shunned

A young girl finds herself in a new life, with new exciting hopes and dreams as part of the cult of Jehovah's Witnesses, but with very real fears of doom with a looming Armageddon. This story develops into a young JW marriage fraught with issues that often happen in such relationships. Added to that is a pregnancy followed by postpartum depression, and a spiral that leads into new relationships th...

In this episode I was able to interview Torah Bontrager, a non-practicing Amish that is the founder of the Amish Heritage Foundation. Torah has been on MTV True Life, the Tim Ferriss Blog, Forbes.com, and the Huffington Post. Her desire is to reclaim the narrative and help tell a more accurate Amish story while working to help those that escape the church. With that said, Torah has her own intense...

Sadly no, there is not necessarily any pasta and an Apostafest. What there is constitutes a group of people that have all been shunned by everyone that they ever knew for no longer believing what they once did. How did we get to this place? Listen and see. An apostate is simply a person that no longer follows a particular faith. However, cults like Jehovah's Witnesses use the term "apostate" in co...

This episode is a great look into the narcissism and authoritarianism that can be displayed by some inside the cult of Jehovah's Witnesses.  You will see how a young person can get caught between different worlds, and ultimately find their way out of toxic family and cult situations and into a world of freedom. The song that Sydney chose to represent her journey is  "Playing God" by Paramore.   Su...

Jason grew up in Amish Country but was raised in the cult of Jehovah's Witnesses. This story has cars hidden in the woods for a getaway, living on boats, time spent in rehab, a JW group of "lost boys" that were dealing drugs, just your average story of leaving a cult. You can see that Jason is an explorer, a person driven to learn and try new things, and how stifling it would be growing up in a cu...

Kacey grew up as one of Jehovah's Witnesses in the same Kingdom Hall as I did, so this episode is personal for me too. In this episode you're going to hear what it can be like to grow up in a "divided household", what it feels like to never fit in with the one community that you're supposed to have in life, and how childhood sexual abuse can create a perfect storm that results in so much damage to...

One of the hallmarks of growing up as one of Jehovah's Witnesses is that feeling that you're never "good enough". It drives a lot of the depression seen in the cult, and is often something that people that leave take with them. Imagine if instead of just feeling less than because maybe you aren't hitting some goal of hours spent knocking on doors or taking care of responsibilities in the congregat...

We have an opportunity here to help more people, but I need some assistance in two different ways.  Listen to find out more. Find us online at shunnedpodcast.com Support the show at patreon.com/shunned

  This is my first international interview for the podcast.  Growing up poor in Liverpool, Mark and his family were Jehovah's Witnesses.  This interview is a great conversation about his life growing up, what he went through, and the really unique way that he was outed that shook up his life.  We talk about beliefs and his studies of the books that were left out of the Bible as most know it.  At t...

At the border of the states of Utah and Arizona lies another world, a community known as Short Creek.  A patriarchal world of polygamy with sister wives, where women have few rights, and where certain men have all of the power.  This episode is a fascinating look into a world that most will never enter, a world led by a man (Warren Jeffs) that now is serving a life sentence plus twenty years for c...

Yet another person has their life impacted by the cult of Jehovah's Witnesses.  Listen as DJ recounts his life growing up in the cult as well as his awakening and eventual path out.  There are so many things going on behind closed doors, so many things that don't appear to be what they are, and so many arbitrary rules and the accompanying shame that comes along with them throughout a life as one o...

In this episode we hear the audio of David's Kingdom Hall Crash and discuss the aftermath.  The original video is below, but my commentary and some additional updates are found in the podcast.

This episode is taken from the pre-interview process, before we got deep into David's story.  In it we talk about the abuse, the way abuse is often overlooked within the cult of Jehovah's Witnesses, and lots of other topics relating to the organization.  I think that there are nuggets here that can help victims of abuse as well as victims of the cult in general and that it was worth making somethi...

(see Part 1  for full notes) Trigger Warning:  Sexual Abuse Discussion In Part 2 you will learn more about Steve B. and his interactions with David.  You will see how relationships impacted David, both for the good and the bad as years went by.  You will see how the "loving spiritual shepherds", the elders in the congregations, treat those that are shunned and trying to come back to their flock. ...

In Episode 6 – Part 1, you will get to know David a bit.  This episode builds and will take you through David's upbringing and right up into the beginnings of adulthood.  You will learn a lot about him and if you aren't familiar with the cult of Jehovah's Witnesses you will learn about it as well through this process.  There is no mention of the abuse in this first part, so no trigger warning is n...

Sometimes young people have to make very difficult decisions in order to stand up for what is right. We normally think about it terms of peer pressure, but what if it was the pressure of pretty much everyone that means anything to you? What if you woke up and realized that most of what you were taught was a lie and that by merely saying something about it everything could come crashing down on you...

In this episode we explore Mike's story of being shunned at an early age while still living at home, and how even today although he isn't officially "shunned" he's still treated that way as an inactive Jehovah's Witness. Not all who are "shunned" are disfellowshipped or disassociated from the organization. Shunning is in the DNA of Jehovah's Witnesses, something that really marks them as a high co...

There are many ways to be shunned as one of Jehovah's Witnesses. Emily's story highlights a path that many take, a path of personal growth with stumbles along the way that result in ostracism, a path that deviates from the prescribed path of a cult that requires everyone to walk the same or face the consequences. This story shines a light on the spectrum of the JW experience. Download The song tha...

Download Imagine growing up in a very tight knit community where everyone is sheltered from the outside world. Your personal business is the business of the community and they feel that it reflects upon them. What if your mistakes were brought to the light in front of everyone that you knew and they had to vote right in front of you on whether you would be shunned or not. What if you tried so hard...

Download Follow Jenny's story from being raised as one of Jehovah's Witnesses, the only thing she had ever known, to her awakening to the realities of the cult and eventual shunning. Jenny's song that helped her through the process is by Rise Against - I Don't Want To Be Here Anymore