How are you doing.
I'm doing really good. It is the hottest day of the year today, so oh no, I'm sitting in a room where they can't have air conditioning.
Oh no, we better make this quick then, should we just call it?
It's okay? Nope, it's okay.
From Rocco, Punch and Diheart Podcasts. This is the Turning River Road I America. Lance. I have to ask, as you are listening, how does it feel to have your story out there in this way? It feels liberating.
That's the best way I can describe it is liberating, especially to have my voice and Lindsay's voice heard simultaneously and being able to hear the differences but also the similarities in our stories. It feels very validating, honestly, in
what way. I think when you go through something like she and I went through, there can sometimes be a little bit of a sense of imposter syndrome or you've been gas lit for so long, like maybe this didn't actually happen this way, And so to hear her side, which is arguably very different than what I experienced, very validating.
I can imagine, because I believe you and Lindsay hadn't really been in contact. So you're hearing a lot suddenly from her about many years that had passed, and she's hearing about you, but you had never really spoken about it with each other before.
We had not, So, I mean, we knew each other, but we didn't run in the same circles at all. Yeah, never really talk to her at length ever in my life. And like I had said in the podcast, I knew Jess very very well, but I didn't really know Lindsay.
At all, just the other youngest maiden, Lindsay's friends and your friend.
Yes, my parents and Jess's parents were very close. In fact, her parents lived with my mom all the way up until twenty twenty three, from twenty twelve the end of twenty twelve till the end of twenty twenty three.
Wow.
And I don't have contact with her parents anymore, and that's my choice. But you can understand that our families they were very intertwined. They kind of had a aunt and uncle feel to them more than even my own aunts and uncles. So I knew her well and her brother and sister I knew them well too, but Lindsay I didn't. So everything that I had heard from her, it was projected in a way that spun a narrative, right.
What do you mean by that?
So when I would listen to interviews like the Hunt with John Walsh, there was a twenty twenty in an Instant or something like that that was put out about it, it was all very heavily on the sexual aspect of it, when there was so much more beneath the surface that led to that happening. That this wasn't just like a quote unquote sex cult. This was so much more and there was so much more abuse that was taking place, and it was very systemic.
The abuse took many forms, and people experienced it differently or experienced different parts of the abuse. And that's something I've been reflecting a lot on lately, is how different people can have different experiences of the same person or the same group. And I wonder how you've seen that come up? Do you think that, Like, what are some of the different versions of experiencing River Road that existed for members?
There's a few that I am aware of. For example, my mom, when she and I talk about this kind of stuff, she I have a hard time to talk with her about it at length anymore because she always kind of brings it back to herself, and she said, I just wanted to learn God's word, which is a beautiful thing, right, And I think she has a lot of guilt for what happened to me, And whenever I start talking about that, she kind of gets really uncomfortable
because she just feels the consistent need to apologize. And what she sees is we came together to do a ministry and she was like, I didn't see the other things that were going on beneath the surface. The reality is I think she did. I think everybody did, but nobody wanted to pay attention. When I say everybody, I mean those who are old enough to cern. Obviously I was a child. I was just there for the ride.
But I know that there are people who have said, you know, in hindsight, this is a very unsurprising thing that happened. So you know, there's that she just wants to remember the good things. I don't falter for it. But then again, she also has a whole life previous to that to fall back on, Right, she has a frame of reference for what life is outside of the cult, whereas I really didn't. So there's that I talked to a woman after she listened to several episodes of the podcast.
She was very close to my parents and to the Bernards.
She actually Bernard's being Victor Bernard and his wife, Victor being the leader of her best oon.
Yes, and she had left in nineteen ninety three, so I was still a very young child. I was only about a year and a half when she left. But she was very dear to my parents, and even though they never saw her again, they talked about her quite a bit. So she reached out to me on social media and she talked about how she was listening to the podcast, and obviously a lot of the things that she heard happened after she left, and she was asking herself like, how did it get there? How did that happen?
How could that have happened? And she said, but to be completely honest, I can see how it could have gotten there. So you know, there's that. And then even Lindsay and I have had disagreements, nothing like major, but there were things that I have said in the podcast that she didn't agree with and brought them to my attention. So, for example, I had said that they were moving these young people around to spy on us. And while I
do believe that that, in a sense is true. She didn't see it that way, and I'll explain where she came from and where I came from and sort of the middle ground. That was probably the reality.
And you're talking about how your one time a maiden was very quickly moved into your home and then very quickly moved out again, which happened sometimes people moving around all the time. You never know where you're going to live. Even if you own a house, it's not really yours. And you felt like that maiden maybe had been sent there to kind of spy on your family.
And it wasn't just the maidens. There are quite a few young people that were moved around very randomly, very quickly, and it happened to us more than once.
Now.
Lindsey, when she heard that, she sent me a text and said that she didn't believe that that was the case. When the maidens were moved out from their home, it was usually because Victor believed that they weren't doing well spiritually.
And kind as a punishment.
Kind of as a punishment. Yeah, that having been said, I bounced this off of a couple of people who I grew up with and grew up around, and what I came to was maybe the intention that was told to them wasn't, you know, go in there and report back whatever you see. But these young people were so conditioned to basically tell the leadership or even tell Victor anything that they aw that could possibly be you know, darkness or sin.
Everything has to be in the light. In other words, Victory has to know everything. So you feel like you're always being watched.
Yeah, so even if Victor didn't say so, and so you're going to move in with the Lesterre family, which was my family, to report back to me what you see would happen was and this I know this, I know for a fact, and it wasn't any of the maidens. It was a couple other young women who lived with us who were around the same age as the maidens,
but they weren't the maidens. They lived with us, and they would see things that happened in my home and then they would report those to the leadership or to Victor, and then my parents or even I would you know, get in trouble for whatever it was. So I felt the need to clarify that that there wasn't this network of like spies, but it was a conditioning. It was a manipulation to be foot soldiers to report back in what they saw, and they absolutely did do that.
And it was a culture where it was really hard to have privacy exactly and live the life that you wanted. I mean, you had to live by certain rules and if you didn't, you would hear about it.
What I was going to say was, did lindsay ever do that? I have no idea because she never lived with us, and that's not something that I feel is worth nitpicking about. What I do know is that it happened. So you know, there are definitely differing stories, differing opinions. There's still people who believe that they were there to live the word of God.
Like my mom.
She doesn't deny what happened happened, but she has a really hard time wrapping her head around that it could have been all bad, you know, and I don't think it was all bad, but she really doesn't want to address the things that were.
She wants to hold on to the good things and say some bad things happened exactly in inner conversations with it exactly, And I think a lot of people can relate to that when they're talking to parents, you know, more extreme example, you're in a cult. Other examples, you have issues from the family dynamic or things that happened when you're a kid, and different people kind of focus
on different parts of the memory. That can make it hard sometimes to talk about the past without feeling invalidated or without feeling like you're kind of talking past each other.
Then my sister, she doesn't even want to listen to this podcast, which is fine with me. She's in a place that I know that a lot of people I grew up with are where she just wants to leave
the past and the past and move forward. A couple days after the first episode aired, I brought up the podcast and was talking about some of the things in there, and she said, you know, I know a lot of bad things happened to you, and I'm really sorry about that, but it's I feel like I'm in a really good place in my life right now, and I think I just need to leave the past and the past, and I hope you can respect that, and of course I can't.
Of course I can't. But something that Lindsay and I have talked about is how hard it is to have all of these people that you grew up with and who experienced the same life you experienced through the most part, and nobody wants to talk about it.
Yeah, and so.
I'm thankful because Lindsay and I are now talking, and I'm very grateful to have somebody that I can talk to about things that come up for me, because sometimes I will have the most random memory and to have somebody like that I can just text and be like, you know, I just thought of this, and isn't this crazy?
Yeah, it's really It's someone who actually gets there.
Yeah, it's a huge blessing, definitely very healing to have somebody like that.
What are some of those memories that have been popping up lately.
One of the things that popped up for me a few weeks ago was going to heaven. We used to say that we will be with Jesus Christ for all eternity. That's a wonderful thing. But then somebody was like, well, why would we want to be with somebody that we
don't even know? And then somebody was like, basically spun together that because Victor was Jesus Christ in the flesh, that who we were going to be with wasn't going to be some stranger we had never seen before, but that it was going to be Victor, that Victor was going to take that personification of Jesus Christ.
That's such a stark statement that Victor is Jesus. Even when you go to heaven, the Jesus you meet will be Victor.
Yeah, so that's not biblical at all. And to be quite frank, I feel as though I know Jesus and when I see his face, I will know him and it won't be Victor's face, and it won't be Victor's face, thank God. But yeah, that was a really fun one to like kind of remember remember and actually be able to chuckle about and be like, we were really that far gone.
Hindsight.
Yeah. Yeah.
In the series, we tell your story and we talk a lot about your early childhood. You were in the group since you were born, essentially your parents knew Victor for a long time, and we talk about kind of your middle school years that were so terrible for you
because jan was insisting on these awful diets. And then we kind of fast forward to your early twenties when you're living in Washington State with other members of River Road Fellowship and the news is coming out about Lindsay and Jess going to the police about the sexual abuse. I'm really curious if you could tell us about the years in between, because there's probably about a decade in there.
What was going on or what are some of the memories that are most vivid for you during that time of your life.
During that time in my life, between the ages of twelve and seventeen, we had moved back home to the house that we owned on a satellite property. Originally it was known as Eagle's Nest, and then Victor changed the name to Melita, which is the biblical name for the island of Malta. Oh, so I lived there from the ages of twelve to seventeen without moving. Once my life
definitely calmed down a lot. Melita was kind of the location where conforming nonconformists lived, if that makes any sense, people who were a part of the church, but maybe they didn't fit the idea or the mold of like the model cult member. So we were a bit more laid back. Melita was actually a really great nickname for our property because it was kind of like an island, the island of misfit toys, if you will. So we
lived there. It was during that time that I had been sort of inadvertently looped in with a group of young people that I don't think we really talked in this series about, specifically known as the Shepherd's Core.
Yes, and the Shepherd We did not get into that.
Yeah, which is a whole probably a whole other podcast series, if we're being honest.
Because there were a number of groups, especially for young people, like the Maidens, and Shepherd's Core was another way that you're kind of showing your commitment, You're getting more deeply involved with the church, so you kind of, it sounds like, became part of the Shepherd's Core.
I did. Yes, the Shepherd's Core was originally I think like six or seven younger people, and then in two thousand and three, Victor opened it up to anyone over the age of twelve. I was eventually kind of brought in in two thousand and five.
And my impression is that the Shepherd's Core was kind of like a very intense church youth group. Would you say that's one way to look at it.
Yeah, It's a really funny thing to talk about because at the inception of the Shepherd's Core, Victor's idea of what it was going to be was going to be very similar to the Waycore of the Way International.
Which is the group Victor was a part of before creating River Road Fellowship. And this was kind of a branch off of the Way, very influenced by the Way. A lot of former members of the Way joined River Road.
Yes, so that was his kind of blueprint. What it became was not that at all. There were Shepherd's Core principles that we had to follow, there were verses that we had to memorize. It became a name, just a name only really you didn't really know. I never really knew what it meant to be Shepherd's Core. He would take us on like camping trips sometimes, or there would be classes, and I know that I talked about the classes. The original Shepherd's Core had been given, like these sweatshirts
that had the Shepherd's Core written on them. But it was kind of like when Lindsay had to give back all of the things that she was given when she left the Maidens. If Victor didn't think that these young people were like spiritually well, or if he got mad at them, he made them turn in their sweats. I never had to do that because by the time I came around, nothing was being given to the Shepherd's Core. It was just sort of a name that Victor would throw around to make the young people feel good.
It's interesting how he creates these status symbols that he gets to choose who has them, and so he can give you that status or take it away at any time for any reason, and you might not know why. Yeah, and that just turned into such a mind game and so manipulative.
Yeah. So within the Shepherd's Core there was the Maidens, which were kind of part of the Shepherd's corep but kind of not. And then there was another group known as Ariga's Band, which was seven young women who were around the same age as the Maidens. Some of them were younger sisters of the Maidens, and some of them were maybe young women who had joined the church after the Maidens were formed. And then there was a men's group that was eight young men and they were known
as the Gilliad Gamblers. And from my understanding, these groups they'd lived together, they did all their stuff together. Ariga's Band, they had a commitment similar to the Maidens, to remain unmarried. The Gilliad Gamblers, from my understanding, It's funny because my brother in law's a former Gilliad gambler. They had a commitment. I believe it was for seven years to remain unmarried and then they could get married if they wanted to.
So interesting, how the girls and the boys are treated differently. Where the girls groups you're never getting married, right? Could you talk about a little bit about how men and women or girls and boys were treated differently in the church.
Women were absolutely expected to be quieter, more submissive. The way we dressed was more regulated, the way we talked was more regulated, where we went was regulated.
Was the rule of walking into's only applied to women and girls?
Yes?
Wow, I didn't know that.
Yes, men could go wherever they wanted, whenever they wanted.
Yeah, it was. It was a very that's so oppressive, Yeah, very oppressives. One thing I've been wondering about is I remember when you were living in Washington and you finally had that brave moment where you said I'm leaving. I know, right beforehand you were dating someone at the time who you had met through a coworker, and you finally told him at one point I'm in a cult and I need to get out and I don't know how. And it's really interesting to me that use the word cult.
And I'm curious, when did that transition happen where you actually in your brain. I'm guessing that's the first time you said it out loud. And I'm wondering when in your brain you started thinking this is a cult that I'm in.
That's a really great question, because it actually is a lot earlier than one might think. People always called us a cult, you know, and Victor would talk about people who called us a cult and how you know they were wrong and really yeah. And I remember the mother of one of the grown women in our church coming to visit at one point and she was telling her daughter. She's like, you were in a cult. And the daughter
was like, no, one'm not. And she said, you guys live together, you eat together, you work together, you buy food together. She's like, for all intents and purposes, this is a cult. And the daughter, the woman in the church, she said, oh, I guess I guess it is. Well, that's great, and she just kind of like moved on. So I kind of always just had it in the back of my head that like, yes, we were a cult, but we were like the good kind of cult and
that it was fine. It wasn't like Jonestown where we were all gonna drink something and die like we would never do that. So that was sort of when the seed was planted. But when it was like solidified was when I originally watched the story with Jess and Lindsay and they talked about it as being a cult. That was when it solidified for me that yes, it was indeed a cult, and yes it was not the quote unquote good kind of cult. That it was very very dark.
What do you think made it a cult? You know, beyond the obvious terrible abuses that were happening. If someone is joining a new group, joining a new religion, a new community, what should people watch out for or what did you see?
I mean, the list goes on, but a big one is isolation. If they are telling you that you can't talk to your family or your friends, that you have to cut those ties, that is cult red flag one
oh one. In my opinion, I think that there is definitely the opportunity and the availability for people to come together and work together and live in a communal environment, and I think that there is the availability for it to be good but when there is somebody, when there is a figurehead in the middle, that is everything's trickling down from you cease to have free will because everything
revolves around this one person. And if you look at cults throughout time, that's really the determining factors that there is this one figurehead that is not God, not Jesus. It's a person who has put themselves in a position of authority and has started making these rules and began to isolate you into this community. I think that that is the main thing that people need to look out for. But also it's not lost on me that a lot of people realize that too late, they're too far emeshed.
It can feel like a fine line at first, especially because we all want someone who has all the answers or who can guide us. We all want to mentor we all want someone to help us figure out what to do in life. And once you find someone you trust, it very quickly can veer into an unhealthy balance of how much they're influencing you. And yeah, that can be hard to identify sometimes, and it does seem to me
that it can come in different forms. I mean, sometimes it's religion, sometimes it's not religion based, but it is a controlling situation. Yeah, I'm curious, as you listened back to the series, you're hearing yourself, you're hearing Lin's story, did anything surprise you or did anything kind of make you see things differently?
You know, I can't say that there was necessarily like an aha moment for me. There were definitely things that Lindsay said in general that I was like, Oh, thank god she remembers it that way too, because sometimes you wonder if you're remembering it correctly, like I said at the beginning, and you want to make sure that you are speaking the truth because if you're not, then the credibility of all of our stories goes out the window
in my opinion. So I guess that that was a really really big deal for me, is like hearing actually hearing her speak and tell her story her way. Like I said earlier on the podcast, how her story was so spun to fit a narrative of that this was a sex cult and that gave their young daughters over to this man.
You're talking about in some of the media contry, because the media convergation outside of interviews, we've talked about this, How yes, you felt like a lot of the media coverage it didn't feel right to you, right, or how would you?
It didn't go It felt very inaccurate. And then there were like a lot of third party tellings of whatever these podcasters heard on the media, and I was like, none of this is accurate, Like this is such a skewed telling of my life, and it made me so mad.
And I actually reached out to a podcaster that was like a third party narrator of the story who just basically gathered all the information that they had from the media and talked about River read Fellowship on their podcast, and Oh, I was furious, and I was like, they don't have the story there this none of what they're saying is even like factually accurate. And I actually reached out to them on Instead Graham and was like, Hey, I grew up in this cult. If you want to
know what really happened, go ahead and reach out. They never did, which is fine, but that was really what made me want to start talking about my story and really like talk about the nuance of what was going on behind the scenes of this big blow up that happened, because there's just it was, it went so much deeper, and there was so much more going on that led to this terrible thing that happened with these young girls.
So hearing Lindsay now tell her story, that felt yeah, what did that?
It felt full It kind of felt full circle in a way, I guess, and realizing that that wasn't her, like, oh my god. They took soundbites, spits and pieces to make it sound a certain way and get the story across.
Yeah, you're saying that the other coverage when sometimes it felt inaccurate. It wasn't Lindsay's doing it. I don't know. It wasn't your doing.
It wasn't Lindsay's doing. It was people piecemealing things together to make a story, and which is fine. The end result was Victor Bernard was put in jail. That was what needed to happen. But also Lindsay deserved to be heard. She deserved to share her truth, and so listening to her share her story on this podcast, I was just
so happy for her. I'm so happy that she's gotten so much healing and that she is living a wonderful, good life with her child, and that she seems happy and that she still is willing to speak about this and that her intention is very similar to mine, and that this story, our experiences can help people, can help other survivors, can help people trying to figure their way out of these situations. Our stories can help with that.
I know that once you left River Road Fellowship, it was a really dark time for you. You talked about what do I do with my life now? I'm leaving behind everything and everyone I know. And I wonder if you could talk about some of the turning points or the stages you went through to get to your life now.
How much time do we have? So I left in March of twenty fifteen, right after Victor Bernard was arrested in Brazil. He hadn't even been extradited to the United States yet, he was still in prison in Brazil, and there was a lot surrounding that. A big turning point for me, Like maybe the first turning point was when I got in touch with one of the former clergy
in River Road. He had actually left the previous year after he was kind of pushed out because he had called out some of the stuff that was going on in Spokane very bluntly, very frankly, and there was a lot of dishonesty going on about why he left. So when I left, I got in touch with his son and I said, get me in touch with your dad, because this is a man that I trusted. I knew that something had to have happened that caused him to walk out.
This is you want to know. You want to know what happened.
This is a man that Victor called his true son in the faith. Like, if he left, something had to have happened. That was a really big deal. Okay. So his son got me in touch with him and I ended up going over to their house for dinner, and after dinner, he and I sat out on the porch and he's like, so, you said, you wanted to talk to me, what can I help you with? And I said, I want to know what happened. I want to know why we're sitting here today and not back there still.
And he basically told me that the church had gotten so far from the standard of the Word of God that he just couldn't watch it anymore. And he had shown the leaders in Spokane in the Bible where things were going wrong, and they sent him away. So that was a big turning point for me to have some like validation that what I experienced was being seen by other people. Other people were being abused by this abuse of power.
It seems that when you first left was really the hardest, hardest period.
I didn't know how to be a person. It was literally like that I did not know how to function in a world where my life wasn't regulated. I didn't know what to eat, I knew nothing. I didn't know how to manage my emotions because everything had just been pushed down, so I didn't know how to manage and regulate my emotions at all. It was just like I was a teenager, I was a child.
How did that come up in your life?
Relationships? Relationships? You know. I had been casually seeing this guy and that ended very poorly. I had been raised to just let people walk all over me, and he sometimes would be like, you're acting like you're twelve, Like grow up. I'm like, I that's because I was emotionally stunted at twelve, Like I don't know how to be a person. And that was actually like, actually a real
concept to me. That was like, I think that all of these things are coming to the surface because they couldn't for so long.
These things being like kind of emotional.
Emotions experiences like suddenly I'm going through some sort of like psychological puberty of sorts, Like it's all just coming to this, you know, rushing in and my whole world is new, and it's overwhelmingly new, and it's not that great. And I didn't know what to do with myself, and so I drank a lot to non whatever I was feeling, put myself in a lot of dangerous situations with men, which I know that Lindsay talked about as well. And it is a miracle that I am alive. Let's just
put it that way. Yeah. I poisoned myself with alcohol on more than one occasion, ended up in the psych word. It was just really, really, really bad. Moved home to help take care of my dad, got away from the pain of like the environment of Spokane, but the pain was still very much within me. I didn't know how to deal. I got involved with another really unhealthy young man that ended very badly. After he broke up with me in September of twenty sixteen, I reached a point
of I was so broken. I just didn't want to exist. I did not want to exist. I didn't want to die. But I also didn't want to live. And I was in the shower and I asked God. I said, God, I don't know if this is even possible, but I need you to heal me. And immediately the thought popped into my head that I needed to get sober, I
needed to quit drinking, and so I did. That day, I reached out to a person I barely knew to take me to a recovery meeting and I started building a bit of a community there and that was a big growth, time of growth for me. I started going to therapy during that time, I started learning how to heal. So I got into another relationship and then broke up with him middle of COVID while my dad was dying.
After that, met my husband. One thing I wanted in a partner was somebody who wanted to better themselves, wanted to grow, somebody that I could grow with and build off of and they could build off me. And I found that in my husband. I lost my dad in October of twenty twenty, twenty twenty one had my son. These are all like turning points things, you know, growth, times of growth. My husband is a recovering addict, and thirteen days after my son was born, he overdosed.
And I'm so sorry, Krista.
And he was revived, and there is no reason logically, scientifically that he should be alive today because he was on some very quiet side street, in a very quiet neighborhood, in his truck when it happened. So it wasn't like he was out in public. He was just alone and somebody found him and revived him. And my therapist had said to me, because I couldn't make sense of it, I was like, I don't understand why this, how this happened. Like I'm happy he's alive, but I don't understand why
or how. And she said, Krista, sometimes miracles just happen and you just have to be okay with that. It was really just like blood. And it was in those moments following that I started to actually believe in God again. I started realizing that my God was a God.
Of love.
And a god of healing and forgiveness and patience and goodness, and that God never wanted to hurt me, that he only wanted to see me thrive, and that the people who said that they were acting in God's name were false prophets essentially, and that they were liars earlier this year, I finally had the courage to walk into a church again, which is something I never swore i'd do. And God met me there, and I don't know what you believe, Erica, but that's what I believe in my heart.
It's so powerful to hear how you've built a life that focuses on being loving and focuses on the love part and not the punishment and the blame and all of the self criticism you had to live in for so long and to find something that can lead to just this happy life that you have. I'm sure they're not happy parts too.
There are definitely not happy parts. There's definitely still stuff I struggle with. I'm still very traumatized when it comes to eating and diet, which is something that I am in therapy for now. That is a big I actually should bring that up that that was a big aha moment I did have when I was listening to myself and I realized that my eating patterns were disordered, and they've been disordered since I was a teenager. So that
coming to light was a big deal for me. And I was able to get back into therapy with my old therapist, so I get to address that Nowjince, she's wonderful.
You realize that you are still carrying some of those ordered behavior as a way of thinking.
Yes, absolutely, and I will probably always, you know, to some extent, carry some part of it with me. It was my entire childhood, so it's not like I can erase it. But I think even if I still have things that I need to heal from, which I know I do, I can address it in a healthy way where it doesn't take me out emotionally physically, because I have such a beautiful life.
Now, what is your life like now?
It's very simple, which is what I wanted. I wanted a simple life. I live in a three bedroom apartment in a college neighborhood. I have two dogs that are very crazy. I have a wonderful husband that I've been married to for almost three years. Our third anniversary is coming up. I have a son and a daughter who are the loves of my life. And I know that I've talked about my son in this podcast, but since then, I've had a daughter. And she is wild, and I
say that in the best sense of the word. She is wild, and she is joyful, and she is fierce, and she is fearless, and I kind of said tongue in cheek a couple of weeks ago to somebody, I said, I think Maddie is everything that I would have been had I not had my entire personality beat out of me at a young age. And I'm just so happy for her that nobody's ever gonna take that from her, That she gets to grow up and shine and be bright and be loud and people are gonna love her
for it, and that is so amazing to me. I don't need that. I have built my life around whatever happened to me and have integrated that into who I am now, and it's, you know, maybe not who I would have been had I not had those experiences, but I love myself. I love who I've become. But to see people just light up when they see my daughter's face because she has so much joy and she's so fearless, it's healing. It's so healing to watch.
Is there anything that comes to mind that you want to share or you want people to hear before we close?
I looked up a recent mug shot of Victor Bernard a few weeks ago. When the podcast first started airing, I hadn't seen his face in years, many years, but I was curious, and so I looked up a recent mugshot of him. And he looked weak. He looked thin and sickly. He was missing a tooth. He looked small. And I looked at him and I said, that's who he is. That's who he always was, underneath the guys of what he tried to portray to us. He's small and weak and ugly. And man, that felt good, Oh
my god, that felt good. I want people to know that healing is available. It is hard and it's messy, but it can happen. You don't have to hurt forever. It's available to have a happy life.
So true. Thank you so much for talking with me, for all the interviews we did before, for this one today. It has meant so much to both Aileen and me, and I know it's meant a lot to people who have listened. So it's not easy to talk about this stuff, and I think we all just really appreciate it.
Well. I appreciate you giving both Lindsay and me a platform to tell our stories in the way that we wanted to tell them. So thank you.
The Turning is a production of Rococo Punch and iHeart Podcasts. It's written and produced by Alan Lance, Lesser and Me. Our story editor is Emily Foreman. Mixing and sound designed by James Trout. Grace Doe is our production assistant. Fact checking by Andrea Lopez Crusado. Our executive producers are John Parratti and Jessica Alpert at Rococo Punch and Katrina Norvel
and Nikki Etour at iHeart Podcasts. You can follow us on Instagram at Rococo Punch, and you can reach out via email The Turning at Rococo Punch dot com I America Lance thanks for listening.