Triumph: Life After the Cult--A Survivor's Lessons

by Carolyn Jessop

  Empowerment is contagious. Once I began examining my beliefs, I could not stop. From Dr. Laura’s program I gained a new understanding of the “evil” outside world. I began to think that maybe life would not spin out of control if I left the FLDS. My fears of “the buffetings of Satan” were dissolving.

  Dr. Laura’s show was also a tutorial in domestic violence. More than once I heard her tell a caller that she was involved in an emotionally abusive relationship. I knew what physical violence was, but I had not considered how damaging emotional abuse could be. Dr. Laura’s stance was that crimes like abuse were unforgivable and that the only solution was to get out fast.

  What Dr. Laura characterized as unforgivable were things I tolerated on a daily basis: lying, cheating, and failing to take responsibility for your own actions. Dr. Laura was adamantly opposed to men (and women) having sex outside of marriage. She disapproved of men who were overly controlling and put down women instead of valuing them. Once I started to understand how damaging this behavior was, I began to realize that the thinking that tied me to the abuse and abusers could change; it was just a construct of my mind.

  As I listened to Dr. Laura, I heard about the different kinds of abusive personalities, and my eyes began to open. It was liberating to think that I had done nothing to deserve the abuse I experienced. What was happening to me was not my fault. I had to distance myself from those who abused me. These were not people who deserved to be in my life.

  A turning point for me in overcoming the FLDS mind control was realizing that I had the right to choose the people I wanted to spend my life with. This was an enormous change for me and one that defied a very basic religious belief: that our sister wives were supposed to be our best friends. Often we had nothing in common and were decades apart in age. But in the FLDS the belief is that God chooses your husband and his other wives. So it’s only natural for you to love those people God has placed in your life. Once you leave your father’s family, you are to leave everyone else behind and concentrate on those people God chose for your life. Going outside your family for friendship was seen as being in rebellion not only against the prophet and your husband but also against God.

  For thirty years I had lived in a culture that taught me to fear everything outside my religion. These fears had an irrational and phobic quality to them. I didn’t think I could let them go and still survive. I was only taking baby steps, but I was moving in the right direction.

  After the 439 children were removed from the ranch in Texas, the public couldn’t understand why, when given a chance to get help, nearly all the women rejected it. What the public did not understand, and what the media could not explain, was the power of mind control. Every woman there had been brainwashed by the FLDS. I had had the advantage of a public school education and college; even so, the mind control I had to fight my way through had an intense hold on me.

  I think the FLDS women in Texas might have been able to get help if their children had stayed in state custody. They needed a safe environment to break through the years of mind control they’d been under. They also needed a guarantee of long-term protection. These women had no reason to trust the Texas authorities, but if the state had kept the children long enough, the mothers might have been able to build some trust and take the steps that would have allowed them to change their lives permanently.

  I did a lot of my best thinking while I was ironing. Bryson was born prematurely, and I knew that before we could flee, he had to be much bigger. Harrison also had to become stronger and more medically stable. With eight children, I always had more ironing than I could ever finish. But it provided me with wonderful solitude. No one had any idea that I was wrestling with new ideas and challenging lifelong beliefs.

  The women caught up in the raid on the YFZ ranch, by contrast, were not only in the middle of a public and personal crisis but also in the national spotlight. The raid reinforced all their irrational beliefs about the outside world. Complicating everything was the fact that they were separated from their children and trying to get them back. The women felt threatened and defensive. It’s unrealistic to think that anyone could have reexamined her values and beliefs during a time like that.

  As Warren Jeffs exerted his control over the FLDS, I knew on a conscious level that it was disturbing and wrong. And unconsciously I began searching for answers. The help I needed came from a stranger on the radio, but it came.

  Not until I began letting go of my religious beliefs did I fully realize the power they held over me. I needed a vision of a better world before we could flee. If I really believed I was condemning my children to hell, I never could have taken them from the FLDS. Listening to Dr. Laura, I was finally able to grasp that what was happening in my world was morally wrong. The physical abuse that was so rampant in the FLDS was a crime. I had to internalize this realization at the deepest level of my being before I made any moves. I had no guarantee of success, but eventually I knew I had to try.

  Merril may have given me only one anniversary gift during our seventeen-year marriage, but it turned out to be the gift of a lifetime.

  The Mind-Body Connection

  It’s impossible to think of transforming your life and leaving your body behind. That sea of pastel dresses I waded through at the Salt Lake City courthouse reminded me of how alienated FLDS women are from their bodies, which are nothing but baby machines. The prairie-style clothing desexualized them and made them all look the same. Individuality is dangerous in a cultish world. That’s why when a small group of us started going to a Curves fitness center, we did it in total secrecy.

  I never thought I’d want to add exercise to my to-do list. After Bryson was born, I was tired to the bone. My mother started to help me care for Harrison two days a week because she saw how worn out I was. Because Brycie was premature, I was breastfeeding him on demand while caring for Harrison and my six other children. My exhaustion was as overwhelming as it was unrelenting, but after a few months my two most vulnerable children were stabilizing.

  One night when I went to pick up Harrison from my mother’s, my cousin Lucy bounded into the room in leggings and a Curves T-shirt. I was shocked. Lucy had been at least one hundred pounds overweight her entire life and had finally had gastric bypass surgery. I couldn’t believe she dared dress so provocatively.

  “Oh, I just got back from working out, and I haven’t changed my clothes yet,” she said.

  “You wear that when you work out?” I asked.

  “I have to. It’s impossible to use the machines wearing a skirt.”

  Lucy’s attitude was contagious. She felt good about herself and was not at all embarrassed by the way she looked or dressed. Meanwhile I was so distressed and unhappy that I couldn’t imagine ever feeling or looking that carefree.

  “Do you want to come with me to work out? Several of us are going regularly now,” Lucy said.

  “I’ve never been to a gym before,” I said. “I don’t know how I’d like it. Don’t you get tired?” I couldn’t risk doing anything that might add to my exhaustion.

  “No way!” Lucy said. “It’s just the opposite. It gives you more energy and helps you feel better. Besides, it’s a lot of fun. If you’re able to come three out of four times each week, you’d be getting the recommended workout.”

  “Let me think about it,” I said.

  I checked around and realized that I might be able to get enough help with Harrison’s care to go to Curves. Doing something forbidden appealed to me, but I could not afford to get caught. Merril would come down hard on me for such blatant rebellion.

  I started going three times a week. At first I didn’t say much to the other women who traveled in the van with me because I didn’t want anyone to know I was sneaking out without permission. But gradually, as we began to chat, bits of information slipped out, and I soon realized that several of the others didn’t have their husbands’ permission either.

  Lucy was an anomaly in the FLDS; she genuinely loved her husband, whom she c
alled her “lord and master.” Lucy had long-standing issues with obesity, which in the FLDS made her a less desirable wife to the more powerful men. Although he was born into generational polygamy, her husband didn’t come from a powerful family. We always thought this was why the FLDS let her marry him when she’d asked; her husband was a good worker, and the cult wanted to keep him. Not only was he handsome, but he was a very decent guy who gave Lucy permission to go to Curves for health reasons in the aftermath of her gastric bypass surgery. A few other women in our group also had the blessing of their more liberal husbands, who liked the idea that their wives wanted to look good.

  Going to Curves was like going to a party three times a week. The nearly hour-long round trip gave us time to talk in the van. Such opportunities were rare; several of us had been so busy in the past ten years that we hardly even saw each other. But after a few trips to the gym, our conversation deepened, and we discussed areas in our lives that were not working. For most of us, the big concern was the way our husbands treated us. Few of us were happily married or felt our lives were working out. Lucy’s marital contentment was a novelty.

  A few women believed the party line of the FLDS, that if a woman abides by the will of her husband, her happiness is guaranteed. But others among us were expressing frustrations. Even the women who had permission to go to Curves wanted it kept secret from the FLDS. If we were seen and reported, our husbands could be put in an uncomfortable position because they’d allowed us to engage in such utter nonsense. Those men could be interrogated about why their wives had encouraged other women to rebel against their husbands.

  Curves was a symbol of just how cruel our world had become: in order to exercise for half an hour a few times a week, we had to act like secret agents.

  But the men were onto something: exercise is dangerous. Once women start getting control over their bodies, they think about getting control over their lives. After a woman loses fifteen pounds and likes the way she looks, having that ninth or tenth child is less appealing. Getting in touch with her body puts her in touch with other areas of her life, like sexuality. Women who claimed sexual power were as threatening to the FLDS as women who claimed any other power. We weren’t supposed to have sexual needs; we were merely the breeding stock that kept the cult replenished.

  Curves was in Hurricane, a small town outside the FLDS community. We were at high risk of being seen there because a lot of FLDS went there to shop, do business, and eat. So when we pulled up to the gym, we established a lookout. Before we left the van, the scout checked to make sure the coast was clear. We all wore leggings under our skirts, so in the parking lot we removed our skirts. This was an ungodly act. Once we had our skirts off, we waited until the lookout said “Run!” and raced to the door.

  Safely inside the gym, we acted like everyone else. We talked, laughed, enjoyed the music—a pleasure forbidden in the FLDS—and worked out on the machines. No one would have thought we were risking anything. We were discovering the real power of women free to be themselves.

  We talked mostly to each other and avoided people who were not from our insular world. After the workout was over, we got ready to leave and waited. This was a critical moment because there could only be one dash to the van. When the signal was given, we ran for our lives. In my nearly fifteen years of marriage to Merril, this was the most outrageous act I’d ever committed.

  We joked that if our husbands found out about Curves, we’d be forced to go on medication. It really wasn’t a laughing matter; a lot of women did go to the clinic to get medication because they were miserable. At one point the state launched an investigation because so many prescriptions for antidepressants were being written in our area.

  One day as we were leaving Curves, our game plan blew up. My sister Linda was the lookout. She was standing next to the door, looking in every direction, waiting to give us the sign to run to the van. She was very cautious and made us all feel safe. She gave the go-ahead, and we prepared to dash as a group.

  Suddenly I heard screams from the front of our group. Linda grabbed the woman who had been first and shoved her back inside the gym. She looked like she wanted to yell “Oh, shit!” She couldn’t even speak. Her face was red, and I could see her trying to get a grip on what was happening.

  “Damn! We’re in trouble now,” said Jayne, who began talking almost nonstop. Jayne had the most to say because she was the least concerned. She had a job outside the community, and even though she didn’t get along with her husband, he was pleased that she was working out. Those of us with more to lose were stunned into silence.

  “Linda, what’s going on?” someone asked.

  “Our asses are grass” was all she said.

  The manager of Curves noticed the commotion around the front door and wanted to know what was happening. We didn’t dare tell her and insisted nothing was wrong.

  What had happened was that, just as Linda gave the go-ahead, Joe Barlow, a prominent man in the community with several wives and more than fifty children, left the restaurant next door with ten of his sons. It would have been hard for us to be seen by anyone worse. Joe was a big deal in the FLDS, and his sons loved to gossip. In no time at all stories about us would spread around the community. So we hung around the door until Joe was gone, then hurried out to the van.

  We were all worried about what might be waiting for us when we got back. Lucy broke the silence. “Well, I guess I might end up coming down here by myself,” she said. “There is no way, even if this turns out to be a big problem, that I am going to stop.” Several of us jumped on her. How could she be so indifferent to the trouble we might all be facing? Her attitude was that if our “lord and masters” didn’t want us to exercise, we didn’t have the right to do it. Within minutes we were talking about the FLDS and what we hated about it.

  Most of us agreed that the only reason we weren’t free to go to a gym was that our “work of God” was to be baby machines. Several of us confessed that we couldn’t stand Warren Jeffs. We feared that if he succeeded his father as prophet, he’d suck up the last hope of our ever again having oxygen to breathe.

  Lucy disagreed vehemently with a lot of what we were saying—then offered up a confession of her own. “Most of the principles of God are perfectly fine with me,” she said. “The only one I don’t understand is the principle of plural marriage. It makes no sense.”

  Dead silence. None of us could believe what we’d just heard. The principle of plural marriage was the bedrock of our belief system. Nothing was more sacred. I didn’t know how to tell Lucy that this little principle that she couldn’t grasp was the heart of our religion. Everything, including all the oppressive rules, made sense to Lucy except for plural marriage? Amazing.

  Lucy, in all her righteousness, then started in on us for not having permission from our husbands to exercise. She was adamant in her defense of the FLDS. “Every one of us has a responsibility to look at why this is a problem for us,” Lucy said in the van. “I am not worried about what my husband is going to say because I’m not keeping secrets from him. I think the problem isn’t with our religion. It’s with your relationships with your husbands.”

  “So you are saying that because your lord and master wants you to look good, you have that right, and if our lords and masters want us to look horrible, then we’re supposed to just look ugly and be fat?” Jayne shot back.

  “The real problem for me,” I said, “is that I don’t have the right to make any of my own decisions.”

  “It’s not my fault that I have a good relationship with my lord and master and that he wants me to feel good and be healthy,” Lucy said. “I also have health problems he has to be responsible for.”

  “It is not about your lord and master,” Jayne said. “It’s about Warren making our husbands our lords and masters. We should be able to make a few decisions for ourselves.”

  “My lord and master has nothing good to offer me,” I said. “His only interest is in controlling and oppressing me.” />
  “This is a problem between you and your husband, and it has nothing to do with Warren or the religion.” Lucy was emphatic to the point of defensiveness.

  “I think it has everything to do with the total power Warren gives to a man,” I said. “I’m expected to submit. It has nothing to do with our relationship; it’s about power.”

  The debate was heated all the way home. I got dropped off at the house where I’d left my van. I couldn’t risk being seen with all the other women; it would raise suspicions. On the way home I decided I was going to continue going to Curves even if I was forbidden to. I was prepared to disobey. By going I was doing something good for me. It felt enormously empowering.

  But somehow Joe Barlow and his sons must not have spotted us because we kept going and we kept talking more candidly about our lives. There was intense discussion about some of the most recent changes in the FLDS that Warren Jeffs had made. Although at that point Warren’s father, Rulon Jeffs, was technically still the prophet, Rulon was old and ailing and Warren was the power behind the throne.

  There was outrage that Warren Jeffs was kicking men out of the FLDS and assigning their wives and children to other men. Men were marrying their fathers’ wives after Jeffs banished their dads. These practices had never happened before in the FLDS but Jeffs had no qualms about openly promoting them.