"I can't express to you how crazy this house was, and yet the friends would come, it was perfect…showtime." Trish and her kids were in the cult of Jehovah's Witnesses, but their home too was a place where they didn't feel safe. Although from the outside people may have seen them one way as they put on a good show, the realities didn't match up at home. Instead of living out loud, they had to be silent and to hide themselves, becoming small so as not to be seen in a home environment that didn't feel safe. Later in life Trish would be encouraged to even deny the existence of her sons by the wife of an elder, to make them invisible, as they were not who the cult wanted them to be either. This is a story of reclaiming a life that was a false show of something that wasn't real underneath, and of finding oneself and being free to be authentic.

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This podcast was made possible by my original podcast This JW Life. You can find it on any podcast app. It is a 9 part series about life as Jehovah's Witnesses designed to help you understand how it worked in one comprehensive story and to help you process your own if you came from that environment.

Music provided by Jane and the Boy, entitled Save Myself.