NXIVM Whistleblower w/ Sarah Edmondson Part 2

The views and opinions expressed are solely those of the podcast author or individuals participating in the podcast, and do not represent the opinions of Red Table Talk productions, I Heart Media, or their employees. There's been various pieces around that to the point where we get to now with a vow. What you see is me slowly forgiving Lauren because I came to understand what had been done to her, and that ultimately freed any anger that I held towards her as I could see that she didn't have a

chance because she came into when she was eighteen. I came in was in with twenty seven. I was a little more formed, I think, as a person. So there are things that I just distanced myself from that I just refused to do. I didn't know that I was doing that, but I just didn't where she was giving everything that she could to this man who she thought was essentially God. Sometimes the best of ourselves, our hopes and our belief and others and ourselves can get us

to the worst places. In our last conversation with Sarah Edmondson, we learned how she became a part of Nexium through programs such as Executive Success Programs because she believed in their message of self growth and potential. Sarah believed in her friendships within this organization, in their mentorship and the

possibility of what she was teaching and learning. In this episode, we are going to hear about what happened when the abuses persisted and Sarah's relationships within the organization and the system itself fell apart. Sarah had been recruited to a subgroup of women within the organization called Doss by her close friend and mentor, Laurence Saltzman. This once valued friendship was now characterized by coercion control and was taking Sarah

to a traumatic, destructive place. However, in this episode, we will also hear Sarah's process of healing and whether it is healing from being in a toxic cult or toxic relationship. The top notes are similar. Let's hear about Sarah's experience of the fall of Nexium and her process of loss, fear, grief, and healing. What did that look like, this master slave being mentored her by her daily There's what it started as and then what it grew to become. And it

was very short because I didn't stay there long. But before I get into let me tell the other things I committed to. So I committed to the obedience. I committed the master slave. And that's when she told me that I'd be getting this initiation ceremony and that I was getting a really pretty too. It's really gorgeous design. It was really special, and she testified that. She told

me that it was a brand. I remember her saying tattoo because that was my sticking point because I'm Jewish, I don't have any tattoos and blah blah blah, and she would eam me on that, which she did later. But those were the commitments. So then after I had heard it all, I had to give a final piece of collateral to have me fully collateralized, to seal the deal. That's when I gave a nude photo. Okay, the nude

photo became the second second collateral. The term later became fully collateralized, as collateral to hear about it and collateral to say yes, so I say yes. The initial master's relationship is similar to everything we've been doing up until now, as it has built over the patch of ball of years. Consider this, from day one, I've checked in with my coach every day, persistency done. At some points I was

doing five persistencies. That persistency was a term of like five minutes of Spanish, or like ten minutes of doing my taxes or half an hour workout. People were committing to daily commitments for themselves with things they were doing for themselves flossing your teeth, doing ab crunches, and the coach was an accountability accountability. One thing that's so insidious about Nexium is that they were basically repurposing rather fundamental

coaching and therapy concepts. For example, slowly build a new habit by doing it a few minutes a day, but packaging it under new terminology and harnessing it into a larger system of day to day control. Cult and toxic indoctrination are a long game, small changes that happened so gradually that they feel imperceptible and then fully overtake you. So I've already been doing that, I've already been given collateral.

I've already been doing all these things. So all these things were so normalized, makes me think Keith had planned. He loves the long game, and it says even a class he taught us about sociopaths and how like, you know, a bad person might be jealous of their neighbor and key their car, but a sociopath will wait for months and is in the neighbor's dog over time and just enjoy watching their neighbor suffer about their dying dog. He taught us that, I totally believe he long game planned

this out. It's like first time I introduced this concept and this and then I'm gonna introduce this concept. At the time they get there, they won't even know. And

I think that's true. In addition to the women that he had in their front line, they were also malnourished, They weren't eating properly, they weren't sleeping properly, their phones were on at all hours to be available to him, and they were already as slaves, right, So the kind of obedience that these women were showing to him was already sort of in place, and it's the metaphor of the of an emaciated woman isn't lost on me, right, because it's something that almost becomes girl like about her,

you know, breasts become smaller, it's just a shrink and that's what he wanted, the small woman he could dominate. Then that's not unusual for folks who have that kind of megalomania behind them. So now you're still working with Lauren he is, I don't know anything about it. In fact, one of the main things that I was when I was pitched this program is that it was women only. It was a women's empowerment group. No men were involved, nothing to do with Next time, I asked her straight up,

this Keith know about this? And she's straight up wide to me and said, no, this is part of the whole betrayal. You know what I had to deal with later. But so many questions she would answer, and the rest she would say, this is part of your commitment. Because I'll keep in mind my whole twelve years I'm working

on my control issues. This is the ultimate surrender for me to not totally know everything that's going on and to surrender to the process and to give my vow of obedience to her, and she's going to mentor me through this, and I have to trust the process. So it's basically a formalized way of getting you to do things without consent exactly exactly. And that's sort of they mental gymnastics that the loyalists are saying now is they didn't have to tell people that it was Keith initials

because they were consenting to not consent. They were consenting to not know what was going on. So that's how they're that's how they've justified it in their mind that it's okay to lie to their friends that they're going to put Keith initials on with these bodies without knowing. Sarah has said a few times that one of the things that the folks and Nexium we're trying to do was to push her to address her control issues. Well that's a bit of projection, now, isn't it. Well, Sarah

was having this happen in a culti organizational structure. This happens in narcissistic families and relationships all the time. Gaslighting a person who is simply just trying to set healthy boundaries or maintain their individualtion is often labeled as controlling behavior as a means for the narcissistic person or the system itself to control the person. This kind of projective shape shifting and reality alteration is a hallmark of any toxic, antagonistic,

and coercive person or system. What else was Lauren asking from you in this relationship? It started as as just checking in and she gave me a couple of assignments. One assignment stuck out as being like actually helpful, which was basically she was helping me with some something that was going on with Nippie and I and asked me to like not ask him for anything, just to like she was trying to teach me my own self that I could handle everything myself because nip he was feeling

like I was nagging him or whatever. Like it was to help us and that it that was helpful. First big red flag within DOSS other than the things I just mentioned, is then she said I need to send more collateral and that I'd be sending monthly collateral. Now keep in mind this is a lifetime vow of obedience, Like I need to send collateral every month. This is when I was like Okay, I have to figure out how to get out of this. And I thought I

was going to try to get out of doss. I wasn't thinking I was trying to get out of next Um. I just like, this is crazy, It's not what I signed up for. I fantasized about writing a letter to Nancy anonymously to try to blow it out that way, and then she asked me. She said, as like, what else collateral can I give you? And she suggested the deed to my condo, my home in Vancouver. I know. And this is at this point is when I was I was starting to actively be away that I was

being obedient, but I was starting to lie. I was like, okay, I'll look into that. Let me talk. I don't know how to get that to you in America because I talked to a notary, talked to a lawyer, like what do I do? How do I how do I do that? Just give you the paperwork, you know. Part of that commitment was the check ins. And I knew that I had other daw sisters that I hadn't met yet until

we were branded. Won't get to that in a second, and we had to check in at a certain time and to respond at a certain time, and I can keep my phone off at night. That was another big problem. I was already sleep deprived with my little one who wasn't sleeping through the night, and now I kep my phone on and Nippy was like, why are we turning your phone off? And we were fighting about that. I'm like,

I'm doing this exercise with the with the greens. He thought it was a green sash thing like he thought it was people who are quite high. So your phone was on. I've read this, so if you get explained, because it's really to me, this is actually horrifying what was expected of you. So your phone had to be on all the time and I need to respond within a minute that they'd send a question mark and to respond ready. So it was readiness drills. Again, this has

been happening for three or four years. Readiness drills already s OP that was part of s OP engine, asas that we were in teams. Yeah, so all of this was again so normalized. It was normally so you didn't so even back in these other sub subgroups s O, P, S, Genesis, whatever, that there was this kind of like question mark ready. So it was just showing that it was it was again, it was almost like trying to stop people from being defectors and in keeping this top of mind, creating a

hyper vigilance. Like I said, it's it's so reminiscent to me of the hyper vigilance we see in people who are from toxic family systems. Here it was so codified. We can send you this question mark ready. So it's like a thing, but in a in a toxic family system, it's how do I not upset the parent? And how do I? How do I? How do I? And you'll see kids who grow up like this are wide eyed and always on the edge of their seat wondering how do I keep the parents from fighting? How do I

not get into trouble? How do we make sure the parent is soothed? So they were creating that context all under the pretext of like when I was in it, I didn't like it, but I made myself like it to the point where I'd be like, this is creating team. Like if one of our team members wasn't we couldn't find them, we'd like call our spouse or their work

and be like, Okay, now everyone's accounted for. And we thought we were learning how to be, you know, how accountable and have each other's back, and we you know, there were times when this system of readiness before even Doss, where we were able to do things in the world because of our network, Like someone's parents went missing in Germany and we were able to contact someone and like use the network to do things that seemed heroic because

of our little tree of readiness. And so I was proud of it, just like you know later, before I knew I was CA's initials, I was proud of the brand when I first got it. My session with Sarah will continue after this break. I'll tell you when I read that part of your book about someone sending you a question mark and you had to respond within sixty seconds, and if you didn't respond within sixty seconds, you were either being suppressive or entitled, or we're going to publish

naked pictures of you in the New York Times. I mean, like it was heaven knows what they were going to do. So I felt very tense when I read that part of the book. It was very stressful. And I'm thinking of you with a new baby, and you're saying here, I am trying to balance engaging with my family, running my center, raising my child, being in a marriage, and you would have to constantly break out of those things

to respond. I felt so abusive. I still to this day have trouble putting, like, for example, in that context, the only time I couldn't not be available as if I was going to be in the swimming pool, like where you can't bring your phone, or in an airplane without service, So that was the only time, and you had to say, I'm going dark. I'm going to be in a plane for five hours and I'm landing at this time. Then I'll be not dark. If I went but I went into my elevator, I lose service, so

I would always be like dark in the elevator. Lauren wanted me to not be dark while driving. She wanted to be and I that's that was a boundary for me, and like that's illegal. I'm not going to do that. But they really pushed hard on that one for example, like dangerous and that right there. You know, we talked about this in malignant narcissistic relationships or abuse of narcissistic

relationships that are more severe. We see people are in a relationship who's very controlling, where are you, what are you doing? Who are you with? Why aren't you responding? Why aren't you answering my calls? The person might be at work, person might be in the bathroom, person might just left her phone in a different room, and it can really escalate to a hundred tax d and twenty texts. This reminds me of that a sort of toxic partner saying to the partner saying, I bought you a phone.

You will respond whenever I tell you it had that flare. And it's so interesting that they were able to morphit into an accountability community building exercise. It shows the power of manipulation and another example of the next time of like the good we thought it was and then what it actually was, and I just said exactly what it wasn't even to this day, like even coming to this interview, I have to tell my husband and like my my producer and partner, I'm going to be dark for a

couple of hours. I still feel in a need to let people know I'm not going to be available. It's deeply rooted in. Oh, It's very much rooted in and anyone who's been in a relationship like that, we'll find it nerve racking, and I've worked with clients and therapy where that's not normal. And twenty years ago, we didn't have text, and we weren't calling people all the time saying I'm going to do this click oh, and now

I'm not doing this anymore. I mean, these technologies have actually allowed controlling people to become so malevolent and so menacing. This system of having to be available twenty four hours a day to face penalties if she did not respond to a text within sixty seconds of having her sleep disrupted and her movement day and night needing to be accounted for, all with the specter of fear hanging over her that her collateral would be released. This is coercive control.

Evans Stark captures it well when he says that coercive control results in confusion, contradiction, and fear. This is what we see in abusive relationships, malignant, narcissistic or psychopathic partners. And this is what Doss has set up here. It's coercive control and it is a dangerous and destructive pattern. What was happening in Dass again, anyone if they only read that without a context, would say, what the heck? But now that we understand this has been what has

been happening in Nexium for years. You're going along just so I have sort of an understanding holistically of what's happening. Was it before DOSS or after? Now you're already in Doss that you started meeting with other members of next Um and ESP saying something doesn't seem quite right here. Did that revelation happen at what point? Because I'm trying to understand like where you were starting to her dissenting voices. So it's really if you look at my last six

months January to June. January was when Lauren brought me to DOS and that was also the months that Bonnie left. Okay, So Bonnie, who's Mark's Wife's wife, Yes, left and she left. I tie into that in terms of this whole thing, is that she left and she's writes this lovely letter, you know, thank you everything. I'm going to go back to l A. I'm pursue acting inside. I'm going fabulous. I'm so happy for Bonnie. I want people to go pursue their goals in my inner real self, not my

proctor Edmondson self. Is now I've been sent to go find out why Bonnie hasn't signed the exit paperwork, which is to say it is basically a gag order, like I'm leaving on good terms that I'm never going to see the company and I'll never tell anyone what happened the next years your constitutional rights basically. And I've been saying, because I her like upline even though marks her husband, I'm her upline like superior in the ranking system, so that's my job. And she doesn't get back to me.

And I think that's weird. And Lauren's like, in my ears, saying terrible things about Bonnie, terrible, Why is she going to l A She's just being like indulgent in pursuing her, like just awful things, and in some way that's like I want her to do those things. One sign of a toxic organization, this pervasive triangulation and defaming any so called defectors Bonny, and this becomes more clear in the vow.

Bonny was what we often call a truth teller in a narcissistic system, and she left when a toxic family workplace and obviously called senses there is descent. They go into full triangulation mode, talking badly about anyone who leaves, devaluing them. This was a dissonant experience for Sarah, who actually was committed to the larger goal of people becoming their best selves. But she was slowly finding out that despite what Nexium preached, they weren't about growth. They were

about diminishment. But if you are in a system of any kind, big or small, where the tendency is lots of fractious gossip or cruel criticism of people who left, that is a sign of a toxic organization. So that's happening. I get hooked into dass. I don't get branded til March, so I have about, I guess, six weeks of just texting and being mentored by Lauren. The initiation ceremony happens in March. All those details are in the vow and in the book, and we can whatever. So I get

so the branding happens. The branding itself doesn't wake me up. In fact, it empowers me to be that I have the secret with these other women, and I pushed through the hard thing. The details of that. Again, like I just to triggering sometimes to go into. But the point of it is that I didn't wake up until Mark in the end of May is leaving and at this time, also my lease is up in Vancouver and I've been looking at new spaces. That's now twenty dollars a month.

The leases are expensive. I need to find a new space. Mark my business partner, and I'm trying to get Marked to come up and look at the space with me so we can sign a new lease. And he's like being weird. He's being weird until he eventually signs a sense of letter just like Bonnie did, saying he's leaving, and I'm like, you know what is going on? So he doesn't tell me why he's leaving until I signed

an NDA with him. There's lots of details of this the last few months, but the key part of it that I think is important is that we finally have an honest conversation and he tells me one of the reasons why he's leaving is because there's this secret women's group that he's become aware of, an Albany, and part of the group is that women have been tasked to have sex with Keith, which I didn't know about. I didn't know about sex, and he didn't know about the branding.

I told him what I knew and he told me what he knew, and he thinks that Keith's a sociopath. And that's that's where everything makes sense. Everything that never made sense throughout all the years, like Keith being surrounded by women, why we were never able to grow past a certain point where certain projects got thwarted, why I wasn't getting paid, Like all these things were like, oh he's a con man, Oh okay, And and my world, my world fell apart. But it also everything made sense,

you know what I mean? Like it was it was both with the upside down world flipped. I felt like the rug up pulled out from underneathe me and shortly Actually I don't even remember the timeline. I have to read my own book. But I showed one of the women that had brought in as one of my slaves, who I basically just coached and never get branded. But

I showed her my brand when I woke up. There is a moment in every relationship with an antagonistic person, whether that is a narcissist, sociopaths, psychopath, or just a mix of antagonism. There is a moment for most people when the pieces fall into place. Maybe it is a conversation with a friend, a therapist, reading a book, watching a video, and then you finally get it. What Sarah shares here is the experience of many. It isn't this

beautiful moment of clarity and the angels sing. Quite the contrary. Yes, there is an almost surreal moment of clarity, and then, as she put it, the upside down world everything you know does flip and things you had pinned hopes and beliefs on start crumbling. For this reason, many survivors within these relationships sometimes don't want to know. It is too painful and destabilizing. But once you see it, it's not something you can unsee. And she saw Keith initials when

she looked at it. She's the one who was like, oh my god, there's a canon or which I hadn't seen because it's on the side. So then I went from betrayal to anger too. And then you know, so many things happen after that, where Mark and I had Mark Tellneby because I'm still afraid of my collateral being released, and together we hatched a plan to first it was just to escape, and then it was escape and eventually to dismantle, but we didn't know that at first. It

was like it happened in stages. It is a remarkable story because we think of you escaping, you know, they're bringing it down. It really was an escape and you really were in harm's way. Yeah, that wasn't an illusion. And I've said this to Mark, I'll say to you, I've never thank God met Keith Nieri. Based on all the behavior and everything seen, he's the psychopath. You know, sociopaths tend to be a bit more impulsive and reactive.

They're messier, they're less planning because the thing he didn't know what the hell he was talking about. He didn't even know what a sociopath was. And in fact, the psychopath is a little better able to play a long game because they're more regulated because they don't get his anxious. It was a pathetic, vulnerable element to Keith. That was the only piece that might pull for sociopath. But it could actually have been like a little bit of top

note of a vulnerable narcissism. But the psychopathy around the absolute lack of remorse, that to me was the ringer. A narcissistic person actually will feel remorse, still feel ashamed, they'll shift blame. But you can see the guilt. It's written all over their face because they're afraid they're going to lose status and supply. But for a psychopathic person, it's just they really they just they hold to that delusion.

It's really delusional. So then we get to see what happens, and the vow has been memorialized everywhere what you went through. And I don't think people quite understand what you went through because now we see it's done. He's in four hundred and twenty years, he'll die in prison. But for years you have to live with the likelihood and decent

likelihood that he would have faced nothing. And ultimately, were it not for the child pornography and the child endangerment charges, I'm gonna be honest with you, I think he'd be walking around amongst us right now. Yeah, I really do so, after experiencing this betrayal, and frankly, I think the branding

was a physical harm because it was not consensual. All these things have piled up and you're still a mom and a wife and and all these things are happening simultaneously, and you're still having to live in this constant fear that's something bad may happen to you because there's a decent probability that he will not go to prison. Yeah, it's a very very stressful time. I can't imagine. I

still I still look over my shoulder. I still don't post on Instagram until the day after I'm out of a location nights, not even so much because of him, because of Phi flying monkeys and what they're willing to do.

My session with Sarah will continue after this break. So now the Vow Part two is out, and I've read your book, and this is the part of the story that I think that not everyone has really gotten to here and reflect on, because I think unfortunately everybody got so caught up in the salacious elements of the story that's always been I think, what has damned this story?

Oh blah blah blah, sex cult? Like, now there's something else happening here that to me was almost like a little bit of a red herring that in the sense of yes, that was a problematic piece of it, but

you had this. It was a seventeen thousand people are some vast number of people who have participated in these esp programs really came in to learn something, got in, got out, And so when that many people are doing something it's legitimized, basically, and so now you have let me let me give you sort of a first person reactions i'd like to hear. After I saw The Vow part one, I was horrified, obviously by Keith, but not

surprised those personalities do what they do. I was angry, angry, deeply angry about the Allison Max and the lawns and the Nancy's, especially Nancy. You know, she was given a position of trust and she betrayed that. I really resented it as a therapist because as it is, I think therapy still as although it's getting more normalized, it has this bad name. And then you see this person and like you said, cheesy videos and taking advantage of this and giggling like a school girl with Keith, and I

was disgusted and horrified. And with that mindset I did things like read your book and go into the Vow season two. And in The Vow season two, it took us on a psychological ride. I cannot tip my hat to these filmmakers more. I don't think something has taken me on as big as psychological ride as that did. Because after episode one, I was beyond enrage, Like I actually I was. I was pacing my house like like an angry animal. And then by the time it came to a close and the Vow Part two ended, the

complicated feelings I had for Nancy and Laura. I mean they overwhelmed me, how complicated they were weally and in fact, I was watched that last episode and I went back and read your book and I got great Lauren, But I'm like, wait, that's me as an outsider. He does not know these people from Adam and just we got

immersed in a story you lived it. How did you sort through the wreckage of betrayal by a friend, betrayal by someone you valued as a teacher in Nancy, betrayal and ongoing if you will, betrayal by people who remain loyal to somebody who harmed so many How are you walking through this wreckage and healing? Because I think here, Sarah is where the audience of navigating narcissism, who is focused on healing, is like, how do you walk through this and how do you make sense of this? That's

a great question. It's well, it's been a five year journey and five years out and it's it's still happening, and It's happened in layers and pieces. I think the biggest thing for me has been therapy with a call expert. And the first, the very first thing was understanding. And I remember it was Dan Shaw who taught me right

love Dan Shaw. He taught me that there's you know, there's the if your listeners can picture a vertical line and a horizontal line, the vertical line is where the loyalty to the ranks, and that when you're bought into a system like nex hum, any member will throw their own friend or partner or whatever under the bus for

the approval of the rank above them. So understanding that was the first thing that that that made sense to me, and because I was so hurt, it was so betrayed, and Dan was like, imagine that they're sick, they have a mental illness. That helped me. That was a big nugget of understanding that it wasn't that they're trying to betray you, hurt me or whatever, but they were choosing what they needed to do for their upper rank. Right. And there's been very various pieces around that to the

point where we get to now with the vow. What you see is me slowly forgiving Lauren because I came to understand what had been done to her, and that ultimately freed any anger that I held towards her, because I I could see that she didn't have a chance. Because she came into she was eighteen. I came in was that was twenty seven. I was a little more formed, I think, as a person. So there were things that I just distanced myself from that I just refused to do.

I didn't know that I was doing that, but I just didn't where she was giving everything that she could to this man who she thought was essentially God, you know. And so part of me also has you know, because I was in that system and could see how I mean, I thought I was doing good. So I know that they thought they were doing good. They didn't. They weren't. Lauren didn't do those things to hurt me. She really

didn't think that she was trying to help me. And I understand how she justified it for herself and what she was going for, and I have empathy for that. I don't take that personally. I was a collateral damage to her abuse. Yeah, Seriously, I'm still kind of reconciling Nancy because I haven't had that contact with her. I did. One thing that's not shown in the vow is that Lauren sent me a letter, yeah, through our lawyers, that apologize deeply and profusely and from the bottom of our heart.

And I accepted that. And I don't have that from Nancy. But the vow season two is the closest I've got. I'd like to go see her and hear it from her, and and I don't know. My parents have always taught me like that, you heal ruptures. And that's ultimately been the hardest part of the last five years, is that

I couldn't have closure with anybody. It was being shunned, and then there was legal stuff and I wasn't allowed to talk to them, and so I was like processing in my dreams and in my writing and writing about it and journaling and poetry and all of my dreams.

And I still have. Probably the dream person I dream about the most is actually Nikki, and it's a reoccurring dream where I see her and we're hugging and we're laughing about how we used to be an a cult and and in the dream I tell her, my God, Nikki, I've I've dreamed about this so many times, and now it's finally. It was finally, like you're awake and we laugh and we and then I wake up and it's a dream again. But it's so real every time, and

I just OK, I can see the pain. Like that's the hardest thing for me right now, like Nancy and Lauren, but like I've brought in Nikki, you know, I brought her in and then she she moved there and she was with him and she's ruined her life. And like, I won't stop doing this until everybody is awake if you feel comfortable, and don't if you don't, because I did. I sat with that and and I when I recognized you did bring Nikki in and she remains loyal this

and you're right, she has she's ruined her life. How did you cope with that recognition that you brought Nikki into this space? Well there's been a lot of therapy about that too, um because as you know, the tenants, even next team is to is to beat oneself up for that. And so I did that for a while, and now I had to recognize that, like I brought her to something that was good, and then she made choices that I didn't make, and I can't be responsible

for that. I know that intellectually, Yes, no, I am sure. If you've talked to me, Dan shot to me is actually one of the most it's one of the foremost voices in this space. I I respect his writing and his intellect in this it's unparalleled. But when we look at dance work, we look at other work in the area and this stuff. I don't know if anyone ever talked to you about moral injury. Yeah, I mean that's a lot of what this is, this concept that the

leaning into this idea I did. I did something bad, and I'm aware I did something bad, and I did something bad in the midst of what I thought was going to be good, or in the midst of doing

a job. For example, a soldier who kills someone in battle, it was in the name of the war, but in the way the soldiers are are symbols of something larger, and that might have just been an innocent kid that was getting shot, and the soldiers deal not just post traumatic stress, but also a moral injury, which is separate and it's and we actually don't even have treatment protocols

or anything from more injury. It's that sort of unique space and I wondered about that people who were recruiting people in and then recognize what they had brought them into, and like many people left did their classes and left, but the ones who are who stayed on, like like Nikki, I, I thank you for sharing that, because I couldn't that. I mean, I can't imagine how much of the last

five years. It's a deep pain that moral injury. Yeah, yeah, And I actually learned that from me on your Lolledge and your Lolledge's book her her book was a big part of my of my healing and reconciling that Nippy and I both are moral injuries were different because he wasn't a recruiter. Is this this is different? But it's it's it's such a tricky thing because so much of what we learned in terms of like the ethical breach

as well, is like you clean up your mass. So I'm still trying to clean up my mass and also trying to recognize there some things that I can't control. And another person told me that I was leaving, you're if you're leaving in this way, you're also going to be stepping over bodies and you can't bring everyone with you, and I brought a lot of people with me, but I left some people behind and that's just it's just hard.

I don't know. I don't know how to reconcile that you may not reconcile it, and that becomes sort of an existential wound and in some ways holding space for the idea that you may not reconcile. It actually becomes

the healing. And much as you had a scar on your body once that wouldn't heal well, this becomes one of those psychological scars that doesn't heal well, it doesn't and you know, then that becomes also a profound, you know, a profound part of this process and that you can actually engage in the self compassion of Okay, I can't reconcile this, and I can still move forward. Thank you for saying that it's Sarah. It's a relief to hear that.

And I think also I need to because I feel like the more that I try to get them out, the more that they say, how dare you correct? How dare you tell me what I need to do? And I'm aware of that there is a radical acceptance there and that you you can see them from a place of grace I I would get angry when I would

watch The Loyalist. I think that the Loyalist piece of this second season is one of the more powerful and frankly unsettling elements of it, because what it's showing us in real time is the willing denial that they have of other people's pain. My feeling is, you have your process, and you even can adhere to his teachings. I understand that there's multiple things that can be true, you still believe that, But the unwillingness to recognize the pain of

another human being, I can't ever get behind that. I know people always say like, is there too much of a platform for them? And I don't think so, because it shows how that type of indoctrination works, and it's it's educational. I don't think anyone's going to watch that and go, oh, yeah, maybe Keith is misunderstood and Brandy is a really good way to teach people in empowerment.

I don't think that. I think it's it's And I also still also think that the filmmakers did a real service to all of us showing dignity and all of our journeys. Absolutely, you had a very very powerful part of the story where the individuals who are helped so

significantly with Tourette's disorder a tick disorder. What's interesting is a lot of what the teachings of ESP and Exium were were cognitive behavioral models, and we know that the strongest evidence base out there exists in the literature for Tourette's is cognitive behavioral therapy. So they were merely doing what was already out in the literature, but sort of packaging it is in this miracle cure kind of way.

And I can understand how a person who was living with a debilitating condition then has this moment where they do some work and it gets better. More than some work, they actually do the work and it improves and their

lives improve. But I think that all toxic relationships, all narcissistic relationships, and even a severer story as the one you went through with this, with this organization, with this cult, is that many things can be true at the same time, and that what makes these relationships so unique and why I think so many people are struggling with understanding them, is in the midst of this abuse, this trauma, this desolation,

and this dehumanization, where real people, real friendships truly good experiences, real learning, and I think the naivete is like, Nope, these terrible things happen, so that all goes away. It doesn't all go away. Those things were real. It's no different than a person who is married to a malignant narcissist and says, however, I still remember that moment in the delivery room and it was real. I remember a honeymoon, it was real. There was a moment we took a

walk on a beach and it was real. And those multiple truths that those things were real and this person abused you. That is the most difficult healing journey a person can go through. You couldn't agree more as you're saying, I'm like slashbacks are coming back in the good times. Yeah, yeah, even market I don't even agree. But he's more throw the baby out with the bath water in terms of the tech, and I'm more like, well, there's this good thing and that good thing, but I've had to go

those good things. Those tools that I still use are not Keith. That's CBT and that's Buddhism and that's you know, seven habits of highly effective people or whatever. That's how I've I didn't want to throw out twelve years of my really hard work. I just couldn't do it too efficiency oriented and everyone approaches this different and so I can respect Mars need to throw all of it away, and I can also respect someone saying I need to

find a balance. But what sort of the counterweight to throwing it all away that Mark did is the loyalists sort of still saying it is all completely true and having no empathy and no recognition for the experience of others. So they've now really taken on the characteristics of the leader. Use yes, exactly. So you said one thing you turned to was poetry, and I would love if you could give the listeners of this podcast in your voice, an

opportunity to hear a poem that you wrote. It's in your book, and if you would read it to us, because it's it's really stunning, Not only were the producers of this show really profoundly affected by it. I've read it several times and I read it again last night w I saw the show. And so if you would read it to us, I think it would have so

much more me coming in your own voice. I'd love to and also tribute to my mom who brought me into her creative writing class as I was fresh out, and it was a great I thought just a distraction, but ended up being the seeds of this book and this this I wrote in that class. Oh wow, well it's really beautiful. Thank thank you for sharing it with us.

My pleasure. I'm aching to purge, to find the wise woman within me, and to perform a ritual of exorcism, to wrestle out the wiring, to twist out the hooks of the angry chords stretching so far from Albany, to keep me wittingly engaged. I've grown to hate these people, friends I once trusted with my life, my secrets, my dreams. They become shadows, soulless and mean, punishing, gossiping, lying trolls, empty shells of who they once were. And I'm out here, stranded,

violently trying to assemble my life back together. I'm harvesting normalcy, safety, security, warmth, kindness, connection, owning them, standing up and announcing proudly, this is what I want, this is who I am. I'm harvesting myself. I'm mending all the broken shards of my soul back into a whole person and with every recovery, I'm gently reminded that I never was actually broken, I was never deficient.

I was always whole and complete. I'm making the time, carving out space to extract the voice that I put aside for twelve years, and finding my creative outlet and time for me. Finally, I'm harvesting my joy, authentic joy, not robotic foe joy. I'm harvesting my forgotten freedom and play so I can join my son on the floor and it's lego masterpieces and get lost in the castle

with monsters and thunderstorms. I will discover myself again, flushed and wrung out, hanging fresh and laundered, swaying off a clothes line in the backyard of a simple, burnt red farmhouse and wild green grass against bluebird sky and son, purifying the whole scene, but especially me. I'm clean again. I know that through this process, I will have forgiven those who betrayed me, who threw me under the bus, who gasolate me and scavenge my delicate, naive mind, to

replace my beliefs with theirs. I will let go of the rage and just dance in the breeze with that closed line, swaying and calm. It will be me again one day, Mama Wife actress Yogi Smoothie Junkie. I'm grounded, rooted, and powerful. I will feel grateful for my journey. I will have told my story and can move on. I would lived the beginning, middle, and end of those chapters

of my life. My entire thirties is done now. The pain will leave my body to form words and educational passages for others to find their way out of their own darkness, and map for the friends I left behind and even for those I never met. Together will mild back as a whole community once again, stronger, wiser, invincible. Like that. Thank you so much. Thank you for reading that, for sharing that, for writing that. I think there's two things.

First of all, I'm going to give you like a little free psychology if you want to make you smile. There's a part of this where you read I will be me once again, Mama Wife actress, Yogi Smoothie Junkie. I am grounded, rooted. You said powerful. What did I say there? But in the book what you wrote was peaceful. Oh that's interesting that your mind went there, because I am wondering if you're peaceful? But that this has transcended into you actually finding a stronger voice in this because

that word came right out of you. It is superseded the word fage. Wow. That's wild, It really is wild, because every other word you said as exactly as it was. But there you said powerful and that is something that again, the process of healing is finding your voice. And there's another piece here, which I feel is almost like a love letter to every survivor out there. I'm harvesting myself. I'm mending all the broken shards of my soul back

into a whole person. I think after these relationships, cult, family, intimate relationship, it's the loss of the whole self that a person had to pawn and shave off bits of themselves to fit into what this other person was demanding, or to lose them or to feel like less of a person, or to be told you're entitled, you're suppressive,

you're whatever is wrong with you. Anytime your real self shone through and then you say here, and with every recovery, I'm gently reminded that never was I actually broken, I was never deficient. I was always whole and complete. Most survivors of these relationships their mantra becomes I am not enough, I'm not enough, that they become diminished by these relationships. And many survivors walk around calling themselves broken or damaged or lacking. And that's the work that you're not broken.

You're here, you're in front of us, you're showing up, you're getting up in the morning. That's why I tell my class you got out of bed today. Okay, it's a win. We're in a winter day, and it's but this language around this broken and damage. We end up and this is again using dan Shaw's language, we end up subjugated to them, subjugated to what they want of us. We we live into their distorted narrative of us, and we can always remain controlled. And so you capture that beautifully.

And I think if every survivor could just repeat that part to themselves over and over again, it's actually a really important mantra that nobody's broken, we're deficient or less. Thank you and thanks for having me revisit that. I I forgot about that poem, and it's uh, I'm going to take that powerful note into my next stage of my life. It is interesting you wrote it as peaceful. However, many years ago you wrote it, and that's an evolution

for you, because that's what healing is, right. It is a process of evolution, but it's also a process of return because before these experiences, as you said, you said it so beautifully, you called it, you're sort of delicate, naive mind that the sense of we often, I mean, these relationships are a loss and these experiences are a loss of innocence. We had a worldview, but it gets shattered. But there's a part of us that's willing to go

back and actually find ourselves in this mess. It's like, you know, we're walking through like a burned out home, but we find these beautiful things, and that's us. And so it was a profound journey that had really brought in, especially after after watching how it all unfolded with the

other players in the story, how complicated it was. We wanted Nancy and Lauren to be the We wanted to demonize them holy and even I as a as a therapist, as a person who talks about this all the time, who's been through it, I had to catch myself and say, slow, your role, Romeny, why did you need to see them

as all bad? And why are you struggling with seeing their real suffering because ultimately this entire experience for I'm sure either of those individuals was They are now shattered and they're trying to make sense of this and how it could get there. The only person that's taking no accountability was the prime perpetrator, and that's that's how it always goes, and that was it's all from him, Like no one around him signed up for this. That's not nobody.

So yes, I can forgive them, Yes, they still need to be held accountable in the way that the law decides. Right, would you ever be okay with not forgiving them? Uh? Yeah, I mean there's people I don't forgive, like Claire, I don't. I don't. I mean it's more it's more like I don't I want to go visit Nazy now I want to go visit Laura, And I don't feel that way with Claire. Um, I see how she was manipulated also,

But until people can this avowal Keith, I don't. It's yeah, I just don't feel that that need and you would also be able. I mean, if what's so stress challenging is this journey of forgiveness anyone else And I mean I'm sure that the whole range of experiences around forgiveness. Something I speak about, you know, very vehemently, is that there's no agenda around forgiveness. As someone chooses to forgive, that's their process. Of someone chooses not to forgive, that's

their process. Nothing is more r tuous, nothing is less virtuous. But if the forgiveness is being made from the premise that this person is going to change, that's never gonna work. It's that in this case, it's to recognize perhaps that the coercion they experienced was every bit as bad, perhaps even worse than others did. Oh yeah, and worse than mine. That's that's I think the crazy part of this whole story is that. And also I think partly why I'm able to speak about it is because I wasn't My

head wasn't as messed with as much. I didn't live there and didn't go to the day to day and popped in and out for trainings and then went back to my condo. I think, yeah, And honestly, what you had taken bet with you was what you considered to be the good parts of this. To actually do the piece of it that mattered, there's a piece, and this is a little bit of a strange aside, but I think it's worth mentioning. You had talked about a beloved mentor to you in this program called Barbed j Then

there was another woman named Pam Kaye Fritz. These were people who got sick really fast and declined really quickly, and it seems like there might have been other people who did too, Sarah, that part of the story is not lost on me. To be around this much human poison, don't tell me that's not going to get a person physically ill. I actually think that there is that and actual poisoning wow, which is yet to be fully expressed.

There was a documentary that touched on They did some sampling of Karen's hair in a really long hair and they found I don't remember the name of the chemical, but it's chemical found in rat poison broman no, not arsenic, No, I don't remember what it's called. But it is a documentary called Lost Women of Nexium and they did some testing, but it hasn't been fully investigated. First, I thought, because there was like ten or twelve women around Keith when

I was in it, that I had different cancers. And then Pam and Barb died anyway, all of all of that to say, nothing would surprise me. And yeah, I believe he was poisoning the older woman to make room for the younger women. Wow, you know, because whatever was happening to people, that people were getting so devastatingly ill, and nothing was being done, and there was the callousness, you know, I think that the callousness and then the

callousness being framed as almost a toughness and endurance. It's it was diabolical, and yet in exim we saw the top notes of everything we see in every toxic relationship. So, Sarah, I cannot thank you for coming in here for what was It wasn't easy, and I thank you for actually coming in here and being so vulnerable and trusting this process and me frankly, and I just I'm humbled. Just put it that way, I am too. It's so much better in person. I didn't know it would be like

so emotional, and also the bonus therapy. So I mean words, you know, in that way, a funny way our words slip out. I always think that there's just sort of this greater nature of ours. It's often saying could you let me out? Because I see the best of you, and I you know, I hope you see that in yourself.

And I think I think for many people, and like I said, I do believe motherhood in many ways was your salvation that sometimes for many of us, that how we actually loosened those mons is we wouldn't be willing to fight for ourselves, but we'd be willing to lay it all on the line for our children. So I think it's amazing And you're amazing mom, amazing person, and it's really been a joy getting to know you. Thank you.

If you have a friend and alliance supporter in me is but he greatly respects your works so so much. Thank you. Here are my takeaways from this conversation with Sarah. In my first takeaway, when people finally do get clarity in these relationships, it can actually activate a tremendous amount of grief knowing that someone is narcissistic or psychopathic or sociopathic,

no matter what the relationship is. While it can help things make sense, many survivors will share that they realized that they no longer have the life or the relationship they thought that they once did. It's as though everything becomes a lie overnight. It can be painful when others suggest, hey, well, aren't you relieved you doe to bullet when people find out about these personalities and how they played out in

this relationship. Ultimately, yes, this knowledge will foster healing, but initially, not only do people not believe they dodged a bullet, they feel as though the bullet hit them in the heart. In this next takeaway, Sarah's experience of having to grieve her friendship with Lauren, which had been very important to her,

required her to go through a series of steps. Once the picture became more clear to Sarah and she stepped away a combination of distancing and disengaging, gaining some perspective, safety, gaining more clarity, allowing her empathy to give her a more full perspective on the situation, and then acceptance unfolded for her. The challenge for many survivors is that they may not give themselves that space and time to recoalesce. If you don't give yourself some time and distance, it

is very easy for empathy to turn into enabling. Sarah found her way to forgiveness, not everyone does, and there is no one path that is better or more righteous than the other. The danger from many survivors, especially those who are trauma bonded, is that their empathy can pull them quickly back into wanting to rationalize and justify and forgive before having done their own healing and perspective taking.

In my next takeaway, many survivors of narcissistic relationships, especially those in which the narcissistic person's behavior resulted in a big splash zone of harm, people in cults, people in toxic family systems, people in workplaces they may struggle with survivor guilt or moral injury, will look back at the other person hurt by the narcissistic person and if they feel in any way responsible for what happened, for example, that they introduced the person to the narcissistic person, they

are a parent that co parents with a narcissistic person, they hired someone into a company where there was a really vicious boss. That not only are they recovering from the harm they personally experienced, but the far more painful experience of feeling responsible for the pain that others underwent To push through, this can often be a complex therapeutic process, involving trauma therapy, grief work, and self compassion and for many survivors, echoes of this grief, guilt, and moral injury

will persist for a lifetime. In our next takeaway, Sarah's pursuits such as creative writing and poetry are a reminder of how important creativity can be as a part of healing from these relationships and situations. Creativity offers an opportunity to express feelings in a different way, and that can even be shared with others, to humanize these struggles and

let others know that they are not alone. Whatever the medium, writing, painting, music, cooking, drawing, sculpture, it's something that can bring a greater depth and mindfulness to healing and In our last takeaway, Sarah found many elements of what she learned in Nexium to be useful, that the teachings she resonated with that she taught to others were and are useful to her. But she shared a conversation that she had with someone else who had been in Nexium who said he is shoot all of it.

Grief is very personal. Some people want to fully distance, while others may want to hold on to the parts that were good or helpful. Again, there are no right paths. Ideally, there are authentic ones. Some folks sometimes feel a bit of shame if they pull lessons or acknowledge they glean

something from the experience. It feels easier to just say it was all bad, But her story and the different stories of others teach us that there is no single path forward, and some people find that there were some things they learned that they don't want to let go of. The key is to be able to retain a kinder and gentler way of being with yourself after experiencing invalidation

and manipulation and the subsequent self blame and confusion. A big thank you to our executive producers Jada Pinkett Smith, Valen Jethro Ellen Rakaton, and Dr Romeney de Vassila. And thank you to our producer Matthew Jones, associate producer Mara Dela Rosa, and consultant Kelly Ebling. And finally, thank you to our editors and sound engineers Devin Donnaghe and Calvin Bailiff. Do Do