A Little Bit Culty
Sarah Edmondson & Anthony “Nippy” Ames
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Shattered, Broken, and Beautiful: Brooke Deanne on Jehovah’s Witnesses (Part 1)
In Part 1 with Brooke Deanne, we chat about her growing up as a third-generation Jehovah’s Witness, the deliciously bad idea of confusing control with “truth,” and what it’s like to be raised in a system where curiosity gets shut down before it can even put on shoes. Brooke walks us through the culty greatest hits: conditional love, shunning, hierarchy, weirdly intense rules about sex and marriage, and the kind of spiritual bookkeeping that makes you feel like you’re always one bad decision away from being sent to the cosmic timeout corner. We also cover Brooke’s marriage, the abuse she survived, and how religious training, family dynamics, and trauma can all pile on and make it harder to see what’s actually happening in real time. She brings a therapist’s eye to the whole mess, connecting the dots between attachment, gaslighting, trauma bonding, and the very human urge to keep trying to be the “good girl” even when the whole system is rigged. You’ll want to stay tuned for Part 2 of our convo. Be sure to pick up Brooke’s book, Shattered, Broken, and Beautiful: Losing My Religion and Finding Faith, or follow her on her website, brookedeanne.com, or social media. Trigger warning: This episode contains frank discussion of cults, coercive control, emotional, physical, and sexual abuse, shunning, trauma bonding, gaslighting, and religious trauma. Also…let it be known that: The views and opinions expressed on A Little Bit Culty do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the podcast. Any content provided by our guests, bloggers, sponsors or authors are of their opinion and are not intended to malign any religion, group, club, organization, business, individual, anyone or anything. Nobody’s mad at you, just don’t be a culty f*****d. Buy the A Little Bit Culty book on Amazon or order a signed copy. Check out our amazing sponsors Join A Little Bit Culty on Patreon Get poppin’ fresh ALBC Swag Support the pod and smash this link Check out our cult awareness and recovery resources Watch Sarah's TED Talk and buy her memoir, Scarred CREDITS: Executive Producers: Sarah Edmondson & Anthony Ames Production Partner: Citizens of Sound Co-Creator: Jess Tardy Audio production: Will Retherford Production Coordinator: Lesli Dinsmore Writer: Sandra Nomoto Social media team: Eric Skwarzynski and Brooke Keane Theme Song: “Cultivated” by Jon Bryant co-written with Nygel Asselin See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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