Aug 9, 2026 · 1 hr 10 min · 8 segments
Send us Fan Mail In this episode, MJ, Snow & Kat sit down with Daniella Mestyanek Young — bestselling author, cult expert, and creator of the…
Yeah, listening to Uncultured, it sounds like you had knowledge of there being other cults that existed, but your cult was very adamant about letting you know that that's not what was going on with you guys.
Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, we had whole doctrines labeled we're not a cult and like the outside world calls us a cult.
And, you know, when the Branch Davidians standoff with the FBI happened at Waco, like we were watching that whole thing and or at least being told about it, you know, like they didn't put the TV on or anything.
I even write about it in Uncultured because they were like, we are not a cult.
However, this is what the evil United States government will do to us if they think we're a cult.
So it was very like, I mean, cult was probably the worst word you could say.
in the children of god you know in the family and in fact when i would later go on to write my college entrance essay which the prompt was what makes you different um and i actually
called this essay i was raised in a cult and it was like so hard for
me to write that and like admit that you know and i would not go on to talk about it for another 10 years at least
was what was it that was hard about admitting like was it still like a little denial or did you have like shame attached to that feeling or like what like or were you just like still processing and coming to terms with it I
think it's in part it's because it's such a loaded term But I also think in part it's because when we leave a cult, we don't know what we're supposed to do.
So the only thing we know to do is like try to fit in and try to act like everyone else.
And I've actually – I've noticed this is a trend in cult memoirs that like we'll be like, nope, I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine.
But when we need to pay for college, we pull that story right out of our back pocket.
So we do know, at least subconsciously, I knew that I had a very extreme story.
Yeah, listening to Uncultured, it sounds like you had knowledge of there being other cults that existed, but your cult was very adamant about letting you know that that's not what was going on with you guys.
Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, we had whole doctrines labeled we're not a cult and like the outside world calls us a cult.
And, you know, when the Branch Davidians standoff with the FBI happened at Waco, like we were watching that whole thing and or at least being told about it, you know, like they didn't put the TV on or anything.
I even write about it in Uncultured because they were like, we are not a cult.
However, this is what the evil United States government will do to us if they think we're a cult.
So it was very like, I mean, cult was probably the worst word you could say.
in the children of god you know in the family and in fact when i would later go on to write my college entrance essay which the prompt was what makes you different um and i actually
called this essay i was raised in a cult and it was like so hard for
me to write that and like admit that you know and i would not go on to talk about it for another 10 years at least
was what was it that was hard about admitting like was it still like a little denial or did you have like shame attached to that feeling or like what like or were you just like still processing and coming to terms with it I
think it's in part it's because it's such a loaded term But I also think in part it's because when we leave a cult, we don't know what we're supposed to do.
So the only thing we know to do is like try to fit in and try to act like everyone else.
And I've actually – I've noticed this is a trend in cult memoirs that like we'll be like, nope, I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine.
But when we need to pay for college, we pull that story right out of our back pocket.
So we do know, at least subconsciously, I knew that I had a very extreme story.
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