The cult.ture podcast

From Shunning to Rebuilding with Griswold House

In this episode, we sit down with McKenzie and Marcell childhood friends who grew up inside Jehovah’s Witnesses, lost each other to shunning, and eventually found their way back to one another after deconstructing.
Marcell shares what it was like growing up in poverty, finding “divine” love inside the organization, and fully believing it was the truth even while quietly believing he would die at Armageddon.
McKenzie opens up about being raised in a fully immersed family system, marrying young, navigating divorce under Watchtower policy, and the moment she realized she could never treat her own children the way she had been treated.
Together, they unpack:
• Love bombing and conditional community• Growing up believing you’re never “good enough• Shunning and rebuilding authentic friendship• Patriarchy and being treated like a pawn• COVID wake-ups & the Australian Royal Commission• The fear of Armageddon even when you’re “doing everything right
Now, on the other side, they’re building something new through Griswold House, a creative venture rooted in authenticity, agency, and chosen community.
Connect with them:
Website: https://griswoldhouse.com/Marcell / GriswoldGriswold Creative House (Business)McKenzie (TikTok)
 
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Disclaimer:The views and experiences shared on cult.ture are personal and based on the lived experiences of the hosts and guests. This podcast is not intended to attack or defame any individual or religious organization or provide therapy.
Our aim is to foster honest, empathetic conversations about high-control environments, belief systems, and personal journeys including the long road of healing, questioning, and reclaiming identity.
Please be advised that some episodes may contain content that touches on religious trauma, coercive control, emotional or physical abuse, or other potentially triggering topics. We strive to approach these conversations with care, but we acknowledge that certain themes may be difficult to hear.
Listener discretion is advised.
If you or someone you know is experiencing distress related to these topics, we encourage seeking support from qualified mental health professionals, spiritual trauma-informed therapists, or trusted recovery communities.
You are not alone.

Finally Waking Up — Fear, False Prophecy, and Life After

Stephanie spent most of her life carrying a fear she didn’t choose.
Raised as one of Jehovah’s Witnesses, baptized at just fourteen, and taught from early childhood that the end of the world was “right around the corner,” Stephanie grew up measuring her life in countdowns: 1914, Armageddon, obedience, and survival.
Although she physically left the organization in 1998, the fear never left her.
It wasn’t until February 19, 2025, nearly three decades later, that something finally cracked. A single social media post. A forbidden word: apostate. And a question she’d never allowed herself to ask.
In this episode, Stephanie joins Derek and Trent to share what it’s like to wake up late to realize at fifty years old that your anxiety, your lost opportunities, and your constant guilt were rooted in false prophecy and high-control belief.
We talk about:
Growing up under the shadow of the 1914 doctrine
Being baptized as a minor and the weight of “spiritual contracts”
Living physically out but mentally trapped for decades
Fear-based obedience and the cost of delayed awakening
Grief for a stolen childhood and the courage to reclaim what’s left
This conversation is about what fear does to a human beings and what happens when it finally loosens its grip.
If you’ve ever felt like it’s “too late” to wake up, this episode is for you.
 
Support cult.ture pod over on Patreon
Follow us on Instagram and thanks for rating us 5 stars 🫶
 
 
Disclaimer:The views and experiences shared on cult.ture are personal and based on the lived experiences of the hosts and guests. This podcast is not intended to attack or defame any individual or religious organization or provide therapy.
Our aim is to foster honest, empathetic conversations about high-control environments, belief systems, and personal journeys including the long road of healing, questioning, and reclaiming identity.
Please be advised that some episodes may contain content that touches on religious trauma, coercive control, emotional or physical abuse, or other potentially triggering topics. We strive to approach these conversations with care, but we acknowledge that certain themes may be difficult to hear.
Listener discretion is advised.
If you or someone you know is experiencing distress related to these topics, we encourage seeking support from qualified mental health professionals, spiritual trauma-informed therapists, or trusted recovery communities.
You are not alone.
 

Put It on the Shelf: Mormonism, Control, and the Cost of Faith

In this episode, we sit down with Amy, who grew up deeply embedded in Mormonism as the daughter of a bishop and mission president.
From early-morning seminary and strict behavioral rules to temple rituals that demand lifelong commitments without full consent, Amy shares what it was like to grow up inside a system that quietly governs every part of life from what you drink to how you think.
Together, we explore Mormonism through the lens of high-control dynamics: obedience, gender hierarchy, secrecy, “putting doubts on the shelf,” and the emotional cost of being told that happiness comes later in the next life, the next kingdom, the next promise.
Amy also speaks candidly about women’s roles in the church, LGBTQ+ exclusion, transactional spirituality, and the slow, painful process of deconstruction not as rebellion, but as self-trust.
This episode is about recognizing when belief becomes control and what it takes to reclaim your voice after leaving a high-demand system. 
 
Support cult.ture pod over on Patreon
Follow us on Instagram and thanks for rating us 5 stars 🫶
 
 
Disclaimer:The views and experiences shared on cult.ture are personal and based on the lived experiences of the hosts and guests. This podcast is not intended to attack or defame any individual or religious organization or provide therapy.
Our aim is to foster honest, empathetic conversations about high-control environments, belief systems, and personal journeys including the long road of healing, questioning, and reclaiming identity.
Please be advised that some episodes may contain content that touches on religious trauma, coercive control, emotional or physical abuse, or other potentially triggering topics. We strive to approach these conversations with care, but we acknowledge that certain themes may be difficult to hear.
Listener discretion is advised.
If you or someone you know is experiencing distress related to these topics, we encourage seeking support from qualified mental health professionals, spiritual trauma-informed therapists, or trusted recovery communities.
You are not alone.

Leo’s Conversation — The Body Keeps the Truth

Leo grew up Jehovah’s Witness in a home where abuse was happening and being ignored.
In this conversation, Leo speaks about what it means to survive when harm is known, authority goes unquestioned, and silence is treated as righteousness.
This episode explores:
How religious authority can shield abusers
What happens when elders “handle it internally”
Dissociation, lost memory, and trauma held in the body
EMDR therapy and what it means when healing brings truth back
This is not a discussion of belief or doctrine.It’s an account of what happens when systems protect harm and the long, uneven work of surviving what was never acknowledged.
 
Support cult.ture pod over on Patreon
Follow us on Instagram and thanks for rating us 5 stars 🫶
 
Disclaimer:The views and experiences shared on cult.ture are personal and based on the lived experiences of the hosts and guests. This podcast is not intended to attack or defame any individual or religious organization or provide therapy.
Our aim is to foster honest, empathetic conversations about high-control environments, belief systems, and personal journeys including the long road of healing, questioning, and reclaiming identity.
Please be advised that some episodes may contain content that touches on religious trauma, coercive control, emotional or physical abuse, or other potentially triggering topics. We strive to approach these conversations with care, but we acknowledge that certain themes may be difficult to hear.
Listener discretion is advised.
If you or someone you know is experiencing distress related to these topics, we encourage seeking support from qualified mental health professionals, spiritual trauma-informed therapists, or trusted recovery communities.
You are not alone.

From Black-and-White to Color with Jamie

Jaime joins Derek and Trent to share what it was like growing up Jehovah’s Witness in a divided home never fully belonging in either world, and carrying fear long before she had words for it.
Jaime talks about the slow unraveling: raising three kids inside the routine, living under constant self-monitoring, and realizing her children were afraid she might stop speaking to them if they didn’t believe. Even while she still believed, she reached a breaking point because a “paradise” that required leaving her family behind wasn’t love.
Her awakening comes in an unexpected place: working in a preschool and teaching three-year-olds basic emotional boundaries, she realizes she’s learning at 39 what she was never allowed to learn. In the middle of a classroom she googles “signs you’re in a cult,” and everything clicks.
Now, a few years out, Jaime shares what freedom has actually felt like: therapy, three birthdays, a more connected family life, and the quiet relief of watching a movie without guilt and no apology prayer afterward. She also names what still lingers: the stomach-drop moment of seeing Witnesses “in the wild,” and the echoes of fear that take time to unlearn.
Jaime closes with the heart of this episode: her biggest fear came true and on the other side of it, life became better than she ever imagined.
 
Disclaimer:The views and experiences shared on cult.ture are personal and based on the lived experiences of the hosts and guests. This podcast is not intended to attack or defame any individual or religious organization or provide therapy.
Our aim is to foster honest, empathetic conversations about high-control environments, belief systems, and personal journeys including the long road of healing, questioning, and reclaiming identity.
Please be advised that some episodes may contain content that touches on religious trauma, coercive control, emotional or physical abuse, or other potentially triggering topics. We strive to approach these conversations with care, but we acknowledge that certain themes may be difficult to hear.
Listener discretion is advised.
If you or someone you know is experiencing distress related to these topics, we encourage seeking support from qualified mental health professionals, spiritual trauma-informed therapists, or trusted recovery communities.
You are not alone.

Devan's Story: What Survives After the World Doesn’t End

In today’s episode of cult.ture, Derek and Trinity sit down with Devan, someone who wasn’t raised in the Jehovah’s Witnesses Faith, but still grew up inside a high-control Christian system that shaped every corner of his childhood.
Devan’s early years took place deep in the Oregon woods at an isolated fundamentalist Baptist camp, where his father ran the ministry and his family lived off the land. He was homeschooled, cut off from the world, sleeping above bins of stored grain while his parents prepped for the rapture.As a child he watched end-times films of Christians being executed by guillotine for refusing the mark of the beast, the kind of imagery meant to terrify adults, but handed straight to kids.
Love was talked about from the pulpit, but at home it looked like punishment, emotional distance, and an authority that didn’t allow mistakes.
As Devan grows older, his world expands: Bible school in England, drifting through hostels in Israel, discovering Christian communities that weren’t ruled by fear. Then the grunge culture of the 90s and a place where he felt both freedom and an easy slide into numbing. A rushed first marriage. Secret drinking. A second marriage he tried desperately to hold together. Shame, guilt, and the feeling that he was constantly performing a version of himself he never chose.
Everything shatters in 2012 when Devan, drunk and hopeless, finds himself at the center of a police standoff with 17 officers, a K-9 unit, and a loaded gun. On the pavement, shoulder broken, he prays a single sentence:
“God, if you’re real, show me who you are, not who I’ve made you to be.”
That moment becomes the beginning of a life rebuilt from the ground up.
In this conversation, we talk about:
Growing up under fear-based Christianity
Being raised for the apocalypse instead of adulthood
Isolation, shame, and the rubber-band effect of suppression → rebellion
Addiction as a survival strategy when you were never taught to cope
The day everything broke and the grace that came after
What faith can look like beyond fear, ego, and control
And the quiet power of choosing your own life for the first time
Whether you’re inside a high-control religion, slowly peeling away, years into healing, or trying to understand someone you love there’s room for you here.
 
Support cult.ture pod over on Patreon
Follow us on Instagram and thanks for rating us 5 stars 🫶
 
 
Disclaimer:The views and experiences shared on cult.ture are personal and based on the lived experiences of the hosts and guests. This podcast is not intended to attack or defame any individual or religious organization or provide therapy.
Our aim is to foster honest, empathetic conversations about high-control environments, belief systems, and personal journeys including the long road of healing, questioning, and reclaiming identity.
Please be advised that some episodes may contain content that touches on religious trauma, coercive control, emotional or physical abuse, or other potentially triggering topics. We strive to approach these conversations with care, but we acknowledge that certain themes may be difficult to hear.
Listener discretion is advised.
If you or someone you know is experiencing distress related to these topics, we encourage seeking support from qualified mental health professionals, spiritual trauma-informed therapists, or trusted recovery communities.
You are not alone.

Agency, At Last: Abby’s Exit From Control

Abby’s story moves from love-bombing and baptized hope to grief, coercive control, boundaries, and finally freedom and family. She shares how vulnerability was targeted, why she pursued baptism after trauma, and the cost of “paper-thin comfort” in a doomsday framework. We talk stalking elders, weaponized “good example” theology, and the moment she chose safety over image. Abby also remembers her brother Elijah and how losing him during COVID cracked the last pieces of belief and the wild grace of her son being born on Elijah’s birthday. This one sits with grief, names misogyny, and celebrates reclamation: choosing the present over paradise, boundaries over guilt, and a life she built herself.
Themes: religious trauma, love-bombing, coercive control, shunning, boundaries, grief, rebuilding, chosen family, parenting after high-control groups
 
Support cult.ture pod over on Patreon
Follow us on Instagram and thanks for rating us 5 stars 🫶
 
Disclaimer:The views and experiences shared on cult.ture are personal and based on the lived experiences of the hosts and guests. This podcast is not intended to attack or defame any individual or religious organization or provide therapy.
Our aim is to foster honest, empathetic conversations about high-control environments, belief systems, and personal journeys including the long road of healing, questioning, and reclaiming identity.
Please be advised that some episodes may contain content that touches on religious trauma, coercive control, emotional or physical abuse, or other potentially triggering topics. We strive to approach these conversations with care, but we acknowledge that certain themes may be difficult to hear.
Listener discretion is advised.
If you or someone you know is experiencing distress related to these topics, we encourage seeking support from qualified mental health professionals, spiritual trauma-informed therapists, or trusted recovery communities.
You are not alone.

Above Water: Freedom, Friction, and Finding Your Compass - Dustin Returns

Content note: Mentions religious trauma, suicide, and substance use. In the U.S., dial or text 988 for support.
Derek and Trinity welcome back Dustin Jetmore for a raw check-in since disassociating from Jehovah’s Witnesses (letter July 4, announcement July 10). We revisit the 2019 Love Never Fails convention, Derek’s last through the moment the veil lifts: choreographed “love,” scripted routes, even restroom control. Derek also shares the day his dad survived a heart event in the stands thanks to a wearable defibrillator vest.
Then, life on the surface:
“You’re a natural human, you break at natural points, then get reprimanded for it.”
Trinity’s metaphor: waking up is breaking the ocean and hitting sunlight then learning to breathe there.
Take it back: head high on your own street even when a neighbor invites Janelle to a Sunday talk (and likely counts time).
Shunning in a tiny bagel shop (including Dustin’s 13-year-old).
Roles after leaving: from hierarchy to partnership; how the head-of-household script breeds chauvinism—and why some narcissists thrived in it.
Therapy, triggers, and grounding: meditation/yoga (once “demonic”) now tools—plus the reality that not every tool fits every brain.
Mental overload: the spiral of over-processing, decision-fatigue, and learning when to simply shut the brain off without numbing out.
Trinity’s sobriety note: sober since April 21, 2023 and learning to live with an always-on mind without alcohol.
Firsts without guilt: horror movies, pluralism (10k+ gods; belief shaped by where/when you’re born), and choosing your own lane with an internal compass.
After the shock: the candy-room phase (no rules!) → balance and cycles/lulls after a big life high.
Shrinking support networks, learning to voice pain, and asking for help.
Looking ahead: a 25th anniversary as “free folk,” curiosity as fuel, and the permission to reassess every parameter of life.
Support cult.ture pod over on Patreon
Follow us on Instagram and thanks for rating us 5 stars 🫶
 
 
Disclaimer:The views and experiences shared on cult.ture are personal and based on the lived experiences of the hosts and guests. This podcast is not intended to attack or defame any individual or religious organization or provide therapy.
Our aim is to foster honest, empathetic conversations about high-control environments, belief systems, and personal journeys including the long road of healing, questioning, and reclaiming identity.
Please be advised that some episodes may contain content that touches on religious trauma, coercive control, emotional or physical abuse, or other potentially triggering topics. We strive to approach these conversations with care, but we acknowledge that certain themes may be difficult to hear.
Listener discretion is advised.
If you or someone you know is experiencing distress related to these topics, we encourage seeking support from qualified mental health professionals, spiritual trauma-informed therapists, or trusted recovery communities.
You are not alone.

PIMO to POMO: Drag, Therapy, and Saying No with Juan

Juan spent years PIMO—Physically In, Mentally Out, performing the part while hiding his truest self. We trace the pressure to baptize, the “bad association” rules that killed sports and friendships, and how family + culture can be weaponized to keep you compliant. Therapy (and the XJW community) gave him language for boundaries and room to say who he is: pansexual, a drag artist, and done pretending.
When his parents discovered his drag clothes, everything snapped into focus. He left in a storm, crossed a state line, and celebrated his first night out at an LGBTQ bar. The next morning: a quiet apartment, mattress on the floor, and a new kind of silence, freedom. We talk last-assembly loneliness (“900 people and I’ve never felt so alone”), Noah’s Ark scare tactics, moving out without a goodbye, coping and lows (including cannabis), naming anxiety (Lexapro), finding community, first drag gigs (and the high of stage lights), Halloween joy (trick-or-treating at 23), and why history isn’t anti-queer.Juan’s north star now: keep performing, set real goals (“a dream becomes a goal when you write the steps”), and advocate so other XJWs know they’re not alone.
 
 
Support cult.ture pod over on Patreon
Follow us on Instagram and thanks for rating us 5 stars 🫶
 
 
Disclaimer:The views and experiences shared on cult.ture are personal and based on the lived experiences of the hosts and guests. This podcast is not intended to attack or defame any individual or religious organization or provide therapy.
Our aim is to foster honest, empathetic conversations about high-control environments, belief systems, and personal journeys including the long road of healing, questioning, and reclaiming identity.
Please be advised that some episodes may contain content that touches on religious trauma, coercive control, emotional or physical abuse, or other potentially triggering topics. We strive to approach these conversations with care, but we acknowledge that certain themes may be difficult to hear.
Listener discretion is advised.
If you or someone you know is experiencing distress related to these topics, we encourage seeking support from qualified mental health professionals, spiritual trauma-informed therapists, or trusted recovery communities.
You are not alone.
 

Growing Beyond the Box with Micah Allen Losh

Author–poet Micah Allen Losh (Mentally Diseased, The Apostasy Trilogy) joins Derek for an unflinching look at life inside a doomsday faith and the long road out.
Micah reads a poem written during 77 days in jail his first sober stretch in years and traces the journey from a childhood of constant Armageddon fear and being labeled “blood guilty” to the moment he could say: “That person no longer exists.” He shares how his father died loyal to the blood doctrine, how he dissociated at seven giving a Bible reading, and how he was baptized four months after the funeral hoping to get his dad back.
When compassion was needed, cruelty answered: an elder dismissed his suicide plan, another spread a false threat rumor, his mother evicted him, and elders told him to “move into a shelter.” A marriage kept secret from in-laws collapsed into binge drinking during a pandemic he feared was Armageddon and even glancing at “apostate” material felt dangerous after years of being told not to trust his own mind.
Under a bridge, a line from The Office snapped him awake “The fallacy is that the steamroller decides whether the object is destroyed.” Micah chose to live for his son and publish a book. When an agent vanished, he went DIY: ten self-edits, a lawyer review, an indie editor, and a cover by ex-JW artist Sarah Riches—half boy, half man. He released it on his 40th birthday to reclaim it. A friend’s message stopped a planned suicide; soon after, readers wrote to say his book helped them stop drinking.
Micah’s art became a trail of breadcrumbs back to himself his first poem tattooed in his own handwriting, early pieces once rejected by his mother now guiding his rebirth. He purged every symbol of the past, rebuilt his values from zero, and learned that authenticity attracts the right people and repels the wrong. These days, he savors small joys a Halloween movie with his son, a post-book cigar and lives by the belief that strength is kindness.
He’s found his tribe, even if it’s a small one and people who connect through shared art, music, and story. One decision to stop self-destructing created a chain of unexpected good: reconnections, creative freedom, and a new sense of peace.
Since Mentally Diseased: poetry collection Gangrenous Speeches, a horror allegory, a 99¢ e-book on deconstruction, a children’s book (The Boy Who Loved a Monster), a Witness Underground producer credit, and new fiction including Malachites, a satire built on logical fallacies. He calls high-control life the square-watermelon box growth forced to fit. Leaving that box led to sobriety on his own terms—nearly five years as of Sept 2—and a life built on chosen values and a community of ex-believers determined to be better.
Find Micah at MicahAllenLosh.com with links to his books, blog, interviews, Threads, Instagram, TikTok, and active Facebook. Archived Twitter/X content also available.