The Truth About Why I Fled the Cult in Saint Mary’s
I am deep in the process of writing my memoir about my childhood and young adulthood of indoctrination and exploitation in a cult in Saint Marys, Kansas, during the 1990’s.
Unpacking what really happened and understanding my choices has proven to be a long process, but a necessary one. It would be a tragedy to fail at laying out the whole truth because I wouldn’t or couldn’t interrogate it deeply enough. Interpreted through a lens of hindsight or crammed into framing that makes my experiences and choices more palatable, it’s not really my story.
Recently, I gained a new insight into what actually pushed me to leave. It’s not quite what I thought it was.
In 1996, five years had passed since my mother took me and led members of my extended family across the country to join a cult. I had completed the cult’s four-year high school program for girls and was now 19, successfully indoctrinated with the cult’s ideas about my role as an “ideal woman” and how I would find my dignity in submission to a man.
I found myself shackled to a husband I didn’t want, forbidden from denying him sex or using any contraception. I gave birth in 1997 and 1998; in 1999, I gave birth again, becoming a mother to three children under the age of three. I was 23 years old, but thanks to my isolated upbringing…
