Why We Infiltrated & TOOK DOWN FLDS Polygamous Cult Leader (My Story) [32:07-37:10]

they can be used against you. And I don't think a lot of people understand that because plenty of people probably understand the feeling of going to church and feeling great and you're like energized and it's amazing. And all of that can be true. And you can have those spiritual experiences. And that doesn't mean that the church building you are in is the true church just because that's where you're having the feeling. Because as we've seen, people can have those exact same feelings for other religions, for other cult leaders, for other false prophets. And that's why we try to draw attention to the red flags that may go unnoticed at first because it might feel good. Yeah, it's true. It's that burning in our bosom. So it's an emotional experience that I thought was a spiritual experience. So now I teach people about critical thinking, cult psychology and coercion. And how coincidence is like the dream was a coincidence. It turned out that I had met that actual person when I went to the Defense Language Institute in the Russian program. He was on the same campus. It was very small campus in a different class. But but I'm sure that's why when I prayed about would marry my brain pulled up someone. And because this man had this habit of doing a predator gaze, you know, where they don't look away. It sticks in your mind. And that's what I pulled up. And then there he was and Salt Lake. So it was like perfect storm of circumstances. Yeah. That I ain't as assigned from God. Where did you go from here? How did you begin to rebuild? And did you also deconstruct the mainstream or matured at that time? I didn't because I thought that he tried to do what Joseph Smith had done. But he failed. For the first day, I thought it's the church room too. But then my brain found a way to mend it and say, no, he didn't do what Joseph Smith said. Because the very first day is a complex got away from him. He spelled the beans. The church had been going for 150 years or something. And you know, and at that time, there wasn't all the information out that there is now. It took me a while to deconstruct from mainstream Mormonism. But I really didn't know. I couldn't read the scriptures anymore because I would get a lump in my throat because that's what led to my near death. So then you went back to the singles words again. I don't remember if I did that because I got my children. I wanted to get out of Utah right away. And it took me months before I could even come up with an extra $358 to leave Utah and move to California. And so I feel like I fled Utah. There was a lot of victim shaming of me because I should have known better. I should have known that wasn't the church. It did not get the help that I needed to get. Law enforcement, um, victim shamed me as well. And said, you know, if we went to trial, a jury would probably say, well, she believed him. Oh my gosh. Isn't that what fraud is? They didn't care about the sexual exploitation or assault, flight of anything. Yeah. We're trafficking. Yeah. They only cared about the money. And I only, I could only prove that I lost $5,000. I never received for that. But even that is a felony. Utah failed me. So when I moved to California, you know, I was still, I was processing it on. It's so hard on my sense of self. I previously believed I was a decent thinker. Yeah. You know, I mean, I finished college, you know, I wasn't a person with a lot of street smarts. But I didn't think I was intellectually dysfunctional. But after that, I due to all the victim shaming that I received lack of proper therapy, I think that it helped that PTSD to kind of dig in deeper. Yeah. So, but it was a good news. In 2002, I had my dumb little TV show on a local station. The production quality of it was so terrible because I had no money. It was a station with no budget, right? So I had my cupboards and my background was just the black wall of the station. And we had a fake plant. And there was no like introductory music, or motion graphics. They just turned on the camera and I was live. But my puppets and I would would bring in like local celebrities, you know, like the guy to own the carpet shop. And we would do fun activities with them. And then it started, it started getting people watching, liking the show and calling in. And the owner of the little station said, you know,