face. Like, I didn't have a spark in my eyes. I just, I wasn't taking care of myself.

• 41:34Speaker 04

  All these things, looking back, are red flags. But like I said, in the moment, they're very hard to see.

• 41:42Speaker 01

  Absolutely. No, absolutely. And those were kind of the first steps then with, with first the isolation, then, then you're, you're letting your whole self out on a plate and they're picking you apart.

• 41:56Speaker 04

  And building you up.

• 41:56Speaker 01

  And building you up, where you need to be built up and where they're like, oh, yeah, we can manipulate that. And then, and then what, what do you think is, was the next step for you in that whole process of growing?

• 42:08Speaker 04

  Probably just

• 42:11Speaker 04

  total erosion of loyalty. Like, I just had no loyalty to my family, my friends, my, the relationships that I had had before.

• 42:25Speaker 04

  I had lost it and had replaced it with them, thinking that that was gonna be the thing that was gonna fill me up.

• 42:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:34Speaker 04

  But they were also selling me that. And

• 42:39Speaker 04

  it's like I was in a total bubble and thinking that what we were doing was amazing. And like what I told you at the beginning of the interview of how much real estate it occupied in my mind.

• 42:54Speaker 04

  I couldn't even realize that until like I left. And it took a long time because even after I left, I was still in, you know, active law issues. I was working with the FBI for nine months. Then Keith was sentenced. Then I put the documentary out. In 2020, I put my book out. My entire life was revolving around NXIVM adjacent things that I just sort of had to pump the brakes and say like, wait, like, what is my life not just in reaction to the NXIVM saga and chaos? And that's when it kind of felt like a weird letdown of like normal

• 43:36Speaker 04

  ordinary life didn't have the same kind of like intensity and charge. So I had to kind of find like what brought me well-being and peace and didn't just make me super sad.

• 43:51Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you're just living it.

• 43:53Speaker 04

  You're living it over and over again.

• 43:56Speaker 01

  You don't even have time to, to open a window and just scream.

• 44:00Speaker 04

  Yeah, or just.

• 44:01Speaker 01

  Into the abyss.

• 44:02Speaker 04

  Or just like go for a walk that is like a meaningless walk that doesn't have to do with like past drama or trauma. So that's kind of like where I've been trying to get to. And I feel like I really, like,

• 44:17Speaker 04

  like becoming a mom has really

• 44:21Speaker 04

  helped me see my mom in a totally different way. Like, I just didn't have the empathy for her and what

• 44:32Speaker 04

  like, what it would take her and the amount of guilt that she must have felt even for being a part of introducing me. Like, my god.

• 44:46Speaker 01

  Because she was, she was checked out after, pretty quickly.

• 44:49Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 44:50Speaker 01

  Pretty quickly.

• 44:51Speaker 04

  Whole life.

• 44:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, she, she knew herself.

• 44:53Speaker 04

  She knew herself. She knew she didn't need this.

• 44:55Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 44:56Speaker 04

  I was in a very different stage of life.

• 44:58Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 44:58Speaker 04

  So it's like, you know, different tie, I think, different groups or different people who are predatory look for people who have vulnerabilities because they know how to exploit them. And that's creepy.

• 45:18Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 45:18Speaker 04

  But unfortunately, there are people out there that think like that. And they're looking for, you know, the lonely person on a chat, on a chat room who doesn't have any friends that, you know, might be retired. Or they're looking for the young girl who just joined, you know, a new job and is feeling like law, like, there's times in your life that do make you more vulnerable, but also on some level, like everyone's kind of like susceptible to manipulation. Just varying degrees, I guess.

• 45:55Speaker 01

  Yeah. So when you were joined it a little bit more and your, your mom just kind of let you go and just said, you know what, try it, do it.

• 46:05Speaker 04

  I mean, I was nineteen, twenty. I was also like, I had been living on my own. I don't think she was like keeping tabs on me. We didn't have air tags.

• 46:13Speaker 01

  Right.

• 46:16Speaker 04

  Back then, my, also like my mom trusts me and I've always been really independent. So I think she was just assuming that I was off doing my own life and trying to find a balance. She didn't see the group as nefarious in the beginning. It wasn't until years later that she got information of the group within the group, DOS. And then that's really what ignited her to take it down.

• 46:45Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, of course. Yeah, I mean, that, I mean, that was by design. They don't want anybody on the outside to know what's going on.

• 46:52Speaker 04

  No, you're trained to lie too. So like, even if somebody asks you how you're doing, you're supposed to be like, I'm fine. Everything's great. I love it here. And then, but there's a part of you that's like, and that's the weird part is even though I was so far from myself and I lost myself, there were moments where I, you would even say to other coaches, never to like higher ups, because you weren't supposed to show any doubt. I'd be like, I'm like half, I got one foot in and one foot out. Like, there was even, there was many moments where I felt like, why am I saying that I want to be a proctor? I don't want to be a fucking proctor. Like, I don't want to do this for my life. I'm just trying to like, get the tools so that I can apply them to my own life. And that was just like such a lie to think that

• 47:35Speaker 04

  the thing that I was missing was more of them.

• 47:38Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 47:38Speaker 04

  You know, not actual like, living my own life and like learning like you normally do.

• 47:45Speaker 01

  It, you're in a relationship at this point?

• 47:48Speaker 04

  Yeah, I was. I was in a relationship.

• 47:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:52Speaker 04

  Like, does everybody have to talk about all their bad exes because I've got a slew? And so, one of them would be in there. We don't have to name him.

• 48:02Speaker 01

  No, yeah.

• 48:03Speaker 04

  But, uh, yeah, that sucked. He was older than me. He was like my superior.

• 48:10Speaker 04

  There was no love in that relationship. It was sort of like, I think, a flirtation that then turned into a relationship of convenience that then turned into disgruntled roommates. So I was really confused about like how to get out of that. I was struggling. And then that was the moment when I was recruited. Uh, when that relationship was falling apart, which it was also pressured to fall apart because the higher ranking members were really involved in our relationship. So red flag.

• 48:42Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 48:43Speaker 04

  Love you Gen Z. If someone in your workplace is meddling with your relationship,

• 48:51Speaker 04

  it's a red flag. Unfortunately, I was in a bubble that they were meddling with this relationship so that I would be vulnerable to the relationship with Keith and Alison. And

• 49:05Speaker 04

  That I didn't realize, I didn't realize that that was what was happening.

• 49:08Speaker 01

  Yes, yes, and Allison, were you, were you told to end the relationship?

• 49:14Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 49:15Speaker 01

  That person by Allison?

• 49:16Speaker 04

  Um, yeah, which I think was also directed

• 49:19Speaker 01

  By?

• 49:19Speaker 04

  By Keith. I mean, everything

• 49:21Speaker 01

  Fluts his face.

• 49:21Speaker 04

  Everything comes from him.

• 49:23Speaker 01

  Right.

• 49:23Speaker 04

  So it's like to me, I mean, I found a lot of forgiveness for myself and other people in the group, but not, not for Keith. Like he, the things that he did are in my, in my experience, unforgivable. So I don't give him that. But other people in there, I see them sort of more like puppets.

• 49:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. And with Allison, how did that dynamic work going into DOS? Was she, was she like a friend to you?

• 49:51Speaker 04

  Yeah, I thought she was.

• 49:52Speaker 01

  It was like that getting into it? It was just like, ah, this girl's so cool.

• 49:57Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 49:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:57Speaker 04

  Like that easy.

• 49:58Speaker 01

  She's an actress and?

• 50:00Speaker 04

  I thought she was cool and charismatic and very outgoing and friendly and talented. I didn't really know much of her work outside of the group, but like within the group, there were a lot of performances and like a lot of people with many skills, like whether it was like singing or dancing or acting. And so when I saw her performing, I was like, damn, like, I want that kind of confidence.

• 50:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:26Speaker 04

  And then when she approached me, it kind of felt like I was getting an opportunity to learn from somebody who I admired in the group. I didn't see it as creepy or, um, like that maybe she was attracted to me. I didn't, I didn't see any of those things. That didn't get revealed to me until later. And then I also thought she was kind of like joking.

• 50:53Speaker 04

  And then I realized, oh, she's not joking. But then it was too late. Like I couldn't say no. At that point, I was already collateralized.

• 51:00Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 51:01Speaker 04

  So it was kind of like a weird realization that this person that I had been devoting all my energy and time to, um,

• 51:15Speaker 04

  was not my friend. That really hurt because I think I had just assumed that we were.

• 51:25Speaker 04

  But no, friends don't treat you like that. Friends don't, you know, build you up then break you down. Obviously you have disagreements, like with friends, the same way that you do with a husband or a partner, whomever, like it's just normal.

• 51:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:41Speaker 04

  But it doesn't mean catastrophe or total rejection or any of those things. Like that's kind of how our relationship was. Like I was always scared of disappointing her or making her angry and

• 51:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:55Speaker 04

  It's not a way to live.

• 51:56Speaker 01

  Yeah. And friends don't have, I mean, she was, there was a, there was

• 52:01Speaker 04

  There was.

• 52:01Speaker 01

  Petals.

• 52:02Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 52:02Speaker 01

  She was up here and you were down here.

• 52:03Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 52:04Speaker 01

  And she's made to feel you, make you feel like you're always below her.

• 52:07Speaker 04

  Yes, with the belief that the reason that you have that hierarchy is so that you can grow and evolve.

• 52:14Speaker 01

  Right.

• 52:14Speaker 04

  And so it's like, you already have to have the belief system that you need to be subservient or, uh, you know,

• 52:25Speaker 04

  in a position of, like,

• 52:30Speaker 04

  I don't know, it's so weird. It's like, the way that it was spun was sort of like, like a weird spiritual lesson that if we,

• 52:40Speaker 04

  I was gonna use the word, like if, I could not say this word before, so now I can actually say it. But like if we mastered this dynamic of being subservient, that that was gonna result in some kind of like major growth for us.

• 52:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:53Speaker 04

  So that belief got twisted into the fact that if we could experience pain, that meant we were gonna grow and like all of that just became a slippery slope to really like

• 53:09Speaker 04

  destructive

• 53:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:10Speaker 04

  behavior that hurt me and hurt other people. And it's just like, yeah, hard to see that.

• 53:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. And, and not to mention the, like you mentioned, the collateral that they had over you. They would take advantage of you and make you, give them information or imagery that you would otherwise not do unless you hadn't already gone through at this point, we're years in. And it's just what you feel like you do. And then that's just blackmail. They just have blackmail on you.

• 53:44Speaker 04

  I had no idea that that's what was going on.

• 53:46Speaker 01

  Of course. But I'm sure, I mean, and you could tell me if I'm wrong. I'm sure that's something that's in the back of your head when you do have those thoughts of like, maybe I should, like maybe this isn't right, but oh, wait, no, they have that. Like did that, was that ever a thing that happened?

• 54:00Speaker 04

  I think that I was so compartmentalized when it came to the collateral because I was actually really afraid, but I wasn't allowed to feel the fear or express that I was feeling afraid.

• 54:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:14Speaker 04

  So I turned it into kind of like,

• 54:19Speaker 04

  I don't want to think about this. So when they would demand collateral, I just started to like, make things that were more oriented towards me because I was so afraid that like if I made any mistakes, that it could be detrimental to the people that I loved. And that's really what kept me there.

• 54:39Speaker 04

  I kind of didn't care about humiliating myself anymore because I was sort of like used to constantly humiliating myself that I thought, well, better be me than somebody else.

• 54:51Speaker 04

  But

• 54:54Speaker 04

  like leaving and knowing that, that all that information is out there definitely bothers me and it still bothers me. But I feel like I'm finding my way out of that kind of trap that they tried to place on us forever, which is just like an enormous amount of shame and realize that, like whatever.

• 55:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:19Speaker 04

  If there's a photo out there, if there's a video, or if there's a this, sure, I can explain myself or I can just be like, yeah.

• 55:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:27Speaker 04

  That's me. That's what I said when I was under the influence and I feel like foolish or, you know, ashamed or sad that that, that I was in that situation. Not like I'm permanently damaged.

• 55:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:41Speaker 04

  And I'm gonna be rejected forever, which is kind of like what they wanted us to believe.

• 55:46Speaker 01

  But you're, I mean, you're in a place now, you're married and you have a beautiful, beautiful little girl.

• 55:52Speaker 04

  I do.

• 55:52Speaker 01

  And yeah, I mean, but looking back again, it's just.

• 55:57Speaker 04

  Yeah, and I have like, I have like real love in my life.

• 56:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:01Speaker 04

  And I, and I actually like really value it. And it's taken me a long time to recognize like how valuable and precious

• 56:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:09Speaker 04

  real love and real like relationships are. And I just, I won't make that same mistake again. I mean, I make plenty of other mistakes pretty regularly.

• 56:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, we're human.

• 56:23Speaker 04

  But I, I, I'm pretty damn sure that I will not be putting myself in a situation like that.

• 56:31Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. You've taken that control back.

• 56:33Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 56:33Speaker 01

  And that's gotta feel so good.

• 56:35Speaker 04

  Yeah, it does. It makes me feel like I've got a sixth sense, you know? I've got something that I, that I now can see that I was pretty blind to before.

• 56:45Speaker 01

  Yeah. At the point that you joined DOS, what, what were the years that you just joined and then DOS happened?

• 56:53Speaker 04

  2015 to 2017.

• 56:55Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 56:56Speaker 04

  Don't quote me, but I, if you could read the book, it's accurate.

• 57:01Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. So years.

• 57:03Speaker 04

  Years.

• 57:03Speaker 01

  Years have gone by.

• 57:04Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 57:04Speaker 01

  DOS is happening and you are basically just under, under Allison at this point and whatever she says goes.

• 57:14Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 57:14Speaker 01

  In terms of, so are you working at this point? Are you?

• 57:18Speaker 04

  I'm like a house pet.

• 57:19Speaker 01

  Okay. So you're just living with her?

• 57:21Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 57:22Speaker 01

  At this point with other women as well?

• 57:24Speaker 04

  Yes, but I was kind of like the primary one in her home.

• 57:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:28Speaker 04

  And other women were involved in the group that we were in.

• 57:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:35Speaker 04

  Some of them have been able to maintain their anonymity. God bless them.

• 57:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:42Speaker 04

  Some have not. But I was kind of like a favorite.

• 57:49Speaker 04

  Which was really kind of like my way of making sure that I was less of a target.

• 57:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:55Speaker 04

  And so I think that's kind of like the role that I chose because it made me feel safer if she liked me a little bit. And, you know, I'd clean her house, I'd do her laundry, I'd cook for her. But I was in a constant state of just like panic because, you know, any moment she could get like upset or like demand something or, you know, I didn't do something right. And, and that kind of like just jacked up my nervous system so much that I really forgot my own needs completely. Like I was just, I had replaced her voice for mine. And really ultimately,

• 58:37Speaker 04

  all of that was coming from Keith, but the influence of her was heavy on me.

• 58:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, just walking on eggshells.

• 58:44Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 58:44Speaker 01

  Constantly.

• 58:45Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 58:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:48Speaker 04

  You know, I like to think that I wouldn't be in a situation like that.

• 58:57Speaker 04

  But yeah, it really like did a number on me.

• 59:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:02Speaker 04

  And

• 59:06Speaker 04

  Yeah, I just like don't know what to say about her.

• 59:08Speaker 01

  No, and you don't have to say anything if you.

• 59:11Speaker 04

  She just is like a person that I have

• 59:16Speaker 04

  such mixed feelings about.

• 59:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:18Speaker 04

  And I know people usually want like a definitive answer about things, or they want to know that you've like come to terms and you're like fully resolved, then I think I'd rather just say like I forgive her because I do, because what am I gonna do, walk around feeling like that fucking bitch, like for the rest of my life, no. I'm not gonna do that, I'm not that kind of person, like I don't want that kind of energy in my body or in my mind. So I think I just kind of like, you know what? You do you, you go live your life, you did your time, like you have

• 59:56Speaker 04

  a harder life to rebuild. I feel very lucky because I have been able to rebuild my life and have love and have support and have like been rebuilding my career and my networking and like all these things that I love and cherish. I just see like my life going in the direction that I could never have imagined, so it's like I'm not gonna just let myself get dragged back by that painful time of my life.

• 1:00:29Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:00:30Speaker 04

  But yeah, I just like lived in her house and I was doing um like tasks for people in the community, kind of like a uber task rabbit kind of person.

• 1:00:39Speaker 01

  Because everybody was consolidated into one place, right?

• 1:00:42Speaker 04

  Yeah, and they all needed like gophers and things like that. So I was, yeah, like run, people that run errands, yeah. Like PAs.

• 1:00:51Speaker 01

  I miss that.

• 1:00:52Speaker 04

  No, no, no, no, no gophers were harmed in the, in this cult.

• 1:00:55Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:00:56Speaker 04

  But it was more like I acted as a

• 1:01:00Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:01:01Speaker 04

  You know.

• 1:01:02Speaker 01

  You were the errand girl.

• 1:01:03Speaker 04

  Errand girl.

• 1:01:04Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:01:05Speaker 04

  Which in some way gave me like this large sense of purpose, because I was now in service to the leadership and doing things that they needed. But I also had no, I was on the hamster wheel, like I wasn't going anywhere in my life.

• 1:01:24Speaker 04

  But I was made to believe that this was a great honor.

• 1:01:28Speaker 01

  Right, and then if you were to do anything bad, there was repercussions for that.

• 1:01:32Speaker 04

  Yeah, consequences is how they framed it.

• 1:01:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, all sorts of words that are just.

• 1:01:38Speaker 04

  Lots of word bullshit.

• 1:01:39Speaker 01

  Right, right, and that's what kept you on your toes and on those eggshells. It wasn't just you're doing these things, that at any moment, somebody could be upset with what you're doing. Most likely, what's his face.

• 1:01:53Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:01:53Speaker 01

  But.

• 1:01:54Speaker 04

  Voldemort.

• 1:01:54Speaker 01

  Yeah. Voldemort, and.

• 1:01:58Speaker 04

  But really, he was like supposed to be good cop in like our dynamic, he played like good cop and Alison played bad cop.

• 1:02:04Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:02:05Speaker 04

  So then I would come to him and he would be like the savior.

• 1:02:08Speaker 01

  Yes, at some point, that relationship becomes more than just him being over here and you being over here, and he's just

• 1:02:21Speaker 01

  and you don't have to go into.

• 1:02:23Speaker 04

  Like, I mean, that, the way that that happened

• 1:02:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:28Speaker 04

  was also by design, and so like well orchestrated, that I didn't even notice, like I just remember thinking like, wait.

• 1:02:44Speaker 04

  That's what I have to do?

• 1:02:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:45Speaker 04

  Like kind of just like scared and uncomfortable, like I didn't want to have that kind of relationship with Keith, although I knew other women did, like they

• 1:02:57Speaker 04

  people, and I, when I say this, like don't take what I'm saying as an exact, like when I say people wanted to be in a relationship with him, people wanted to have babies with him. I think all of those wants and desires came from being brainwashed and manipulated into believing that this guy was the second coming.

• 1:03:19Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 1:03:20Speaker 04

  And it's like, when all of that got stripped away, I think the people who saw him for what he was.

• 1:03:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, they came up for error.

• 1:03:30Speaker 04

  They came out from underneath it, but those who couldn't might still be under the influence of him. So it's like

• 1:03:40Speaker 04

  I was under that influence, I was believing that what he was giving to me was some like spiritual exchange, or that I was gonna grow, or that it was supposed to be healing or helpful, and it was like literally the opposite.

• 1:03:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:57Speaker 04

  Like so far from it.

• 1:04:00Speaker 04

  I talk a lot about that experience in my book and in the documentary, and it's yucky.

• 1:04:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:06Speaker 04

  But also that was pretty hard to snap out of. Like, it took a lot of

• 1:04:21Speaker 04

  I'm gonna say it took a lot of courage on my part to admit what had actually happened versus what I was being told was going on.

• 1:04:31Speaker 01

  Right, because it was supposed to be some sort of honor, or the next step in this cog.

• 1:04:39Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's just like

• 1:04:40Speaker 01

  Bullshit.

• 1:04:41Speaker 04

  Basically rape, like, and that's the part that I think was so startling for me coming out is that I believed that what was happening to me was somehow helpful when I was literally just like terrified.

• 1:04:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:00Speaker 04

  And I'm like frozen, I mean

• 1:05:06Speaker 04

  that kind of stuff doesn't change overnight either, I mean unfortunately, it takes a while, like your body just remembers stuff more than your brain sometimes. So even just like being touched or being intimate with someone who loves you, you still kind of have like the aftershocks that feel like you're like one of those operation dolls, and like somebody touches you around the wrong place and you're just like, whoa, like what just happened? Oh my god.

• 1:05:34Speaker 01

  And your brain needs to catch up.

• 1:05:36Speaker 04

  Exactly, and all of a sudden, you're not in your body anymore, and you're just sort of like responding. And that kind of shit can really like throw a relationship into

• 1:05:47Speaker 04

  like a state of fear.

• 1:05:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:50Speaker 04

  Even if the person like loves you, sometimes it's still really hard to connect and like have that kind of intimacy, it takes a lot of like building trust and communication and like thank god for my husband, because and other people who have really helped me like rebuild that kind of sense of peace and friendship and like intimacy. Because I don't want to live a whole life feeling completely like tarnished.

• 1:06:19Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:06:21Speaker 04

  No, I really like, like my goal is to like really, really let myself enjoy my sexuality.

• 1:06:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:27Speaker 04

  And not be, not have it be like permanently

• 1:06:34Speaker 04

  damaged, because it just feels like, then he just wins.

• 1:06:37Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:06:37Speaker 04

  You know, and he wins forever, because if he can take that from me forever, then I never get like the joy or literally the literal pleasure of, you know, having my own autonomy, being able to say, having the ability to say no and yes, like hallelujah.

• 1:06:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, you're at that stage with Keith, and then moving forward, I mean was was there anything else before your mom stepped in, or?

• 1:07:08Speaker 04

  Oh, just a lot of chaos.

• 1:07:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:11Speaker 04

  Just like fear, chaos, kind of like my whole world crumbling around me.

• 1:07:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:17Speaker 04

  Can laugh about it now, but honestly, I was just like what the fuck is happening, like, I wasn't sure what the state of my life was gonna be.

• 1:07:31Speaker 04

  I was so in it, I was not processing things at that point.

• 1:07:39Speaker 04

  Yeah, I was really scared, like I was just trying to at one point have a normal job and like, you know, put distance between myself and NXIVM, but unfortunately, I wasn't quite there yet, like I still had a lot to clean up.

• 1:07:57Speaker 04

  Because just because you're under the influence or you're brainwashed, doesn't mean that unfortunately

• 1:08:04Speaker 04

  like

• 1:08:06Speaker 04

  you're still there, making choices that have repercussions. Obviously, I, as an advocate, really believe in understanding coercive control for this very reason, because especially for those who have been born into groups or who are indoctrinated early or young like myself.

• 1:08:28Speaker 04

  You.

• 1:08:31Speaker 04

  Yeah, your decision making just gets changed. And you're not really acting on your own free will because you're so heavily influenced. You don't have the same choice that somebody who feels the ability to say no has. So I really like fight for that kind of understanding because I have a lot of, like you, I have a lot of sympathy for people who made choices while they were under the influence of trying to just survive.

• 1:08:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:09:00Speaker 04

  Like when you're trying to survive, you do weird shit.

• 1:09:03Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:09:04Speaker 04

  And like, you're not always thinking about the future or the consequences that that might have on you. You're thinking about how do I survive this moment? And so, I hope that, like, if there's someone who's listening to this, who has guilt or shame over the choices that they made while they were under the influence of a toxic group or individual, that they realize like, that's not your permanent character. That's literally an adapted version of yourself, who is really like, just trying to make it.

• 1:09:42Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:09:43Speaker 04

  So that version of me that was just trying to make it, made a lot of mistakes that I also have great like regret and guilt for. How I treated people, how I treated myself, how I dealt with my finances, things that I would just like avoid altogether that were like dangerous.

• 1:10:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:01Speaker 04

  Like, all of that adaptive. The, how I function with things now, a lot more honesty and a lot more communication.

• 1:10:09Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:10:09Speaker 04

  But not perfect.

• 1:10:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:11Speaker 04

  Like.

• 1:10:12Speaker 01

  No, no. I mean.

• 1:10:13Speaker 04

  So, it's like, it's a process of kind of getting the sledge off.

• 1:10:20Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:10:21Speaker 04

  And then sort of like feeling that like, you know, flexibility in yourself again, that isn't just like, trauma response, respond!

• 1:10:29Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:10:29Speaker 04

  Spiral, self-destruct, like, literally.

• 1:10:32Speaker 01

  All the worst corners.

• 1:10:33Speaker 04

  It was just like, one, two, three, four, and I was like, oh, fuck, like, I'm here again, why, why? And then I was just like, oh my god, how long is this gonna take?

• 1:10:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:42Speaker 04

  And it really does take time.

• 1:10:43Speaker 01

  Yeah. Naturally so, as it should. It'd be, it'd honestly be more concerning if you were just like, eh, I'm alright.

• 1:10:50Speaker 04

  Honestly, the reason why I wrote the poetry was just to understand the messiness of what leaving feels like.

• 1:10:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:58Speaker 04

  Because, sure, I can give you this very analytical answer of what I believe happened and how NXIVM affected me, but that's so removed from what it actually felt like. Like, for me, writing the poetry was just trying to make sense of like, my own internal chaos that I thought that leaving would just kind of like relieve me of.

• 1:11:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:22Speaker 04

  But it doesn't. Or it didn't for me, at least.

• 1:11:24Speaker 01

  Yeah. Oh, and that makes, I mean, you're a human being with feelings. It's not as easy as like, oh, she was here and that's probably because of this and she's probably gonna, it's, it's so, yeah, it's not, it's, it's not clinical.

• 1:11:36Speaker 04

  And also with the grooming, it's, you, like, I carry a lot of guilt because I recruited other people into this.

• 1:11:43Speaker 01

  That was after you joined us and you're recruiting.

• 1:11:47Speaker 04

  Yeah, we were instructed to recruit other people and I also talk about this in the documentary because it was not like, I didn't want to do that. I was already compromised and collateralized and then required to recruit other people. And like, that, talk about another layer of identity crisis because I really considered myself someone who was trusting and caring and I would like other people to think of me as a trusting, caring person. But that person was, you know,

• 1:12:25Speaker 04

  just trying to survive the chaos. And I like don't wanna make excuses for myself in that sense because I also have gone to some of those people that I've recruited and apologized. And it's just like, it still bothers me, even though I know that they're out there living their life and I think overall, everyone wants each other to do well and like, we're not best friends, we're not like calling each other. It wasn't like we had that long of relationships, but it's still like, still bothers me.

• 1:12:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. And I mean.

• 1:12:56Speaker 04

  It still actually motivates me to do the work that I wanna do, which is telling more of these stories and like, giving people a platform to talk about these things that are not just black and white and that have nuance to them and, you know. I really, I don't want people to feel like they're stupid or foolish for making these types of,

• 1:13:23Speaker 04

  you know, choices in their lives that might not have had the greatest outcomes.

• 1:13:27Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm. Yeah, no, absolutely. Yeah. And, and at that point, with the recruit, with the recruiting and you're, that's kind of around the time when your mom was finding out that information that you were speaking about before. Kind of a saving grace almost, especially the timing, it seemed like.

• 1:13:46Speaker 04

  I mean, kind of, like, literally.

• 1:13:50Speaker 01

  Fully.

• 1:13:50Speaker 04

  Fully a saving grace, although, from my perspective, because we were so estranged by the group, we, our communication was non-existent. Like, we couldn't communicate. I was speaking such a different language because I was speaking cult.

• 1:14:08Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:14:08Speaker 04

  And she was speaking reality.

• 1:14:09Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:14:10Speaker 04

  And we could not bridge that gap until after I got out. I was just too influenced by them. I had not had, you know, I just, I was so far from myself, like I said, that I literally felt like we were speaking different languages. Like, she would tell me one thing and I'd be like, beep beep beep, that's not what I was rehearsed to say.

• 1:14:32Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:14:32Speaker 04

  And she would be like, oh my god, like, this is not my child. Now, as a mom, I'm like, man, like, that would be so hard to not just grab your daughter and be like, do you not see what's going on? Because I literally just like, yes! I mean, like, her, the franticness that she must have been feeling, the fear, the guilt, the all of these things, that, at the time, I was just like, oh, she's overreacting because that's what they were also wanting me to believe, that, oh, she doesn't understand what you're actually doing. She doesn't get it.

• 1:15:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:15:09Speaker 04

  Like, actually, she does.

• 1:15:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. She's the only one that I'm sure, it seems like.

• 1:15:13Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:15:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, and she, and, I mean, she found out about all this because of someone that left?

• 1:15:18Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:15:19Speaker 01

  Someone that left and then, did they report what was happening?

• 1:15:22Speaker 04

  Yeah. I mean, that, I think, it was a group of people who had left before I had left. Unfortunately, I didn't see the writing on the wall as quickly as I'd like to admit. Uh, I told you I was a little slow.

• 1:15:33Speaker 01

  You were the deepest in it, it seems.

• 1:15:35Speaker 04

  I mean, I'd like to think that I wasn't the deepest in it. But I would say I was really on the, like, if there was a top circle.

• 1:15:45Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:15:46Speaker 04

  Unfortunately, I was probably one circle below it.

• 1:15:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, no, yeah.

• 1:15:51Speaker 04

  I was close.

• 1:15:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:15:52Speaker 04

  But I wasn't, um, I was not a top dog.

• 1:15:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, no, no.

• 1:15:56Speaker 04

  By any means.

• 1:15:57Speaker 01

  Too close to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

• 1:16:00Speaker 04

  And too obedient.

• 1:16:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:16:02Speaker 04

  In their dynamic to question properly.

• 1:16:07Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:16:08Speaker 04

  So, I think I was still just in the soup.

• 1:16:12Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:16:13Speaker 04

  And it took me a longer time, but required distance because the more distance that I got, the more my brain allowed me to relax enough to start to question. But that didn't come with like relaxation in a peaceful way. That came with like constantly moving, constantly thinking, constantly walking. Like, I just didn't know what to do with my anxiety because I was so scared.

• 1:16:38Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:16:39Speaker 04

  But I also knew that I had to just like, keep going.

• 1:16:42Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:16:43Speaker 04

  And that's kind of how I did it.

• 1:16:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:16:47Speaker 04

  I also used to think about like, what would I say to Allison if I saw her on the street? And honestly, I feel like I'd still be kind of paralyzed.

• 1:16:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:16:53Speaker 04

  Um, because I remember when I first got out and I would be like walking the Brooklyn Bridge and I would see people with like her kind of bun and I would just be like, huh, oh my god, maybe it's her. I'd be terrified. And so I realized like, that's weird. Like, you shouldn't, like, it's sometimes awkward to see like a teacher outside of school or like an ex-boyfriend, but like, you shouldn't be in a state of terror for your friends.

• 1:17:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:19Speaker 04

  Like, that's problematic.

• 1:17:21Speaker 01

  That's not a friend at all. Oh, that happens.

• 1:17:24Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:17:25Speaker 01

  fucks off.

• 1:17:26Speaker 04

  Yeah, to Mexico.

• 1:17:28Speaker 01

  Cause

• 1:17:28Speaker 04

  With his posse.

• 1:17:29Speaker 01

  Things are getting bad, cause people are coming out of Nexian.

• 1:17:33Speaker 04

  Right, he's still in like that crim- you'll like this because of all of your studies, but like he's still in that criminal.

• 1:17:41Speaker 04

  Like delusion where they are both extremely paranoid because they kinda know that what they're doing is wrong, but they're also so delulu that they still don't think that they're gonna be caught and they're like shocked that the authorities are coming.

• 1:17:58Speaker 01

  Narcissism.

• 1:17:59Speaker 04

  Paranoid about it.

• 1:18:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:18:01Speaker 04

  So you're like, what?

• 1:18:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, the level, the, yeah, the level of like

• 1:18:07Speaker 04

  Grandeur.

• 1:18:08Speaker 01

  Bla- yeah, blatant narcissistic grandeur is crazy. It's just like, I'm untouchable. Like, look at all, all these people that love me and kiss me whenever I want and do, let me do whatever I want to them. It's just disgusting.

• 1:18:19Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:18:20Speaker 01

  And it's so sweet that when he was arrested, he was cowering in a closet.

• 1:18:25Speaker 04

  Yeah, I know. I do think that's funny.

• 1:18:28Speaker 01

  Just like.

• 1:18:30Speaker 04

  Honestly, I feel like that part kind of like brings a laughter that I really would like, that is really healing.

• 1:18:36Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm. I'm glad, yeah.

• 1:18:38Speaker 04

  I like a little comedic relief.

• 1:18:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:18:42Speaker 04

  Even if it means making fun of myself, I enjoy it. Making fun of Keith, I also really enjoy. Cause like, what else am I gonna do? He's sitting in prison. I'm here free and like enjoying barbecue, having barbecue and like taking a twenty minute shower at the hotel. Oh, yeah.

• 1:19:00Speaker 01

  Oh, it's great, isn't it?

• 1:19:01Speaker 04

  It's great.

• 1:19:01Speaker 01

  So good.

• 1:19:02Speaker 04

  It's great. My husband's a chef and he also makes barbecue. So like, I told him when I was gonna come here that I'm like eating barbecue and that's the end of the story.

• 1:19:14Speaker 04

  But like, what am I gonna do? Like the same thing with Alison. Am I gonna spend every day of my free life with him occupying real estate? Hell no.

• 1:19:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:19:24Speaker 04

  Like, I already have intrusive thoughts. I don't need to add to it.

• 1:19:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah.

• 1:19:32Speaker 04

  I don't need that.

• 1:19:33Speaker 01

  It's just like self-awareness.

• 1:19:34Speaker 04

  It makes it worse for me.

• 1:19:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:19:36Speaker 04

  Sometimes I can't even like watch cult documentaries. I can't watch True Cut. I can barely listen to it sometimes because it really like activates me. Like last night I was watching PBS Antique Roadshow for like four hours just to decompress after I was looking at my notes.

• 1:19:52Speaker 01

  Good show.

• 1:19:52Speaker 04

  Thinking like, this is the kind of programming that I need right now.

• 1:19:55Speaker 01

  As you should. Yes, absolutely.

• 1:19:58Speaker 04

  Or cooking shows or like Emily in Paris.

• 1:20:01Speaker 01

  Is like surface level, not a big deal.

• 1:20:05Speaker 04

  Baby Einstein. Bluey's really doing it for me recently.

• 1:20:08Speaker 01

  My sister-in-law, or not.

• 1:20:10Speaker 04

  And my daughter doesn't even watch it. I'm like, am I putting this on for myself?

• 1:20:14Speaker 01

  She's cute little Australian dogs.

• 1:20:17Speaker 04

  But like, that's the kind of self-awareness that I've had to build is like, sometimes I can be really serious and heavy. But that's also not really my nature. Like sometimes I'm inappropriate and I have like moments of levity that make people uncomfortable and I can be okay with that too. I'm also like sympathetic and I can be serious to people's traumas, but like the thing that keeps me going is I look at other people's lives who are far more traumatic than me. People that I have mentored or have worked with or have come to me and shared their stories and I'm like, damn. I'm so lucky. Like, they put it in perspective for me because the kinds of trauma that they've had to overcome and they still show up.

• 1:21:01Speaker 04

  It's like, that's the human spirit that like really gets me.

• 1:21:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 1:21:06Speaker 04

  Through some of my own flesh.

• 1:21:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. And yeah, that relatability and you just never know what's going on in somebody else's life. Or what they're going through.

• 1:21:14Speaker 04

  No.

• 1:21:14Speaker 01

  Or what, when they go home, what's going on at home and it's just.

• 1:21:18Speaker 04

  But I do look for it more than I used to. Like sometimes even when I'm going through the airport or something, I'll look at mostly women or children. I'll look at their faces. I'll look at how they like carry, how they're carrying themselves, how they interact with the husband or the parents and like sometimes I feel things that I'm like, hmm. Know what's going on there and it's not like, I, I haven't lost my instinct or my desire to help people. Like I just still have it, even though I've been burned.

• 1:21:51Speaker 04

  I still have it, but I also know that like not everyone's fight is my fight. So I try to use my powers more carefully.

• 1:22:00Speaker 01

  Responsible.

• 1:22:01Speaker 04

  I try to be responsible with my, my ex-mem powers because I just like I, it's like, I can easily just overgive.

• 1:22:10Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:22:11Speaker 04

  And sometimes I need to just like be like, alright, shut up, which is really hard for me cause I love to talk.

• 1:22:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, I'm glad. No, I mean, you had to, your fight withheld for so long and now you're just free to do that. And I think it's better to, to do it than to not.

• 1:22:27Speaker 04

  I do too.

• 1:22:28Speaker 01

  And, you know, even if it's just dropping a little seed, like, I think that's a little weird.

• 1:22:32Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:22:33Speaker 01

  That's, it's just like, oh, okay. Cause sometimes those seeds really bloom in people. And they're like, oh, okay, that's actually what I needed to know that this is bad.

• 1:22:41Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:22:42Speaker 01

  It, it sometimes

• 1:22:43Speaker 04

  You need someone to tell you, yeah.

• 1:22:45Speaker 01

  You do. You do. And, and maybe nothing comes of it and they'll have to figure it out themselves, which happens a lot as well.

• 1:22:50Speaker 04

  But sometimes you do have to say something and that, that's a hard line, but it's true.

• 1:22:55Speaker 01

  It is. It is. It's better, I think it really is better than to not. I don't, as I'm getting older, I'm turning thirty this year. I'm just like, ah.

• 1:23:02Speaker 04

  When's your birthday?

• 1:23:03Speaker 01

  July first.

• 1:23:04Speaker 04

  Oh, soon.

• 1:23:05Speaker 01

  Coming up real quick. Yep. Time's ticking.

• 1:23:07Speaker 04

  Yeah. Thirty's cool.

• 1:23:09Speaker 01

  Sorry?

• 1:23:10Speaker 04

  Thirty's cool.

• 1:23:10Speaker 01

  Thirty's cool.

• 1:23:11Speaker 04

  I just got like five years into it and I feel like I'm still a glorified teenager.

• 1:23:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:23:15Speaker 04

  But

• 1:23:16Speaker 01

  You are.

• 1:23:17Speaker 04

  Now I, I have to be in a position where like someone's calling me mom and I'm like, wait.

• 1:23:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, who?

• 1:23:23Speaker 04

  Me. And then I'm like, oh yes, I'm the grown up. I am the grown up.

• 1:23:28Speaker 01

  I know, yeah. If I ever get pregnant, I'm like, I will be a teenage pregnancy if I'm forty. It's not me. Yeah, I'm a millennial too, so I'm running on that cusp.

• 1:23:38Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:23:38Speaker 01

  But yeah, I think as I've gotten older and I feel like as you just get older, you just start to care more, but also care less. It's just like, you know what? No, I'm gonna say something because who's it gonna hurt or I'm gonna

• 1:23:52Speaker 04

  Like, why wait till we're eighty? Or why wait till I'm, you know, my grandma's ninety? I don't wanna wait that long to be direct. Like I would rather, you're right, like rather take the risk of maybe being misunderstood or not liked. But at least I know that I said my piece. And you can always be wrong.

• 1:24:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, of course. Yeah, and it's the big people-pleasing thing. And I think it really is something that women specifically, it's just like indoctrinated in us.

• 1:24:20Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:24:20Speaker 01

  For, I know, there's some women that are like badass bitches and they don't care what anybody thinks, but I know, I know for me, I'm just like I've been such a pushover.

• 1:24:28Speaker 04

  Yeah, I'm more like, I'm, I lean more towards wanting to be liked and pleased.

• 1:24:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:24:32Speaker 04

  Uh, and pleasing other people, but I also am kind of like getting into that era where I want to channel like my inner Anthony Bourdain and like give less fucks.

• 1:24:44Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:24:44Speaker 04

  Care more, but give less fucks.

• 1:24:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. There can be a balance, absolutely.

• 1:24:49Speaker 04

  Yeah, but I, I'm, I often like, while I'm trying to figure something out, go into the extremes.

• 1:24:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. There's like a black and white in the gray areas.

• 1:24:57Speaker 04

  Yeah, and I'm like, oh, that's where I could live.

• 1:25:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:25:02Speaker 04

  Yeah, I guess where you're caught with your pants down.

• 1:25:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, and people were with him too, right? People from within that inner circle.

• 1:25:11Speaker 04

  They were all there, kinda like protecting him, probably still, you know, obviously believing the bullshit.

• 1:25:15Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. And then at, when he got arrested, where were you at that point?

• 1:25:22Speaker 04

  I was in New York City.

• 1:25:25Speaker 01

  And with Alison?

• 1:25:26Speaker 04

  No, she was gone.

• 1:25:28Speaker 01

  That was gone now?

• 1:25:28Speaker 04

  Yeah, she, I was there alone.

• 1:25:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:31Speaker 04

  Uh, that's when I was trying to just like maintain a regular job in the same restaurant group where I met my then-boyfriend, now-husband.

• 1:25:40Speaker 01

  Oh, really?

• 1:25:41Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:25:41Speaker 01

  Oh, that's awesome.

• 1:25:42Speaker 04

  He was literally making pizzas.

• 1:25:44Speaker 01

  Really?

• 1:25:45Speaker 04

  Uh, yeah.

• 1:25:45Speaker 01

  Nice.

• 1:25:48Speaker 04

  So I remember the day when he was arrested and then there was some convictions soon after. It's a little bit of a blur because it was all kind of just like fanatic or frantic energy.

• 1:26:06Speaker 04

  I just kinda remember like not being able to fully process it because I think if I did, I'd have to sort of reassess a lot of the things that I had also normalized and I just wasn't there yet. Like, I just was in a state of shock and kind of survival mode.

• 1:26:27Speaker 04

  As everything crumbled around. So I was just trying to just like keep it together. Honestly, I just wanted to like show up to work and put a good face on and pretend like it wasn't happening.

• 1:26:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:26:42Speaker 04

  That was a little bit difficult because at the time, like paparazzis were chasing me in the East Village where I was working and I was just like wow, this is just so far from what I thought my life would be.

• 1:26:57Speaker 04

  I just was, yeah, just trying to make sense of things.

• 1:27:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And at that point as well, were you talking to your mom again?

• 1:27:07Speaker 04

  I was, but it was, the, the communication was still quite limited. Like we were still having a hard time. She was really trying to reach me and I was still just sort of like had my distance up because I just wasn't ready to let her love in. I was still just so confused.

• 1:27:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. So you got your job and I know that must've been so difficult. How, did you was it difficult to find work and to get back into?

• 1:27:36Speaker 04

  I couldn't even get an apartment. Cause people would Google me and they'd be like, branded sex slave, pass.

• 1:27:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, cause there's all these articles popping up now.

• 1:27:44Speaker 04

  I was like, oh my god, how am I gonna do this? Yeah, it was a real mess.

• 1:27:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, and the branded, branded sex, like that was but that's because it did happen. That was, that was a whole other part.

• 1:27:55Speaker 04

  Yeah, and then I was like, wait, wait, wait, let me explain. And then I was like, wait.

• 1:27:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:27:59Speaker 04

  I don't think I can explain. Like I just wasn't at that stage. I was just feeling so defeated, thinking like is this gonna be my hurdle for the rest of my life? Like, am I always gonna be seen this way or uh, rejected like this and?

• 1:28:19Speaker 04

  That's when I met Patrick. And at that time in my life, and I remember telling him, I talk about this in my book too, that he literally met me. I got the worst, like this is literally the worst

• 1:28:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:28:34Speaker 04

  time of my life, and this is when we're meeting and I, I was with caution telling him like, are you sure you want like this?

• 1:28:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:28:44Speaker 04

  You sure you want this?

• 1:28:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:28:45Speaker 04

  Do you see what's going on here?

• 1:28:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:28:47Speaker 04

  And you want this?

• 1:28:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:28:48Speaker 04

  And I just like couldn't believe him. I was like, there's gotta be something wrong with this guy like.

• 1:28:51Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:28:52Speaker 04

  That he thinks that I'm worth it. And he just kept showing up and like,

• 1:28:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:28:58Speaker 04

  being the friend that I needed. And I was so, I had like repellent, like human repellent on me, like thinking everyone was out to, you know, pull one on me, get, you know, get some information out of me or hurt me or.

• 1:29:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:29:11Speaker 04

  I just was so on guard.

• 1:29:13Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:29:13Speaker 04

  Uh, but he slowly started to break my walls down. He's quite persistent.

• 1:29:17Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:29:18Speaker 04

  And.

• 1:29:18Speaker 01

  Good.

• 1:29:19Speaker 04

  Yeah. A good, good Philly boy.

• 1:29:22Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:29:23Speaker 04

  And just kind of like show me that

• 1:29:28Speaker 04

  he didn't judge me in the way that I just was expecting to be judged. And he'd say things like, you know, a lot of people make mistakes. Like a lot of people do stupid things when they're young.

• 1:29:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:29:40Speaker 04

  When they're being influenced. And he would make light of it in a way that wasn't quite ready to make light of it yet, but I think it was the entry to

• 1:29:52Speaker 04

  the possibility that this could be just one chapter of my life and not my entire life.

• 1:29:59Speaker 01

  Yeah. That's good. He wasn't projecting your trauma back on to you.

• 1:30:03Speaker 04

  No.

• 1:30:03Speaker 01

  He was just like, let's look over here.

• 1:30:05Speaker 04

  Or like, yeah, let's enjoy or like, let's go have an adventure. And I was just so riddled with like guilt and shame and confusion and paranoia and worry that I just couldn't relax. And I remember one of our first little trips that we did out of the city together, like when we had some time off from work, he took me to Connecticut. And I just remember laying on the couch of his parents' house, having a full-on panic attack. And he was like, are you okay?

• 1:30:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:30:39Speaker 04

  And I was like, no.

• 1:30:41Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:30:41Speaker 04

  Like, I'm literally having a panic attack.

• 1:30:44Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:30:44Speaker 04

  He's like, but we're just relaxing. I was like, yeah, that's it.

• 1:30:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:30:47Speaker 04

  I was like, I just couldn't.

• 1:30:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:30:49Speaker 04

  I just didn't know how yet. Like, my body and my mind and just everything that I was dealing with was not allowing me to rest yet. I was still in like, I gotta survive. I gotta make it, gotta make sure that they understand me. I gotta make sure that I say every truth to the FBI. Like all this just pressure.

• 1:31:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:31:09Speaker 04

  That I wasn't, uh, wasn't quite there yet. And he said, if there's one thing that is my mission with you, it's gonna be teaching you how to chill. I was just like, I was like, good luck.

• 1:31:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Being your stubborn self. Yeah.

• 1:31:24Speaker 04

  Try me, bitch. I love it. He was like.

• 1:31:26Speaker 01

  Just poking the bricks out of your wall.

• 1:31:28Speaker 04

  I will, I will.

• 1:31:30Speaker 01

  That's good.

• 1:31:31Speaker 04

  So he like, he really, he, he saw a future and like a potential before I could.

• 1:31:39Speaker 01

  That's so wonderful. And this all happened, or a lot of it happened because your mom couldn't reach you and she was like, alright.

• 1:31:47Speaker 04

  Talking to the press.

• 1:31:48Speaker 01

  I'm talking to the, I'm doing a full press tour to get to you. And how, how do, I, I'm assuming at the time you were probably not loving it.

• 1:31:56Speaker 04

  No.

• 1:31:57Speaker 01

  But in hindsight, now that you're a mom and everything, how do, how do you look back at that?

• 1:32:01Speaker 04

  I would have probably done the same.

• 1:32:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:32:04Speaker 04

  Like if I had the resources that my mom has and the platform that she has and like the ability to

• 1:32:14Speaker 04

  get a message out, which she did.

• 1:32:16Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:32:16Speaker 04

  Uh, I would have done the same if I, I would have done anything, honestly. Like, I think that's the real truth is, at the time, I thought she was destroying my life when really she was actually trying to save it.

• 1:32:29Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:32:29Speaker 04

  And trying to make sure that I saw what was going on enough to be able to make the right choices, like to become cooperative with the FBI, to do all the things that I needed to do.

• 1:32:47Speaker 04

  Because I was a victim and I couldn't see it. And I literally just like thought that these people were, uh, you know, my new family.

• 1:32:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:32:58Speaker 04

  I think that's like red flag.

• 1:33:01Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:33:02Speaker 04

  Like, if there's, I understand having a chosen family and that there's many people who do not have immediate family that they feel like safe or comfortable or even have access to. There's many people that don't. And you do need to have a support system around you, but when there's people or a group or a situation that's trying to create distance, like we've talked about

• 1:33:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:33:26Speaker 04

  this whole interview, that

• 1:33:30Speaker 04

  that distance can, yeah, be a major vulnerability.

• 1:33:34Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. No, it's, and then when your mom goes on a press tour and then obviously you have some animosity towards her, you get a job, you meet your husband. When did you really reconcile with her or come together with her?

• 1:33:51Speaker 04

  Around the same time, actually. And it, you know, we

• 1:33:57Speaker 04

  we love each other so much that like we wanted to reconcile. We were just struggling so hard to communicate and like since then, I've had many people reach out to share their stories from the mom's perspective too, of people losing their children to institutions or individuals who literally just want to possess you and take your lifeblood. And it's so sad to see the pain that these moms go through and to see the pain that my, my own mother went through.

• 1:34:41Speaker 04

  And to know that sometimes you can't reach somebody until they're willing and open enough to hear it. And sometimes I have to say that to people.

• 1:34:54Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:34:55Speaker 04

  And I think, I know that that's might not be what you want to hear because you want to like, oh, tell me the cheat sheet or give me the tip and I can say, oh, well, remind them of their old life or, you know, try a different way to communicate to them that you know, initiates some kind of critical thinking, but, but sometimes people are so under the influence, like myself.

• 1:35:21Speaker 04

  They're unreachable until there's some space.

• 1:35:25Speaker 04

  And

• 1:35:29Speaker 04

  it's like, it's honestly just like one of the saddest parts is like watching that happen. But then on the flip side, we've got

• 1:35:39Speaker 04

  that tragedy and then the redemption piece of there's times where people actually do come out of it and do see the writing on the wall. And it is because of the love that they have for that person or their, or their family or that former life.

• 1:35:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:35:57Speaker 04

  Or the passions that they had before.

• 1:35:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:35:59Speaker 04

  It's like, it happens too.

• 1:36:01Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm. Absolutely.

• 1:36:02Speaker 04

  You get both, but like,

• 1:36:05Speaker 04

  yeah, it's really hard.

• 1:36:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:36:07Speaker 04

  Estrangement is really hard. And it takes time. It doesn't always, it, it feels awkward, honestly. And I think like, that's where your question is going is like, what was it like to reconcile? Very awkward.

• 1:36:18Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:36:19Speaker 04

  Because on one, on one side, my mom's looking at me like, this is my baby daughter. But then on the other side, she didn't know who I was really for the past couple of years because I had been changed.

• 1:36:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:36:33Speaker 04

  And I didn't know who I was. So we were kinda like meeting as

• 1:36:38Speaker 01

  Like reintroducing yourself.

• 1:36:39Speaker 04

  Yeah, to somebody who has known me like

• 1:36:44Speaker 01

  The longest.

• 1:36:45Speaker 04

  since conception. And it's like, why does this feel so far? Like, why do I feel like, honestly, this is like the saddest part for me and where I'm not triggered exactly, but where I just still feel like so much emotion is just like

• 1:37:02Speaker 04

  how far my heart like got from my own mom, like sucks.

• 1:37:08Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:37:08Speaker 04

  And I didn't feel the same love anymore. And like, I felt uncomfortable and unsafe around my mom because people were telling me that she was against me, that she was trying to hurt me, that she was trying to ruin their lives. And I believed that.

• 1:37:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:37:28Speaker 04

  And I didn't believe my own mother.

• 1:37:30Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:37:30Speaker 04

  Like, wow.

• 1:37:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:37:33Speaker 04

  I mean, that to me, I'm still, I'm not over it.

• 1:37:36Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:37:37Speaker 04

  Not over it because I now have my own daughter and I'm thinking like, oof, I just would never, you just can't let that tether get severed by anybody.

• 1:37:52Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:37:52Speaker 04

  Like you fight, you gotta fight for it.

• 1:37:54Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:37:54Speaker 04

  If, if somebody has come in and tried to put a wedge between you and your primary relationships, that can happen.

• 1:38:07Speaker 04

  So, yeah, it takes a lot of work.

• 1:38:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 1:38:11Speaker 04

  To rebuild and like, we're in a great place now. But it's taken a lot of rebuilding because I hurt her. And like, she's taken me back. She loves me and I love her. Yeah, but it's not like, you know, we just jumped into each other's arms and everything was back to normal again. It was sort of like, oh my god, I've been in another planet. And I just came back into your orbit. And I feel very off kilter. So it was sort of like, we had to reorient ourselves to each other. Which took a lot of like, me telling her things that was very uncomfortable.

• 1:38:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 1:38:52Speaker 04

  And sometimes I'm like, even with my poetry book, I was like, mom, like, you don't have to read it. I promise, I still feel your love and support. Like, it's very raw. And she was like, actually, I can't. It's like, it's too hard for me to read like, your suffering and your process. And I was like, I get it. Like, please don't trigger yourself.

• 1:39:11Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:39:12Speaker 04

  It's not, that's not my intention. So it's sort of like, she lets me be me. She's, I see her as living her best life. She's got love in her life. Like, I'm so happy for her. I don't worry about her being alone.

• 1:39:27Speaker 01

  Good.

• 1:39:28Speaker 04

  It's just like, it's been the relationship that I've fought the most for. And obviously for good reason.

• 1:39:36Speaker 01

  Yes. Yes, she clearly cares about you more than anything. It's so wonderful to see. And it's just so...

• 1:39:42Speaker 04

  That's why I feel lucky.

• 1:39:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

• 1:39:45Speaker 04

  Even though at the time I felt like, oh my god, are you trying to ruin my life?

• 1:39:50Speaker 01

  You're everything that they told me you were. Yeah, but that's obviously not the case. And she was on the outside looking in. And I mean, obviously she heard these horrific things on a surface level, but didn't really know all the nitty gritty that actually took to get you there. So I can't even imagine being like, okay, well, here's step one, mom. And here's what happened here. And here's, so that's...

• 1:40:10Speaker 04

  And she was very understanding, but it's still like, obviously, it's gonna gut her.

• 1:40:15Speaker 01

  Yes, you're a baby girl.

• 1:40:16Speaker 04

  Yeah, I'm a baby girl.

• 1:40:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:40:18Speaker 04

  So it's like, certain things, you're like, oh, I don't really wanna share that with you. Maybe I'll keep that one for myself.

• 1:40:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, it's so similar to, almost like addiction, where you see someone in your family that's just so lost in the sauce, in whatever it is.

• 1:40:35Speaker 04

  I have seen myself like, get lost in certain like substances, but mostly people, honestly. Like, that's kind of where my addiction is. And so, it will be like, you know, you're dealing with some sort of stress and you think, oh, that's the thing that I need. And then you go to it and it sort of gives you a temporary relief. But then you're sort of back to square one because you haven't really dealt with like, the feeling that's driving you there. So that to me is like, the confusing part of addiction is just like, getting stuck in that loop. And not just, not having enough like emotional fortitude to just sort of sit with it for a little bit and be like, is there something else that I could choose here?

• 1:41:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:41:19Speaker 04

  Instead of just going back to my loop? And that's hard.

• 1:41:23Speaker 01

  It is.

• 1:41:23Speaker 04

  It's hard, especially when you're in pain.

• 1:41:26Speaker 01

  Yes. Yeah, you really, you really need to get to a place where you wanna help yourself. And that's basically the only way you can get out of it. You can have a support system that definitely helps.

• 1:41:33Speaker 04

  Whether it's like punching something, painting it, writing it.

• 1:41:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, poetry.

• 1:41:40Speaker 04

  Eating it, like comfort food helps. Watching a cartoon, listening to music. For me, I have to listen to music like every day.

• 1:41:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's good.

• 1:41:49Speaker 04

  So it's just like, yeah, so like, you gotta find your own cocktail.

• 1:41:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, for you, I'm, I mean, from what I've heard about your story, so many things were taken away from you or restricted from you. So how was that, like, just being comfortable with all of that?

• 1:42:07Speaker 04

  Oh, awkward as well. Yeah, that's awkward. I think, um, yeah, I'd say it was like a cult-induced eating disorder. I think I had probably the hardest time

• 1:42:25Speaker 04

  like, getting back to enjoying food. Like, obviously, hard time with sex. But like, getting back to food and just how I felt in my body. Because all of that was so confusing and so wrapped up with control. So like, the flip side of it would be like, no control, like totally, you know, eating everything that you want all the time. And that can be really fun, but also it can kind of like, be harmful too.

• 1:42:57Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 1:42:57Speaker 04

  So I've been trying to find that balance and I really feel like I have a good sense of like, my hunger cues are back. Like, after you're in starvation mode for a long time, whether you're dealing with anorexia or any other kind of eating disorders, you don't really have the same hunger cues anymore because you just shut them down.

• 1:43:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:43:16Speaker 04

  So then it's remembering, oh, I'm hungry, I'm thirsty. You know, I, maybe I should take a break and see if I do feel full. Like, all those things are just something that you have to deal with on your own. You actually can't outsource them.

• 1:43:30Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:43:31Speaker 04

  If you do, you're sort of falling into a similar kind of control setup. And that can be really tricky. Because then you're like, oh, this other person, this nutritionist, or this app, or this that is telling me what I need when I need it? That doesn't work for me.

• 1:43:47Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:43:47Speaker 04

  I have to know myself.

• 1:43:49Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, I wholeheartedly agree. I wholeheartedly agree.

• 1:43:52Speaker 04

  Even if you think that my eating habits are weird, they're mine. So like, go fuck yourself.

• 1:43:57Speaker 01

  Exactly. Exactly. And coming out of that, yeah.

• 1:44:00Speaker 04

  I mean, like, sorry if it makes you uncomfortable, but I feel pretty healthy.

• 1:44:03Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, when you're in that, that's a whole other thing with, I mean, obviously controlled your intake in food and all that kind of stuff.

• 1:44:13Speaker 04

  Yeah, and judging you all the time for like, what you're eating. I just don't do that. Like, I don't care what you eat, how you dress, who you sleep with, like, who you love. Like, I just don't care. I want you, I want that person to be happy and healthy and safe. And it's their life. Like, it's, why would I just sit around judging you unless I was super bored?

• 1:44:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:44:38Speaker 04

  So like, I, that's how I live my life. That's how I like, I want other people to feel that free too.

• 1:44:46Speaker 01

  No, that's good. I mean, it's so hard to come out of that.

• 1:44:49Speaker 04

  Part of it was OCD because in a way, that's kind of like how I can, that was my one area of perceived control.

• 1:44:57Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:44:58Speaker 04

  Even though it was still controlled. But like, once I got out, there's no one controlling me anymore. But I'm still acting out the behaviors. So that just takes, um, slowing down. And I think it is kind of a lifelong thing, for me at least, because my eating disorder habits come out when I'm stressed.

• 1:45:23Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:45:24Speaker 04

  So to me, that's kind of like PTSD or complex PTSD, like whatever you wanna call it. So I just recognize and I anticipate it with certain circumstances, like when I'm traveling or when I, I have to make myself eat. Even if I'm not hungry. So it's like, those are things that I just see as recovery and also just like self-care.

• 1:45:45Speaker 01

  It is.

• 1:45:45Speaker 04

  And sometimes it gets exacerbated with hormones. Like, I'll get like, super, super hungry right before my period and then I'll just be like ravenous. And then, and then I see myself sort of going into that old little devilish voice, which is like,

• 1:46:00Speaker 01

  The makeup.

• 1:46:01Speaker 04

  Oh, you're just so gross. Like, you can't even pull your pants up or all this. And I'm like, all right, you need to just like, shut up respectfully.

• 1:46:10Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:46:11Speaker 04

  Because this isn't true. Yeah, disrespectfully, this isn't true.

• 1:46:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:46:15Speaker 04

  And it's like, that repeated on repeat.

• 1:46:20Speaker 01

  It's just a, because it's something you have to do.

• 1:46:23Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:46:23Speaker 01

  Every day to live.

• 1:46:24Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:46:24Speaker 01

  So it's not something like...

• 1:46:26Speaker 04

  You're gonna interface with it, breakfast, lunch, dinner and snack.

• 1:46:28Speaker 01

  Exactly, so...

• 1:46:30Speaker 04

  Slash holidays, slash weddings, slash like...

• 1:46:33Speaker 01

  Just going out to dinner with friends, just, just...

• 1:46:36Speaker 04

  It used to be agony for me when I'd go out to dinner with friends because I'd have to look at the menu beforehand, pick what I was allowed to eat. And then be like, really sad that I wasn't allowed to eat any of those things. And then I thought, this is not how I wanna live anymore. I have, first of all, a chef husband who is absolutely amazing at cooking.

• 1:46:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:46:56Speaker 04

  A foodie. Literally, we'll travel for food, like, to Europe.

• 1:47:01Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:47:02Speaker 04

  To find what he wants to eat. So it's like, it's a big part of my life and I realize like, it brings me a lot of joy.

• 1:47:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:47:09Speaker 04

  So that is something also worth fighting for. And, oh, I really like, when I see people, and I don't like to, like I said, I don't like to judge a book by its cover. But when I see somebody visibly struggling with an eating disorder, it like, hurts me inside.

• 1:47:25Speaker 01

  Me too.

• 1:47:26Speaker 04

  And I'm just like, oh, I just wanna like, let me hug you. But then I'm like, you won't really like that, so...

• 1:47:32Speaker 01

  I know. It's like, yeah, because when you're in it, you're just like, everyone's trying to make you fail. It's like, this is my control. But I can't even imagine how amplified that was in that, in that circumstance. And then coming out of it and trying to relearn to take control and let go of that control and all that. So it's, I'm glad that you're, you've reclaimed that, but I, it's not, it's not a straight road.

• 1:47:58Speaker 04

  I painted on my wall. In a moment, probably of like some kind of like manic creative episode, I was like, I need to paint on my walls.

• 1:48:08Speaker 04

  Over my bed, I put in a text bubble, "Don't overthink it." And then on the other side, I put "The world is your oyster." And my husband was like, "Why did you do that? Why did you paint on the walls?" And I was like, "I just had to."

• 1:48:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:48:21Speaker 04

  I had to. I was like, "They're my walls. I can paint on them." He's like, "All right, well, we got a renter in here. I'll just paint over that."

• 1:48:27Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:48:28Speaker 04

  I'll just let you be your crazy you.

• 1:48:30Speaker 01

  That's good.

• 1:48:30Speaker 04

  But those are my morning reminders because it's just kind of like, I have a tendency to

• 1:48:39Speaker 04

  and then forget that I don't have to do that all the time. I can actually just like live my life.

• 1:48:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, like all the reins a little bit. I know I got a tattoo on my wrist.

• 1:48:49Speaker 04

  What did you get?

• 1:48:50Speaker 01

  It says, "Let your hair hang down, let your mind roll on." They're lyrics to a song that my grandpa used to listen to, but that's what it means. It just means like, just, just.

• 1:48:57Speaker 04

  Just live a little.

• 1:48:58Speaker 01

  It's not that serious. And of course, there are serious things in life. But it's just like, life is moving forward. I need to move forward. You have a daughter now, and I'm sure that has a big impact on all of the recovery and the reclamation and all of that.

• 1:49:15Speaker 04

  It puts a lot of things in perspective and also just like brings me into the moment.

• 1:49:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:49:20Speaker 04

  Because she's just in the moment.

• 1:49:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, she's a little kid. She doesn't know what's going on.

• 1:49:23Speaker 04

  She's like doing a somersault off the couch. I'm thinking, "Oh, my God, I just have to keep you safe and alive. I love you."

• 1:49:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:49:31Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:49:32Speaker 01

  Absolutely. That's good.

• 1:49:34Speaker 04

  It's good. It's a happy ending.

• 1:49:35Speaker 01

  It is. Yeah, no, and I'm glad to hear that. I'm glad you have outlets and resources and you are a resource for so many people, which is so wonderful. I'd love for you to share all the things that you have out and that you're working on and.

• 1:49:50Speaker 04

  This is my newest book. It's poetry. It's very raw. Like I said to my mother, she didn't have to read it. But if you enjoy poetry and you just kind of, you know, want to poke around, let me know what you think. I, it's been one of my favorite creative outlets. And then this is Still Learning, my first book, which is really more of like a chapter by chapter recount, starting at the trial and then going back.

• 1:50:20Speaker 04

  It's just really, this was more about me like processing what happened, metabolizing it. I also read the audiobook, which was like huge for me to hear the story back in my own voice. Because I was just trying to hear my own voice, which felt, you know, like this big.

• 1:50:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:50:40Speaker 04

  And then this is really just more about processing the messy internal part of recovery that maybe we don't always talk about, which is, once you leave, it's not all sunshine and roses. But it can, it can get there. Like, I really think that I have a great life now.

• 1:51:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:51:03Speaker 04

  And there is moments where I thought that I just wouldn't make it here, so.

• 1:51:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, like the flower on there.

• 1:51:10Speaker 04

  Yeah, thank you. It's a flower pot.

• 1:51:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, I like it.

• 1:51:13Speaker 04

  I was like, you can interpret that as you wish. But yeah, I'll sign them for you.

• 1:51:17Speaker 01

  Please do. Yeah, and I'll make sure that people will be able to get it.

• 1:51:20Speaker 04

  I'm also on Instagram.

• 1:51:22Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:51:22Speaker 04

  So it's @indiaoxenberg. I'm really quite good with responding to direct messages. Not always so great at using social media. But I am, you know, still learning.

• 1:51:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:51:37Speaker 04

  To do my best there. And otherwise, yeah, those are probably the places that you can find me. You can watch Seduced on Starz or on Amazon Prime. And it's a four-part docu-series. Kind of shows you like the internal process of how indoctrination works. And really goes through a lot of the red flags and how Nexium presented itself versus what it actually really ended up being.

• 1:52:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, I thought it was extremely informative.

• 1:52:09Speaker 04

  Thank you. That's what I wanted. I was like, I'm not doing this unless it's educational.

• 1:52:13Speaker 01

  No, and it was.

• 1:52:14Speaker 04

  I'm like a PBS girl.

• 1:52:15Speaker 01

  It was, yeah, no, me too. No, I watched it because you watch so many of these things on Netflix or whatever. It's just like drama, drama, drama, drama. And it's, but it was like, you got a little bit and then it was like, you have professionals talking about it and the mindset and the process. And it was, it was wonderful.

• 1:52:32Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 1:52:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:52:33Speaker 04

  I'm really proud of it. I want to take it on the educational circuit at some point and like share it at universities. I'm working on potentially like consolidating it to one 90-minute so that it can be featured in schools and then I can do some Q and As. Because I just think like that's such a vulnerable time in your life when you're a young adult trying to find yourself. And maybe the first time you've been away from home. So I hope to be able to reach that demographic. But nowadays, I'm just, I'm a mother, I'm a wife, and I'm doing my own production development. And I work with different independent producers. And I'm still working in the documentary sphere, but also some podcast development.

• 1:53:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, you have, do you have your own podcast company?

• 1:53:21Speaker 04

  I do. That was like kind of a little test offshoot of this book.

• 1:53:27Speaker 01

  Okay, yeah.

• 1:53:27Speaker 04

  But I'm working on some other things.

• 1:53:29Speaker 01

  Okay, that's exciting. So people will be able to see it on your Instagram, probably?

• 1:53:33Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:53:33Speaker 01

  Okay, well, then go follow her and buy her books and all the stuff.

• 1:53:36Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 1:53:37Speaker 01

  But thank you so much for coming on. I really appreciate it.

• 1:53:39Speaker 04

  I loved the invite.

• 1:53:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, of course.