Stella McCormick was raised in what she calls a single family cult: a homeschooled, high control evangelical household where her mother controlled what the children were allowed to feel, learn, and know. In her memoir, Deliver Us From Mother: Faith, Fear and the Family Cult That Broke Me, she names that system and tells the story of getting out.

Stella talks with Jeremy about finding Steven Hassan's BITE model and checking off behavior, information, thought, and emotion control one by one, about the nightly spanking circles justified by James Dobson and To Train Up a Child, and about how the control followed her all the way to Army boot camp. Now a U.S. Army sexual assault victim advocate and Navy reservist whose doctoral research focuses on juvenile re-offending, she also talks about therapy, going no contact with her parents, and what recovery looks like on the other side.

Content note: this episode discusses sexual violence and family violence.

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