(ominous music)
(transition whooshing)
- I'm Ana Garcia,
and this is "Beyond the Headlines: Dark Influences".
(transition whooshing)
Whether they were victims of sex trafficking.
- Once you get reeled in,
ain't no turning back.
- [Ana] Conversion therapy.
- I was given the backpack filled with rocks,
it was supposed to help me feel
the physical burden of being gay.
- [Ana] The troubled teen industry.
- Any resistance I had
then was punished out of me. (child screaming)
- [Ana] Or even a religion
disguised as a weight-loss program.
- It was like, "Make sure you're staying slim for God."
(ominous music)
- [Ana] These are the shocking accounts of people
who were manipulated, abused.
- I was raped, drugged,
I was gonna die.
- You just were in this warehouse 12, 16 hours a day
getting tortured.
(transition whooshing) (bright music)
- [Ana] And finally broke free before it was too late.
- Leaving was very difficult.
It went from, "This is my whole life, my community,"
to nothing.
- If you think you have a chance of getting out alive,
you do whatever it takes.
(transition whooshing) (suspenseful music)
- As individuals, we think for ourselves,
but the decisions we make
sometimes lead us down the wrong road,
which can leave us vulnerable and easily influenced.
And before we know it,
our mind is no longer our own.
In the next hour,
we'll hear from people who experienced the unthinkable.
A sex trafficking victim.
Three women whose parents sent them
to abusive reform camps for troubled teens.
A 15-year-old forced into conversion therapy.
And finally, ex-members
of Gwen Shamblin's Remnant Fellowship.
Through the telling of their stories,
we'll learn what it means
to live a life beyond the trauma
and beyond the headlines.
(transition whooshing) (suspenseful music)
Psychological manipulation comes in many forms,
and in the case of sex trafficking,
it can be perpetrated by someone with whom a victim
forms a close and sometimes romantic bond.
Sex traffickers use a cycle of abuse and affection
to control their victims and manipulate them
into thinking that the nightmare they're living
is a dream come true,
and that cycle of abuse keeps their victims loyal.
Toni D Rivera is a sex trafficking survivor and expert,
who was trafficked as a teenager
and overcame a cycle of physical and mental abuse.
(transition whooshing) (pensive music)
- My name is Toni D Rivera.
I'm from a small town in South Carolina,
right outside of Greenville.
As a kid growing up in a small town,
you know, everybody knows everybody.
So, I never was taught about stranger danger,
not knowing that sometimes these strangers
are actually in your family.
(forlorn music)
I was sexually molested by a family member,
and that actually took a toll on my adulthood.
You know, as a kid, we don't have the capacity
of thinking like an adult.
I have someone who's in my family
doing this to me who quote-unquote, "Loves me,"
so it was normal to me.
And once I got older
and got caught up in this trafficking life,
I converted back to the trauma I had as a kid,
and it was fine with me.
(transition whooshing) (suspenseful music)
In 1994, my friends and I decided to follow
another family friend down to Atlanta, Georgia.
(friends laughing) We get to Atlanta, Georgia,
we had no money.
This one guy catch my eye.
He asked where we were staying at,
and I was like, "We don't have a place to stay."
So he wound up getting me and my friends a room.
(cicadas chirping)
(transition whooshing)
He had bought me a phone
and bought me these clothes and shoes.
Mind you, again, I don't know stranger danger,
so I took it.
And he said, "Go ahead, get dressed,
we're going out tonight."
This is the red flag.
He brought me to a strip club,
knowing I was not 18.
He knew a friend of a friend
who knew the owner to get me in.
I get on the pole, I'm dancing.
Music stop, I see all this money on the ground,
I'm ready to walk off the stage,
and he told me, "Yo, that's your money,
pick your money up."
(ominous music)
(transition whooshing)
That was the honeymoon stage, as we call it,
the, "I give you the world, I give you anything,
I'm your boyfriend."
They're getting to know you,
you're getting to know them,
you're telling them all your problems.
It's like they're your therapist.
And once you get reeled in through that process,
ain't no turning back.
(transition whooshing) (pensive music)
After that experience,
I went back to the little town that I'm from.
He had bought me the phone,
so we kept in touch.
"Yeah, I'm leaving to go off to school."
He was like, "Well, come see me before you leave."
So I made the stop in Charlotte,
and that's when it went dark.
(transition whooshing)
I'm in a hotel room and there's a girl in there.
She had clothes out on the bed for me,
"Get dressed, we're going out."
And I'm like, "I'm not, I don't know you."
(Toni and stranger arguing) Me and her
start passing words,
got up in each other's face.
We starts to fight.
When he walks in the room, he had a key.
He didn't hit her,
he hit me.
One of his other friends was there,
and I was raped.
I was raped by him and the guy,
and blanked out.
(wind blowing) (pensive music)
It wasn't easy.
I let the dominoes fall as they lay.
(heroin bubbling)
He gave me a hot shot.
I was on drugs, homeless,
had to go everywhere they went.
I had to be what they called a debt payment.
A debt payment in the life of sex human trafficking,
if I owe you something and I can't pay it,
I have to do something for you.
How it happened with me,
it was Superbowl night, 1997. (crowd cheering)
Green Bay Packers and Patriots.
The man that lost,
I had to be the debt payment to the gorilla pimp.
That's the topnotch person,
that's the head honcho,
that's who everybody answers to.
So in that one night,
I had to sleep with 50 men.
Raped, drugged.
I had to,
'cause I was gonna die.
I died inside.
And I know that now,
but I didn't know it then,
that dying inside woke something up,
because that following June,
I was determined to leave.
(dramatic music)
After being coerced and trafficked
into sex work for years,
Toni D Rivera realized
that it would take more than escaping her situation
to heal from the trauma.
(transition whooshing) (suspenseful music)
- 1998, how I got out was through my ex-husband.
He was friends with the people
that my pimp had placed me with.
So it just happened, one day, he came by,
nobody was in the whole house.
This never happens, ever.
(door clicking)
I opened the door,
he asked for the guy who he was friends with,
and I was like, "No, he not here."
He said, "Well, I got two tickets to go to the movies,
I don't wanna waste them."
Your survival skills kick in.
If you think you have a chance of getting out alive,
you do whatever it takes.
I'm thinking like, "Okay, I gotta hurry up, hurry up,
look for my stuff."
I grabbed the bag that I had brought to Charlotte with me
when I first came.
So we went to the movies.
He said, "Well, I gotta go home
and get finished packing,
'cause I'm leaving out early in the morning."
And I was like, "We can leave tonight,
you wanna leave tonight?"
So he went home, packed up his little red Honda,
and we were gone, that's how I got out.
(pensive music)
Once you get outta sex and human trafficking life,
it's hard to get back into society.
(Toni and therapist speaking) Psychiatrists and therapists,
they couldn't help me.
I've saw probably a total of 52.
You can't help me.
Reason why you can't help me
is because you ain't been there.
(pensive music)
What made me get into the life of rescuing,
it started to give me therapy,
it started to give me healing
knowing that I can help somebody
that's going through that,
'cause I've been through it,
I've been through worse.
(crying) I've tried to kill myself a total of 34 times.
Who does that?
And who does that and continue to live?
(pensive music)
The number-one thing that you can do
to combat human trafficking is education.
I have a curriculum right now
that I am actually implementing in New York.
It's under this organization called Unitas.
I'm also a part of this organization called CLIMB.
We house, help people find jobs,
help homeless people,
also house the sex and human trafficking victims
in my organization, ROSE,
we offer counseling.
(pensive music)
Most of these victims and these kids,
and adults, boys and girls,
they'd rather talk to people such as myself
and other survivors
because they feel like we understand
'cause we've been there.
We all have been through something in our life,
all of us, young, old, we've been through it,
but we got through it.
We still smiling as we going through it.
Some have been through it
and they still on top.
(transition whooshing)
- If you or anyone you know is a victim of sex trafficking,
please reach out to any of the following organizations,
Unitas, ROSE, CLIMB,
and Tony D Rivera @TonyDRivera.
If you or someone you know needs help,
text, "Be free," 233733,
or call the National Human Trafficking Hotline
at 1-888-373-7888.
(transition whooshing)
A trauma bond is the connection
an abused person has with their abuser.
Sex traffickers use trauma bonding
to control their victims,
but they're not the only ones.
It's also used in a nefarious enterprise
known as the troubled teen industry.
Despite having allegations of abuse
levied against it for decades,
the troubled teen industry
continues to operate largely unregulated.
(transition whooshing)
Jenny Pentland, Cyndy Etler and Raelyn Kaplan
have similar stories of abuse
after they were sent away
in order to be scared straight.
(transition whooshing) (ominous music)
- My name is Cyndy Etler.
In October of 1985, I turned 14.
In November of 1985,
I went into Straight Incorporated.
I remained trapped in Straight for 16 months.
(transition whooshing) (pensive music)
When I was a little kid,
there was abuse going on in my home.
When I hit adolescence,
I was starting to say, "I'm not taking this anymore,
I'm outta here,"
and I ran away.
My mother thought, "Oh, if my daughter
is running away from home,
that must mean that she is an addict."
My mother had heard about Straight Incorporated,
"A drug rehab for struggling teens."
Straight was the model
for the troubled teen industry programs that exist today.
(transition whooshing)
My mother was coached by Straight to tell me
that I was gonna be going to a boarding school in Virginia.
(transition whooshing)
I had a bad feeling,
but I was a 14-year-old, I didn't have a choice.
I found myself in a room with two teenage girls,
and there was a strip search.
One of those girls was told to belt loop me.
She yanked upwards hard
and dug her knuckles into my lower back,
and then she pushed forward.
And I looked over and there was my mother
saying, "Bye, (laughing) bye," and leaving.
(transition whooshing)
And then I'm in front of these giant doors,
and the doors opened and I saw hell.
(transition whooshing)
- My name is Jenny Pentland.
My mom is the actress, comedian and producer, Roseanne Barr.
(suspenseful music) (transition whooshing)
I was about 13 when "The Roseanne Show" went on the air,
and that was right at the time when a kid
is sort of going through things of their own anyway,
trying to figure out who they are in the world.
And my instinct was to be rebellious and to act out.
Like cutting on myself,
not taking care of my body or my health.
(transition whooshing)
Yes, kids were my mom's priorities,
so she was spending all this time on us at home
and trying to figure out how to take care of us.
There were a lot of people relying on my mom
for their livelihoods and to make money,
and for her to be distracted
was affecting all these people.
So I think, at some point,
one of the agents was like,
"You need to get your kids some help."
(transition whooshing) (dramatic music)
My mom found out about a therapeutic boarding school,
Rocky Mountain Academy, in Northern Idaho.
(transition whooshing)
- The marketing is very carefully crafted.
You've got glossy images
of healthy, wholesome, smiling kids.
And they have secret methodologies
that you won't find anywhere else,
"So if you don't come to us,
your child is doomed."
- The parents are preyed upon first,
and the parents aren't at fault,
the parents are victims of being vulnerable and feeling lost
and like they can't take care of their kids.
(transitions whooshing) (suspenseful music)
- The forms of, quote-unquote, "Therapy," that they used
included attack therapy,
using brutal methods to break a person,
to then build them back up.
You just were in this warehouse 12, 16 hours a day
getting tortured physically, psychologically,
you had absolutely no bodily autonomy.
(pensive music)
- I watched a lot of my peers be told
that they were responsible
for the abuse that they suffered.
That's a lot of responsibility to put on somebody
who's just figuring out who they are.
After Jenny Pentland and Cyndy Etler
were released from their troubled youth programs,
they spent their adulthood working through the trauma
from the abuse they experienced,
the same abuse endured
by a young woman named Raelyn Kaplan a generation later.
(forlorn music)
- My name is Raelyn Kaplan, I'm 22 years old.
I entered a troubled teen program in 2017
when I was 17 years old.
(transition whooshing)
My family kind of had this facade of a perfect family,
but behind the scenes, things were pretty tough.
(transition whooshing)
By the time I was in high school,
I was already in therapy.
After a sexual assault
and my parents separating,
I ended up in the hospital
because I was suicidal.
I was sent to Spring Ridge Academy for 13 months.
(transition whooshing) (ominous music)
It was in rural Arizona.
I was in shock when I first arrived.
In my first journal entry that I wrote while I was there,
I said, "I'm now living my worst nightmare."
(transition whooshing)
We were in an isolated environment,
we had zero way to communicate with the outside world.
I couldn't let my friends or family
know where I was or that I was okay.
I didn't sleep for (laughing) the first many weeks,
and I just felt sick all the time
from how distressing it was to be there.
(dramatic music)
You were not allowed to talk about your life at home.
That was called war storying.
We had to participate in daily groups,
which consisted of what's known as attack therapy.
We had to get up in front of everyone constantly
and disclose the most intimate details,
only to then be criticized
for the vulnerabilities we just shared.
I was forced to carry a five-pound sandbag with me
everywhere I went for three months,
(transition whooshing) (counselors screaming)
Any resistance I had then was punished out of me
and I began to become compliant
and I turned into this poster child.
(transition whooshing) (suspenseful music)
I graduated when I was 18 years old
in December of 2017.
When I got out of the program,
I was convinced that I was saved.
And then I realized I hadn't been saved,
I'd been brainwashed.
(transition whooshing) (pensive music)
- When I got out of the programs,
I didn't think very much about it.
And then I got pregnant when I was 23,
we got married.
When my youngest kid went to school full time,
and I had like a full breakdown,
and I had to walk myself out of that darkness.
(pensive music)
Three years ago, I started writing a book,
trying to process all that PTSD,
but I'd been writing it in my head since I can remember.
- I spent 10 years writing about my experience
in a troubled teen facility.
In 2017, my memoir was published.
I think I no longer live in Straight
because I got it outta my head by writing about it.
(transition whooshing)
- When I was 17
and my parents forced me to spend 13 months
in an abusive therapeutic boarding school,
I would beg them to take me home.
- I'm a creative processor,
whether that's making TikToks or writing songs.
♪ First day out
♪ And the freedom tastes like magic ♪
♪ I'm crying tears of joy 'cause I get to sit in traffic ♪
♪ And I can't imagine slipping into my own bed ♪
And it was really cool
because as I was processing these things for myself,
it was simultaneously helping other people too.
(upbeat music)
- The generation of teenagers and kids
coming up now are amazing.
I look at their self-awareness
and their ability to put themselves out there.
And I think that made it safe
for a lot of people to come out
and talk about their experiences.
♪ I think I'm still learning
The first tangible step
to protecting youth at these facilities
needs to be legislative,
because currently there's zero federal legislation
pertaining to therapeutic facilities for youth in the US.
- There needs to be an advocate on site 24/7,
and the kids need to be informed that they have rights.
- The advice I have for anyone
who experienced one of these programs,
when the memories start to come back and start to thaw,
trust your instinct, believe yourself,
and then get it outta your brain.
- Open up the conversation
so other people can join in shamelessly
and talk about what they're going through.
- I expected backlash when I started making my videos,
from students like me who had been brainwashed,
but actually survivors started messaging me saying,
"Thank you for helping me feel less alone."
Living life authentically means being who you truly are,
not a version of yourself that others expect,
and it isn't easy.
But when Alex Cooper,
a teenager from Southern California,
was brave enough to reveal her true self,
the last thing she expected was betrayal.
(transition whooshing) (keys clacking)
(pensive music)
- I'm Alex Cooper, and when I was 15,
I fell in love and came out to my parents.
And the next thing I knew,
I was being sent to conversion therapy.
(transition whooshing)
(birds singing)
I grew up in Southern California.
I grew up pretty religious,
but I always had an extremely happy childhood.
(birds singing) (pensive music)
A really tight family.
When my parents took me to conversion therapy,
we drove to Southern Utah, St. George,
and we pulled up to a stranger's house.
(transition whooshing)
The couple came outside of the house
and brought me inside,
and my parents signed over
their parental rights to this couple.
(transition whooshing) (dramatic music)
They practiced conversion therapy
unlicensed in their home.
Neither one of them had a degree
or had even finished high school.
But they told my parents
that they were able to make me straight.
(transition whooshing) (suspenseful music)
It started with keeping me out of school.
I learned how to take care of a household,
including all of their kids,
getting them ready for school,
making meals, keeping the house clean.
(transition whooshing)
I was given the backpack,
they filled it with rocks
and told me that it was supposed to help me feel
the physical burden of being gay.
I started wearing it for a couple hours a day.
And then when I was still not accepting
what they were saying,
it got up to be 18 hours a day at some points.
(forlorn music)
I made several attempts to reach out to community members
to tell them what was going on and ask for help.
And every single time I did that,
these community members
would tell the people I was staying with
that I had tried to get out.
So I realized that I needed
to start just lying to everybody around me.
I felt completely trapped.
There were times where I would pray
and ask for forgiveness.
Then I'd be like, "Wait,
I don't need to ask for forgiveness,
this isn't what I believe in."
It was definitely the darkest point in my life,
even to thoughts of suicide and suicide attempted.
When I first went to conversion therapy,
a big question was, "Why did you decide to be gay?"
(pensive music)
It took me probably a lot longer than it should've
to say like, "I didn't choose this,
I actually, I had no choice in this."
(birds singing) (pensive music)
The day that I left conversion therapy,
I was late to class,
and the family I was staying with
got one of those automated voice messages
that says, "Your child was 15 minutes late to class."
(answering machine beeping)
So they decided that they couldn't trust me.
I had to put the backpack on and face the wall,
and they told me that I wasn't allowed
to go to school anymore.
(transition whooshing)
So that night,
I waited 'til about three or four in the morning,
when I was sure everybody was asleep,
took the backpack off.
I went out the back door,
hopped over the fence,
and I went and hid in the bushes
until the buses started running.
Leaving was really scary.
I thought I was gonna get caught,
and then things were just gonna be really terrible for me.
But once I was on the bus,
I felt a sense of relief,
the biggest relief ever.
(powerful music)
It took a long time for me to feel safe.
After a really long court battle,
I was granted the right in a court order
to live as an openly gay teenager.
Without that, I don't think I'd be where I am today.
(birds singing)
I moved to Portland, Oregon.
I live with my girlfriend and my best friend
in this really beautiful city.
I have been lucky enough
to work with the Human Rights Campaign
and the National Center for Lesbian Rights
with their Born Perfect campaign,
and a lot of other nonprofits in between.
I've seen a lot of progress
when it comes to conversion therapy.
States are outlawing it, which is amazing,
but I think the fact that people
are actually talking about it
and are aware of what it is
is probably the biggest proactive change that I've seen.
I never blamed my parents.
I think what they did, they did out of love.
They were afraid for my soul
because of what they believed in.
So how can you be mad at somebody
who just wants to try to save you,
even if it was the completely wrong way to do it,
and that I didn't need saving.
(upbeat music)
My relationship with my parents now is great.
They just had their first Pride weekend in Portland,
which was really fun.
They're really big advocates now.
People can definitely grow and change.
Being able to educate my parents
and having them listen to me,
value my thoughts and opinions,
and want me in their life,
whether I'm gay or not,
is really amazing.
Going through conversion therapy,
I heard a lot of, "It'll get better,"
but when is it gonna get better
and who's gonna make it better?
But I think if I could say something
to my 16-year-old self,
I'd say, "You get to be the person that makes it better.
You have the opportunity to change things for other people.
That's why you should stick it out."
Gwen Shamblin was a dietician
who promised to make women thin
through their faith in God.
She promised community and support,
and she meant well, until she didn't.
The more power she had,
the more she wanted at any cost.
And when her weight-loss workshop
became more like a God-fearing prison,
members wanted out.
(bright music)
- My name is Megan Cox,
I was a member of the Weigh Down Workshop
and Remnant Fellowship for 10 years.
My relationship with religion throughout my life,
it was always present.
I saw it as a way to be a better person
and a way to be closer to my mother.
My mother discovered the Weigh Down Workshop
around 1996 when I was 12.
The core philosophy is that Americans
are worshiping the refrigerator over God.
Instead of wanting to overeat,
take that and read the Bible,
pray, go to God, worship God,
placing that focus back on him.
(transition whooshing) (serene music)
Anytime Gwen Shamblin opened her mouth,
it was just full of charisma and authority.
She was a registered dietician,
so that lends her some credibility.
You believed what she said
because she was so sincere.
Around 1999, Gwen had noticed
that a lot of the Weigh Down Workshop participants
were going back to their churches
and regaining their weight,
and she felt a calling to break out
and create the Remnant Fellowship Church,
'cause she felt she had the one true way
to bring people closer to God
and keep the weight off.
- My name is Ge'Cobi Pittman,
and I was a member of Remnant Fellowship
for about 10 years.
(bright music)
I was 14 when my mom first found Weigh Down classes,
and we joined Remnant the year after.
I found friends and I was all-in.
They were very good at having people
reach out to new members,
and having sleepovers and bonfires
and we got to dress up,
and they just made us feel so special.
- My name is Helen Byrd,
I was a member of Remnant Fellowship Church
for 10 years.
(bright music)
I found Remnant in 2007,
I had just had a newborn baby
and I felt just the weight of the world on my shoulders,
and truthfully, I felt abandoned by God.
And so you're attracted to the light,
you're attracted to people who exude positivity,
hope and joy and gratitude.
Gwen Shamblin was an exuberant personality,
almost larger than life.
- In the early years,
it was very warm and loving,
Gwen embraced everyone.
(transition whooshing) (ominous music)
But then Gwen, going from just Weigh Down Workshop
to Remnant Fellowship,
she completely transformed
to someone who finally had power and a platform.
She became colder.
- I think Gwen eventually realized
that she couldn't control everyone
unless there was fear mongering around the weight.
It was like, "Make sure you're staying slim for God."
(transition whooshing) (pensive music)
- Being a Black woman and being surrounded by Black women,
I didn't have a negative perception
of my body or my weight,
but I was fat according to Gwen,
and so I needed to fast from my disobedience
and, "Give up the greed," as they like to say.
- Losing weight was definitely correlated with godliness,
and gaining weight was sin, simply put.
(transition whooshing)
- Losing weight felt great.
I mean, who doesn't love being skinny, right? (laughing)
But it always comes at a cost.
(transition whooshing) (ominous music)
I was starving myself for years.
(pensive music)
- Even though I was at a really good weight,
I think I just got skinnier and skinnier as time went on,
'cause it felt like that meant
I was (laughing) closer to God.
- My lowest weight was 130 pounds.
My collarbones and hip bones were very prominent,
and I was still asked how much weight I needed to lose.
(transition whooshing)
- I was at my thinnest that I had ever been.
I had drank all the Kool-Aid and swallowed it
and was swimming in the Kool-Aid.
(transition whooshing) (pensive music)
- Submitting yourself completely and wholly
to anyone in authority to you in Remnant Fellowship
showed how strong you were in your relationship with God
and showed that you were serious about your salvation.
If you were a person who chronically dealt
with having a hard time losing weight,
you'd have to sit out from church services
and church functions
until you essentially repented
and figured it out and lost that weight.
- I was hungry, (laughing)
I think I was always just a little hungry
'cause I was scared to gain weight.
(suspenseful music)
- The general kind of rule of thumb with Remnant
was that the only emotions allowed
were happy, joyful ones.
If you exuded anything other than happy or joyful,
there was a problem.
(transition whooshing)
Dedicated members of Gwen Shamblin's Remnant Fellowship
were beginning to have doubts.
It was no longer just about losing weight,
Gwen controlled every facet of their lives.
They regretted drinking the Kool-Aid
and were tired of submitting themselves
completely and wholly to a woman
who no longer had their best interest at heart.
But Gwen wasn't going to let them leave without a fight.
(transition whooshing) (suspenseful music)
- For me, the first inkling that something wasn't right,
it just wasn't sitting well with me,
was in 2005.
I went to massage school,
and people were asking me, "Oh, what do you do?"
And I had moments where I'm like,
"How do I explain Remnant?
If I can't feel comfortable
talking about my life in Remnant and everything,
then maybe it's not a good thing."
(transition whooshing) (pensive music)
- The beginning of the end for me
came when my father died very unexpectedly,
and so I had a crisis of faith.
So I sought out leadership,
and I was made fun of, I was mocked.
And at that moment, it broke something in me.
(ominous music)
- Whenever we had negative thoughts about leaving
or were questioning the church,
Gwen would say that was Satan
and that was because our own sin was running rampant.
And leaving Remnant Fellowship
meant choosing death essentially.
Your prayers aren't answered and you're cursed.
(transition whooshing) (suspenseful music)
- I was pregnant when we were leaving the church.
I had a last-goodbye meeting with Gwen.
It started off with them questioning
why we wanted to leave,
and then the threats came.
(transition whooshing)
Gwen looked me in the eyes and said,
"Do you wanna see the list of curses we keep
that happen to people who leave the church?
Things are not gonna go well for you."
Dead serious.
(pensive music)
I thought I was strong enough
to not let (laughing) that permeate,
but then when we lost the baby,
all that came back.
I was used as an example from Gwen to highlight like,
"This is what happens when you leave, you're cursed.
She lost her baby,
it's because she left the church."
(pensive music)
- The last straw for me leaving
was when I was being disciplined
for something I didn't do.
My punishment was to have my cellphone taken away.
And I went along with it,
and then I said, "Wait, no, I don't think so."
I had to go.
- Leaving was very difficult.
It went from, "This is my whole life, my community,"
to nothing.
(transition whooshing) (pensive music)
My ex-husband and I separated
a few years after we left the church,
and then the miscarriage,
and so I was depressed, immediately depression.
And then drinking, all the vices I turned to
to try to cope with the pain I felt
from being an ex-member.
- Because I was starving myself for years,
it's really messed up my metabolism.
I do have type 2 diabetes
and I have high blood pressure.
The mental fallout for me after leaving
was trying to remind myself
that I didn't just sentence myself and my son to hell
and to have a cursed life,
that things were gonna be okay
and that I did make the right decision.
(bright music) (transition whooshing)
- When I left Remnant,
I was just sort of addicted to weighing myself
so that I can determine
whether or not I was right with God for the day.
I noticed that my youngest daughter
started weighing herself
at about nine or 10 years old.
So some of those psychological things still plague us,
but I'm working through them.
My dedication to God.
I'm not wanting him to be just this fire and brimstone God.
I'm leaning into that loving side
and I'm leaning into that caring side
and the forgiving side.
I think that I'm in a much better place.
(transition whooshing) (pensive music)
- When I lost the baby,
I felt like my world was over.
And I feel like, in those darkest moments, I was saved,
'cause I still believe in a God.
And now I am eight months pregnant. (laughing)
So being where I am in my mental and physical,
I'm just so happy,
so ready to be a mom.
- I don't necessarily think that Gwen
believed that she was God,
she's the next best thing.
(upbeat music)
- I 100% believe that Gwen
did start off with good intentions.
However, I think when Remnant Fellowship started,
her intentions definitely started changing.
And while she may have felt they were good,
her actions and the things carried out
in her name were not,
so the message was definitely lost.
- For a long time, it was like, "Oh my gosh,
how could I have followed this woman?"
But I think I have mercy now,
because the core of it is just belonging,
Remnant was just another way of belonging.
It started off as a safe place for us,
until it wasn't.
(transition whooshing) (bright music)
- By overcoming their traumatic experiences and persevering,
these women have shown they are not victims,
they are survivors.
- I'm a great mother
and I'm a great person and a good wife
without Remnant's message.
And I think I take great pride in that,
that I've been able to prove them wrong.
- I could cry thinking about my journey.
I'm so grateful.
Life is joyful.
- [Ana] And they stand alongside all the other survivors
we've met this past hour.
- I'm really just living the life
that my 17-year-old self dreamed of.
- It's been eight years
since I've been in conversion therapy,
but it's still something
that I have to carry with me.
- I am doing okay, and I'm alive,
but I am also a (beep) mess.
- We all broken crayons, but we still can color.
Look at me,
married, five kids, medical degrees,
and my crayon was stepped on, smeared,
but I'm still out here coloring.