Was I In A Cult? - Thou Shan’t Be Named: “Non-Church Church”

Episode Date: January 12, 2022

TITLE: Thou Shan't Be Named: "Non-Church Church"  Non-Denominational Christianity. Sounds innocent enough, and for many non-denominational churches, it is. But for others, the non-affiliation creates a dangerous pathway to a choose your own adventure "religion." For Shannon Payton, it was an adventure all right, but not one she necessarily would've chosen...if, of course, given the choice.    Shannon has lived more of her life inside the cult than out, but this social media comedian is just starting to scratch the surface of having her voice heard. A voice, of course, that wasn't allowed to be heard for most of her life.    And trust us, it's a voice worth hearing.   -   Follow Shannon: Insta/ TikTok @officialshannypants   Listen to our interview on The Daily Zeitgeist   Follow us: insta @wasiinacult Email us: [e-mail]   Please support Was I In A Cult? Through PatreonSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If I would have been able to say like as a teen, I'm struggling with this, I'm struggling with that, and could have went to real therapy or counseling, I could have been a different person way sooner, but we weren't allowed to do that. I'm struggling with that. I could have went to real therapy or counseling. I could have been a different person way sooner. But, we weren't allowed to do that. I was so confused, just about life in general. Don't spare my life. Crucify me. So we meet again. Same studio, different year, different cult. Same crazy-ass story. Stuckeposed with acute observations and unabashed sarcasm. Welcome to Was I an occult? I'm Tyler Miesom. And I'm not Lizzie Cousy.

You are Lizzy Cousy. I am Lizzy. I really am. Happy New Year, everyone. You guys, 22 has always been my lucky number. So 2022, you better not let me down. Yeah, you put money on that. We trust that everyone out there had a safe, happy, and healthy holiday break.

But if you didn't, we got you. Guys, you are not alone. Because some people don't get to celebrate anything. Ever, like our hilarious to be a party. Okay. I am Shannon Peyton, and I'm a pretty open book. Now we get our guests from many sources, but Shannon came to us by her very popular and hysterical Instagram account. If you're going to follow anyone, follow her.

It's basically like very sarcastic making fun of anything in life that I deal with, day-to-day, or in my past, but it's been so cool because I've been able to use humor as my therapy and I'm still unpacking a lot from childhood. Because her childhood was not your typical one. So I was born in 1981 in a tiny little country town above Sacramento, up in northern California. I was born into basically like a high-control religious cult. Of course, we didn't call it that, but that's what it was.

My dad was born into it, and then my mom married my dad into it. Now we've covered many cults on this show and some of them are rightfully more extreme than others, rife with abuse, confinement, horrific leaders. I'm looking at you, children of God. But with some cults, while the physical damage can be lesser, the survivors of these groups still experience mental and emotional trauma that is equally damaging. Because cults don't have to be physically dangerous to cause great harm. This group started as a pretty typical like we want to start a non-denomination group

where we can study the Bible without the restraints of secular religion basically. A Christian non-denominational group, meaning they don't formally align with a specific Christian denomination, which we should note many non-cultic churches are. So I want to say it was like in the 70s when who I remember as a leader took over, it started out as a very loving and wonderful new leader. But just because a tree frog can change from green to gray doesn't mean it's not a tree frog. It's very wise, Buddha. That's your analogy, tree frog. Do you have a better shapeshifting animal woman?

Not offhand, no, but I'm sure tree frog. Do you have a better shapeshifting animal woman? Not offhand, no, but I'm sure there are some. But what happened is the controlling personality started appearing more. And with that shifting personality comes the questionable dogma. We believed that all churches were wrong. We are the only ones right. And so they tried to separate themselves as much as possible from standard Christian denominations. We don't have an actual name because you shouldn't have a name.

We couldn't call it a church. Nor did they go to a church. We always met in like little Grange Halls, which were lovely. Grange Hall has a better ring to it than church. Grange Hall sounds like a holdover spot the mob uses for dead bodies. Like, hey Vinny, put him in the Grange Hall for now. We'll dump him in the river later. Liz pulling out her inner quido. Hey, my last name's a Cusie, I got it in me, okay? Most towns will have a Grange Hall, and ours were always so dumpy. We literally would just rent it on Sunday mornings, we called them gatherings.

In our assembly, there was probably a hundred people. Every Sunday we'd meet at 10, 30, and we would sit in metal folding chairs. Super comfortable. And there wasn't any folding chairs, super comfortable. And there wasn't any type of child care. So your children sat with you in your metal chairs from the time they were babies. You would sing three songs out of the hymnal book, and then someone would give a sermon. But they wouldn't call it a sermon. Because even that is like too

churchy language. We would call a message. But you'd sit there for two hours and get preached out. The message that we received were always very strict. This is God's way. This is the only way. You know it was a very fear-based and literally it was reading out of the Bible. But it was changed, Bible verses would be changed to work around whatever rules needed to be said. Like how we dressed for instance all went back to the Bible. There's a verse about that that we can find. It's Deuteronomy, Chapter 22, verse 5. A woman shall not wear a man's garment, nor shall a man put on a woman's cloak.

For whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord, your God. I guess I should take off this jockstrap then, huh, Tyler? Yeah, or maybe just wear it on the inside. I like it on the outside. It used. It used. It used. It used. It used. It used. It used. It used. It used. It used. It used. It used. It used. It used. It that. It used. It that. It that. It that. It that. It th. It th. It th. It th. It th. It th. It those. It's th. It's thoom. It thoom. It thoom. It thoom. It thoom. It thoer. It thoom. It th. It th. It th. It th. It th. It th. It th. It th. It th. It th. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's th. It's th. It's to to the. It's to to. It's a to. It's a toe. It's a toe. It's a toe. It's a to. It's a toe. It's a your clothes. I like it on the outside. It used a verse like that and would change it to women can't wear pants because men were made to wear pants and women cannot. So we would wear skirts. It was long skirts, like to the ankles. One of the things that we did grow up learning or thinking was our dress could dictate what men's urges were.

Because you have these perverted, weird men in our assembly, and my dad would get talked to and say, Shannon's skirt is a little bit too tight, and so and so was affected by it. If we were dressing inappropriately, we could be causing men to send, basically. And you shouldered that burden, too. But church, um, meetings, we could be causing men to send, basically. And you shouldered that burden, too. But church, meetings, were not just a Sunday affair.

They also met on Wednesdays. Wednesday night was usually like the amateur night, where like anyone that wanted to could speak. And by anyone, she means anyone with a twig and berries. You mean a penis? I mean a swinus. I haven't heard that one. A swinus?

Yeah. Sweaty penis. Oh no! We've lost our NPR listeners. But you had to be approved. Like my dad was never able to speak. Why? Because my parents were too rebellious.

My mom would get herms, because that was, you know, a thing back then, and she would wear high heels that she wasn't supposed to wear. They pushed it a little. Anarchist, agitators, insurrectionists with their damn permed hair. Alert the authorities immediately. We couldn't do our hair. I hated long hair. All I ever wanted to do was cut my hair. But it didn't end with the stringent rules about hair. No tank tops, no piercings, no makeup, no TV, no drinking, no politics. We were not allowed

to vote because, you know, God is in control and we don't need to have a say so and what happens. We weren't allowed to dance, obviously, no secular music. We only sang from hymnbooks. We even weren't supposed to listen to Christian music. We weren't allowed to celebrate any holidays. Not even Christmas? No Christmas because other churches celebrated that. Every December, we had to hear four weeks of messages about why Christmas is fake and not real. And it's not really Jesus' birthday. Yeah, well, four weeks of hearing about why Christmas is fake and not real and it's not really Jesus' birthday. Yeah well four weeks of hearing about how bad

Christmas is beats hearing four weeks of Mariah Carey Christmas songs. All I want for Christmas is you. Did you want to hear one more time? No? No? You're good? And you were so discouraged from having any outside relationships. That was always weird to me because I babysat for this Christian family. We would always like have to meet in secret. And they were like this amazing, loving Christian family, but they were wrong because of how they were meeting in a church or wearing pants or whatever it might be. You're just so trained to think they're bad.

And you just hoped and prayed that they would come come come come come come come come come come come come come come come come come come come come come come come come come come come come come come their their their their just so trained to think they're bad and you just hoped and prayed that they would come around before they died so they could go to heaven. So Shannon's family tried to convert them by bringing them to her church, or not church. We brought the family that I babysat for. They were so excited because they just think we're so amazing. And they come and they were just like, thi-I they're just they're just they're just they're just they're just they're just they're just they're just they're just they're just they're just they're just they're just they're just thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. they're just thi. thi. They're just thi. thi. they're just they're just they're just they're just they're just they're just they're just they're just they're just they're just they're just they're just they're just they're just they're just they're just they're just they're just they're just they're just, they're just they're just they're just, they're just they're just, they're just, they're just they're just, they're just they're just they're just thi. I thi. I thi. I thi. I thi. I thi. I thi. I thi. I thi. I thi. I thi. I thi. I thi. I thi. I thi. I thi. I'm just think we're so amazing. And they come and they were just like, oh my gosh, like what is this? They're just like, this is your worship and we're like, no, we don't call it worship. And they're like, okay, it was hilarious.

And there were so few people that joined or started coming to meetings. Very few and the ones that did come were So damaged I would say that anything was better than the life they had or the lack of support that they had And as far as education goes most of the families did home school. We went to public school We dressed very different than everyone else. I hated recess or PE was always a fun one because like whatever you're doing, you're doing in this long ass skirt that's folding around your ankles as you're trying to run a mile. Despite the necessary exposure to the outside world, school for Shannon was rough. Yeah, I got made to the threat I would say daily. And like the boys, boys were awful, but the girls are also awful and cat-eabed.

I hated going to school every single day. During the sex ed classes, we would have to go to the library, everyone in the school from our group and hang out in the library. And not only that, you know how schools will do your little Christmas plays and the little kids will sing their cute little Christmas songs. Well, we weren't allowed to do that. So we would have to go in the library every single time they rehearsed and we couldn't play sports. So most nights in high school everyone's going to football games and we were always with our

group. They kind of monopolized any fun time. But they didn't take away all the fun activities, like singing hymns in public to complete strangers! Gee mom, that sounds like fun! What a blast! Yay! You'd go to the airport. This is the busiest traveling weekend of the year, Thanksgiving, and we would gather a group

of maybe 50-60 people and sing songs to all of the weary, Thanksgiving, and we would gather a group of maybe 50-60 people and sing songs to all of the weary travelers. I just want you to picture that men and pants, girls and skirts, at the airport, this giant group, I mean would you not love to see that when you are just getting off an airplane. Right. We would do that in random places to like up in Tahoe at a rest stop to like, encourage the travelers. We would sing and pass out tracks. It was, honestly, the most embarrassing thing.

I mean, we thought we were helping people because you think, oh, we're bringing Jesus to these people's lives that obviously need to be saved. They were also trying to recruit hoping to bring people back to their church, or non-church. But they were mostly unsuccessful. The way it grew was people getting married, and we all got married super young. But you had to marry within the group, so they would gather the teens from all over the country. In a giant, long dress-wearing, overly chaperoned, celibate, Christian meat market.

Watch out, Bachelor. There's a new show in town. I'd watch that. We called him Assemblies. There was one in Southern California, one in Texas, one in Oklahoma, and one in Virginia. Because we didn't celebrate any holidays, during holidays is when we would do, we called them camps, and we would rent fairgrounds, and then people from any of the assemblies could come to these camps.

This one time, at church, not church camp? So on camps, you might imagine like fun and games. No, no, no. But it's camp. I mean, it couldn't have been that bad. So you would have meetings for two and a half, three hours, and there would be a microphone, and people could randomly talk, so you would get people that would literally just...

Blugh. Word vomit. We don't know the plans that God has sometimes. And then after that there would be like some playtime which generally means the guys would play volleyball or baseball and then the women would hang out and tau and watch the children and all that stuff and then at 7.30 the nighttime meeting would start. There were times that it would go to 2 in the morning. Keep telling them the rules once we enter the Promise Land.

Or maybe it was that bad. And these camps were usually held on holidays, like the 4th of July. So you would have fireworks going on outside and we are stuck in meetings. And Shannon would sit amid all the noise of the Rockets Red Glare with her trusty notebook in hand. I would just write down verses that were spoken about. I have a lot of really goofy notes in mind because I got really distracted and hated it. I'm down to one and I need to remember to hold on to it but I go through moments of like just

throwing everything away. I burned a bunch of stuff but yeah I still have that one. Do you have it close by? I want you to read from your notebook. Yeah do you want me to grab it? Yeah let me grab it? Oh like here is, okay. I don't have much words written down here, but here is a message on hair. Okay. So we're not allowed to write hair. So one of the verses was First Corinthians 11. Let her be covered.

Head of the man is Christ is Christ is God. Okay, her notes were a little bit off and she has reason to be confused because First Corinthians chapter 11 is a cluster of weird scriptures about the head of a woman being a man and the woman being created for the man, but the man not being created for the woman and women shouldn't shave their head and should cover it, but if you have long hair, it's a blessing and you don't need to cover it, and then it's about eating bread and drinking from church and it just keeps going and going. Well at least it all makes sense. I just remember being at a July camp. I remember us girls, you know, we'd always be like checking the guys out and I was probably

like 11 or 12. And there she saw, a strapping 14-year-old boy. And I remember thinking he is the one. Like he is so cute, because you know you're going to marry someone from the group. Right. And I think that's why from such a young age you're like, okay, tag, he's mine. Because otherwise I might miss out in this situation. A year later, this guy's family moved to California.

And... We started liking each other. We don't call it dating because you didn't date. And there's no physical touch, nothing like that. No, no, no. Basically you get to know each other at meeting and at gatherings. You never were alone, ever, ever. And if you did get caught with another boy, hmm, it was trouble. We were getting in trouble for, like, the stupidest little things...... th. th. thiiii. th. th. th. th. th. th. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi, thi. the the the thi, the the thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, th. And I th. And I th. And I th. And I th. And I th. And I th. And I th. And I th. And I thi, thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. the thi. the the the the the the the the the the thiiiii. the the the thi. the the thi. the boy, it was trouble.

We were getting in trouble for like the stupidest little things. My sister and I were hauling firewood one day from our garage like up to the house. From the neighbor's house, we were carrying firewood in our sweatpants. And a man from the group was watching. Basically he was spying on us and we got turned in. And my dad had to go to men's meeting to explain to explain to explain to explain to explain to explain to explain to explain to explain to explain to explain to explain to explain to explain to explain to explain to to to the to the the to their their their to to their to their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their the group was watching. Basically he was spying on us and we got turned in and my dad had to go to men's meeting to explain why we were in pants, literally carrying firewood in our sweats on our own property. Men's meetings were men only, obviously, and the man of the house would be required to go as punishment whenever any member of the family broke the rules or acted out.

And not like, ooh, skinny jeans. We're talking like sweatpants. Right. But it's like, okay, I see God as this loving God. Why would he care if I am hauling firewood in sweatpants? God hates sweatpants. Pandemic must have been real rough for him, or her, or them. There was a gal who would go check her mailbox in her pants, was seen doing this,

and so she got rebuked in front of the congregation and made an example of, basically. And it wasn't just the girls and their demonic Levi's that felt the wrath of the leaders. The guys, one time they went to a church, a little tiny local church, and sat on the back road just to see like, what is this all about? Well, it got found out that they went. So they basically have to stand up in the front and confess that they went, and your mom's would sob and it was so dramatic. Oh my God. Yeah. This is the things that were made into such a big deal.

But sometimes it was worse than just a rebuking for sinning could get you kicked out of the group. Your biggest fear was being marked to be excommunicated. And when that happened, you don't talk to the person, you don't see the person, if you see him in the grocery store, you ignore them. When I was probably six, my aunt and uncle that were excommunicated from our group, they were questioning, trying to get the leaders to give answers as far as like what biblically really is the reasons that we can't do some of these things that you don't allow us to do.

But questioning ideology is a big no-no in cults. It's all these rules and regulations and if you don't follow it, you're out. And they always held that over you, and I think that's probably why my parents ended up staying for so long, is if you question anything, you never were given a straight answer. So you just learned to not express yourself. And I remember, I was probably 17. I remember my dad talking to me and my sister because we were just so frustrated with so many things. And he said, we could leave now, but you'll never see your boyfriends again.

And at that point we knew we were marrying them. So it was like, we're stuck. It's just another way to keep you there. And she believed that marriage was the best thing for her in the eyes of God. So she stayed with the full intent of being married to the strapping young man th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th to th. th. to th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. that. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. the, th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. thi. thi. thi. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the th. the thi. thi. the te. to, to, to, the toge. to to toda. the toda. toda. the the toda. the. the. the. the. thing for her in the eyes of God. So she stayed with the full intent of being married to the strapping young man she met at camp those many years ago. Although they weren't able to really get to know each other. First of all, courtship is basically nothing. You just see each other at meetings. But he was the one. When I was in high school, I was engaged.

We went to dinner all by ourselves and then walked outside after dinner and he said will you marry me and I was like oh I'm so surprised. Uh-huh we kissed. Our first and only kiss before marriage. Sure. You believe her Tyler? No way. So that's the one and only time we were ever alone and then we got married the year after I graduated from high school. We had 600 people at our wedding. That's insane! Everyone is invited, meaning anyone from any assembly basically. Some of them barely knew me. And her rebellious father wasn't even allowed to speak. We had a friend's dad who I really like and respected and was in the group.

He ended up marrying us, but that was a huge no-no. And then we had my sister and one of our friends sing a secular song that was not unallowed song. Tim McGraw amazed. So the guys walked down to that song. So much drama. How did they know those songs? I mean... Well, they just knew it wasn't from the hy walked down to that song. So much drama. How did they know those songs? I mean... Well, they just knew it wasn't from the hymnal. Right, right.

So, yeah, so we'd walk down and then we didn't even do vows. The preacher is the only person that talked. So he would say blah blah, blah, and then you said I do. That was the only. That's. that. that. thiiiii. that. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. th. th. So, th. So, th. So, th. th. So, th. th. th. So, th. So, thi. So, thi. So, thi. So, th. So, thi. So, th. So, th. So, th. So, th. So, thi. So, thi. So, thi. So, the thi. So, the the the. So, the the the the. So, the the the the thee. So, the the thi. So, thi. So, thi. So, thi. That was the only thing you said. That's it? Oh wow. Yeah. Do you kiss? We did kiss. Yeah, you did kiss.

So we kissed, then that was it. Well, at least they got to celebrate with a huge wedding party after the ceremony, right? And then afterwards everyone has cake and punch and goes home. There was no dancing. Every to Mormon weddings. Having grown up a Mormon myself, their weddings are so boring. And it wasn't until I left the faith that I found out that weddings are celebrations of love and family, and they're filled with food and open bars and bridesmaids and your aunt dancing to play that funky music white boy in front of everyone else. But after Shannon's somewhat rebellious but albeit still mundane wedding, she and her

husband grabbed their own piece of cake, had a little fruit punch, and the newly betrothed got in a car and drove up the California coast to their honeymoon hotel, alone for essentially the first time. In our hotel room, there was champagne. And we just dumped it down the drain. No. Yes. Because no booze, remember? Then did you have sex for the first time on your honeymoon?

Yeah, we did. What was that like? It was so fabulous because... Long time in the making. It was as awkward as possible because you just didn't talk about sex and so it was foreign and like awful. Yeah it was weird. We'll be right back after this break. But we don't call it a break. We call it a few moments where we can sell shit. Hey guys, just a quick reminder that in order to make this podcast, we need your support. So please consider contributing on Patreon or you can visit our website, was I an occult?

to come. And if Tyler's hair gets blonder well you'll know he's using it for highlights otherwise your contributions are going straight into the production of this's now time for the new lewets to build a life together. One step at a time. We moved into an apartment. The way we are raised does not set you up to be in a relationship. Because you're always told what to do. Everything is controlled for you. You don't know how to live with another person because you live always told what to do, everything is controlled for you, you

don't know how to live with another person because you live with your parents until you go get married. Which is so weird. So weird and so hard like to just be all of a sudden we're coexisting together so it was really really tough for a long time. And yes she and her husband are still in the cult life, tho' in the cult life, but now she was hanging out with the the the th. th. th. th. the th. th. the th rocking the cult life, love in the cult life. But now she was hanging out with all the other married folks. We called ourselves young couples. We did a lot on Sundays together.

You would just hang out all day Sunday and have a potluck after meeting and then have a night meeting. But even then, they couldn't be alone. Some of the old couples in the church had to come out and supervise us. I'm talking we're all in our 20s. They felt that need to just really over chaperone. For a career, I wanted to be a nurse really bad, but I chose to get married instead. All the guys pretty much had normal jobs.

Like her husband, who built log houses for a living. Women didn't have jobs. They were homemakers and raised the family and all that stuff. But sometimes, the ladies came up with some pretty rebellious ideas. My sister-in-law, she's like, I want to do like women's Bible studies. Women's only Bible studies were not permitted, because, you you know, women speaking their minds and stuff. You gotta stop doing that, Liz. I'm trying, I'm working on it.

Silence thyself. Silence thyself, Elizabeth. Quiet! So like on the nights the guys play basketball and their jeans, we should do this Bible study. And so we did it one time and it got found out, oh my gosh, you would have thought that we literally were worshipping the devil. We were not allowed to do anything like that. We could get together in scrapbook, but we couldn't do anything like Bible studies. Oh my God, why? Because we are women and we shouldn't be teaching.

And women were not smart enough to examine the Bible or learn anything from it without the assistance of a man. Women were not allowed to have any leadership role whatsoever. But they can breed. You know, once you're married it's like, oh, I'm just going to have kids now. Remember, having children is essentially the only way that this odd little group gains any members. So we tried for like six months.

Nothing happened. Doctor said we need to wait a full year. Nothing happened. So she referred us to the infertility doctors. We started through that whole process. We did three IUIs. None of those th th th th th th th th thss. I did three IUs, none of those worked, and then we did three IVFs. I froze my eggs, Tyler, I don't know if you know that. I didn't.

You have to pump yourself with drugs every night and it's very physically taxing this experience, and for Shannon to go through it three times with no success, oh man, I feel for her. What Shannon and her husband finally discovered was that... My eggs and his sperm were incompatible, so they had to do where they like put the sperm into the egg. It was called gift back then, but it did stick, so I had to like miscarry that. I personally feel that speaking out about this process is so important.

For some reason, I just feel like there's so much shame still attached to fertility issues yet there's hundreds and hundreds of women and couples that go through this every day. So thank you Shannon for speaking out and sharing because that helps the next person. Shannon and her husband had put everything they had into trying to bring life into this world. But this process can not only deplete you mentally and physically. It also depletes your pocketbook. At that point we were out of money. I think we spent $50,000.

After that, I knew we weren't going to do it again. That's why I never got pregnant. Wow. I blamed myself growing up in this environment. I would always think it was because I did something bad. So God wasn't blessing my uterus because I had done bad things in my life. And it was very depressing. It was very lonely. Looking back, I don't know how I even survived. So I'd be going to meetings every week, like trying to be happy and you didn't want anyone to know that you're suffering.

Literally we never discussed real things that actually affect your life. You discussed what God wanted and how to be right. The mental health situation in our group was out of control. I mean, probably every single person was a depressed person. And there were a couple of people that were psychotic. And they should have had true professional help. It wasn't allowed. Despite all odds, Shannon and her husband were happy together.

But they still wanted a family. So then we decided to adopt. They signed with an agency that matches you with women who are pregnant. How it works is you create a profile and then the expecting mothers pick from the profile and pick a family. So we got picked from this gal in Berkeley. So we went down and met her and started a relationship with her and she said, yeah, you're the ones, like I pick you guys, and she was having a baby girl.

We got all prepped for baby girl and she was due December 10th. We were going down to San Francisco to go to a doctor's appointment with her, and our social worker called and said, your birth mom that you were hooked up with is on the news. She was a scam artist, scamming couples out of as much as she could get from them with her pregnancy. And she was really pregnant this time, but she had come from another state where she had done this multiple times. After everything Shannon and her husband had been through, they finally gained hope for the first time that they were going to become parents. The letdown was brutal. That was awful. And so for the time being, they let it go. The emotional exhaustion was almost too much to bear. And all the while, Shannon is still believing

that God is cursing her for wearing pants. So then we went down to Thanksgiving with our family and we're on our way back up. And she gets a phone call from a friend, a woman she works with at an animal rescue center. She's like, Shannon, like crying, will you adopt my grandson? And I'm like, what? This woman's son and girlfriend had just had a baby that they couldn't care for. She's like, I don't want to raise my grandson. She couldn't take care of him.

We were like, oh my gosh, call the social worker. What do we do? How do we make this work? I went and met him the next day. So on December 10th, his birth parents brought him to our house. December 10th, the day her other adopted baby girl was supposed to be born. And we're like, we're parents. I showed up at my mom's house with the car seat with a baby in it. My dad answered the door and she just is in the background and hears me say,

is mom here? I have her grandson. And my sisters came, and then, with, the th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th th th th th th th th th thi thi, thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi, thi thi thi thi thi, thi, thi, the birth the birth their th. He their their th. He th. He th. He th. He th. He th. He th. He th. He th. He th. He th. He th. He, th. He, th. He, th. He, th. He, th. He, th. He, th. He, th. He th. He th. He th. He th. I th. I th. I the the the theee theeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. I th. I th. I th. I th. I th. I th. I just is in the background and hears me say, is mom here, I have her grandson. And my sisters came and then my husband's family came and then we were like, we're parents. It's a cool story, but it gets worse before it gets better. Oh come on. A couple days later, we planned a baby shower like the next weekend. First mom found out about it and freaked out. We get home from baby shower night and on the answering machine is a message from her freaking out. It was awful. You learn a lot going through this. It's very hard for birth moms, the birth dads too because it's such an emotional time. The reality of it is that happens a lot

where birth moms want them back. Which makes sense. I can't imagine the emotionally difficult experience of surrendering your own child. So the next day we had to take him back. Oh, oh. I thought I would die. Heartbroken, Shannon and her husband were back to the drawing board. After days of falling in love with their child, they now had to give him back. But soon the boy's birth parents realized that as much as they wanted to, they unfortunately were not capable of giving their son the life he deserved. But there's certain paperwork that has to be signed in order for that to not happen again. And I said I'm not taking him back until that's done.

And so, until the legalities were squared away, his grandma kept him during that time, and we would go up in the evenings and see him and feed him and stuff.......... And, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, the, the, the, the, and, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, but, but, but, but, but, the, but, the, the, the, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, would go open the evenings and see him and feed him and stuff. Eventually the paperwork was all finalized. And then we got him back for good and kept him. Once and for all they were parents. And then nine months later we finalized his adoption and that was lovely. Side note Shannon and her son's birth mother have a wonderful relationship today, and it's an open adoption, which has been a great experience for her son and her family. A lot of people wonder, can you love him the same as you're a kid that was born to you?

And I'm like, yeah, I wouldn't, I don't even think about it anymore. So here she was, still in the cult, but being a mother changed everything. The whole time I had him, it was really when I started questioning. And a lot of it for me had to do with raising a child. As the father of a toddler, I can attest. A lot of questions arise when you have a new child. Like, did I even sleep at all last night? Where are the car keys? Or how does a 10-pound baby create 20 pounds of poop in one day?

Do they? You'll find out. But for Shannon, the questions were the same ones she had been asking for years. Like the pants, the cutting of the hair, like, give us some answers. But like in every cult, reasonable answers never come. Despite numerous attempts at asking. It took years of questioning so much discussion around the why. But it seemed that many others in the group were also openly questioning. And then what happened with enough of us questioning, they were doing this mass marking of people.

Meaning they were being excommunicated. And it's like, okay, half of my friends are marked now, so you can't scare me with that. Okay, cool, Marcus, we don't care. We're just going to start doing our own thing. And my parents actually left before me and my husband. They were like one of the first. So it just felt right. And then even more people left. So we pretty much just stopped going, but it was a process. It was years and years. A process, yes, but she was finally freeing. Because you're so used to having such a controlled schedule. It was like a

freeing shock, like a freedom and like ooh I have all this time. What are we going to having such a controlled schedule, it was like a freeing shock, like a freedom in like, ooh, I have all this time. What are we going to do on Friday night? Even wearing pants in public or shorts and put, like that took a long time to feel comfortable in that or bathing suits or cutting my hair. Like I remember I took a little bit off then, I took a little more off. And then for th I th I th I th I th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi, thi, thi, thi, tho-a tho-a tho-a tho-a tho-a tho-a tho tho tho thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thr-s, toed, toed, toed, toed, toed, toed, toed, toed, toed ears pierced and it was at least three years before we started celebrating Christmas. I remember my mom had given me like a small tree and I was like so nervous to bring it in the house. My parents found another church pretty quickly.

And it wasn't a cult, thank goodness. But it took a long time for us to cult, thank goodness. But it took a long time for us to actually go to church. So many of these types of high control groups that are religious, they ruin religion for so many people in general. But I feel now like I have a personal relationship with God and I look back and I'm like, I never had that. Never in the entirety of being in

the cult did I ever have that relationship with God you just sat there you listened you rolled your eyes you just lived it and did what you were told to do. Shannon and her husband did find a church to attend and yes they can actually call it a church. And her old group well it's still going but they can actually call it a church. And her old group? Well, it's still going. But they lost so many people. They were just meeting in homes, and then they all ended up moving to Texas or down south,

because there's just not enough to keep it going up here. If Shannon had to guess, they have around a thousand members nationwide. And it actually has a name now, because, you know, cults love to shift their rules. It's called a biblical light. And Shannon and her husband, well, they adopted again. I got very educated on like sibling sets, and my hurt was just like, oh my gosh,

maybe we should get a sibling set because there's so many and they really want to try to keep the siblings together. So now they have two daughters in addition to their son. It's a party every day now. Life outside the cult isn't always easy as she is often reminded of her indoctrination. So many triggering things and then being like, oh I want to work on myself more, I started going to therapy, real therapy. Right. And I want to say the first appointment I was at, the therapist was like, hmm, you were in a cult? And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. It's like a church group. And then when my husband went to therapy. therapy therapy therapy. the the therapy. the the therapy. the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the therapy. therapy. therapy. therapy. therapy. therapy, his therapy, his therapy, his therapy, his therapy. therapy, his thapy, his thapy, his thapy, thian. And thian. And thi. And thian. And thian. And thian. And thian. And thian. And thian. And his. And his. And his. And his. And his. And his. And his. And his, his. And his, his. And his, his. And his. And his. And his. And his th. And his th. And his th. And his th. And his th. And his th. And his threate, his threate, his threate, his threaty, his threaty. And his threaty. And, threats. And, threats. And his threaty. And his threats. And his threatsy, his therapist did the exact same thing. For most of her life, Shannon had to call certain things by different names, including

not saying a church was a church. But now she finally had a word for her non-church church. So I guess if they both think it's a cult, it's probably a cult. And her healing process is a never-ending journey. I think part of it is accepting how much your past plays a part in your present. That was my life. All I can do now is move forward and decide what to do with it from this point forward. It will always be a process of deprogramming, always, forever. And a wonderful outlet for her healing has been through her widely popular Instagram account where Shannon posts hilarious often mom-centric

videos that have reached a wide audience. This comedic sight of her is something she was never able to explore while in the cult and she told me that it has been so wonderful to finally be able to discover her true self. And if there is any upside to growing up in a cult, it's that it's often the little things that make you happy, reminding you of what life could have been had you stayed in that toxic environment. It's nice to overall be like, well I'm going to go to the store in my jammies and I don't really care if someone thinks I'm homeless like, right. I don't care to try to th th th th to th to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to th th th th to th to the th the to to to to to their to their to their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their thoe truooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooome. trueuuuu.'t care. You're gonna live in your truth. Right. I'm confident in myself.

I don't really care too much about what other people think of me. And that's a very nice place to be. Shannon, thank you for sharing your story with us. It was such a pleasure talking to you. And you guys must follow her Instagram and Tick-Tock. Her handle is at official Shanny Pants. And apparently Kelly Clarkson is a fan too, as she had Shannon on her show during the pandemic. Is that so?

Yeah. And that's all for this week, folks. Thank you for listening. And if anyone you know or yourself yourself, to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to thii s s yourself, to to to to to thi to thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi, thi, thi. thi, thi, thoom-s. thoom. thoom. thoom. thoom. thoom. thoom tho tho tho thu thu thi thi thi thi thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. to, the. to, to, to, toea. toea. toea. toea. toea. toea. toea. toea. thea. thea. thea And that's all for this week, folks. Thank you for listening. And if anyone you know or you yourself has a story for us, or even a better analogy for Liz's tree frog, just reach out to us at Cults at IHeartMedia.com, we would love to hear from you, our listeners. And if you haven't yet, give us some stars five preferably every star counts yeah like you're a star I'm five stars Liz not you Tyler I'm talking to our audience oh okay well there's stars too but yeah if you like the show five star five star us up

is that even a thing I'll stop now we will be back next to me guys for another crazy as cult story we didn't go to school guys for another crazy-ass cult story. We didn't go to school the whole time we were there. So for like two and a half years, I just sleep all day because I just think I just didn't want to be awake. And then I would just wake up and just eat a bunch of food and watch TV. I got extremely pale because I literally didn't go outside. And then yeah, just the Bible teachings on the w withe world's still gonna end. You guys need to get right, here's a video of hell. Hey guys, we were interviewed on an amazingly fun, fun podcast called the Daily

Zykeist. And if you want to check it out and listen to us talk a little bit about pancakes and Liz's preferred morning beverage. I'm not gonna tell you. You can find the link in the show notes. The Daily Zikey's January 10th episode. Was I an occult is story produced and written by Tyler Effortness Misa. And Liz the Tree Frog Ayacuzzi. Executive producer is Maya Cole Howard. Supervising producer is the one, the only Ari Basile.

Audio editor is Chandler Mays. And our lovely publicist is Lauren Dutton Green. Shout out to Danel Goodman. And our fan of the week goes to Maxine VanDate from Canada. Her handle is fantastical. It is at Shomila Mamumu. Shama-Mamamu. S-CH-A-M-A-M-A-M-A-M-M-M-M-U. That's nice. Maxine, will you please let us know where the... Where Canada is? Where the inspiration for this handle is, because it's fantastic.

Thank you for listening and spreading the love. We appreciate you.