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Rebecca Lafferty - BOOK - The Lafferty Girl · Brian Thomas

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  Speaker 1: Try to make it a happy Friday, and by way
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  Speaker 1: of relativity, may find out your Friday is going much
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  Speaker 1: better than you anticipated because you didn't live the rather
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  Speaker 1: tragic life of My next guest Rebecca Lafferty, who's joined
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  Speaker 1: the Proger to talk about her new book, The Lafferty
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  Speaker 1: Girl Surviving Trauma, Abuse and My Father's Crimes, a Mormon
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  Speaker 1: daughter's story. Rebecca, Welcome to the fifty five Carsy Morning Show.
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  Speaker 1: It's a pleasure having you on today.
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  Speaker 2: Thank you, Thank you.
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  Speaker 1: It's pleasure well, and I say pleasure knowing full well
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  Speaker 1: your experience as a child, which you write about in
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  Speaker 1: this book. Your father was a rather troubled individual, and
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  Speaker 1: that may be an understatement from your perspective. You can
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  Speaker 1: elaborate on that. Let my listeners know about you and
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  Speaker 1: I guess around seven years old. You're apparently your dad
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  Speaker 1: got radicalized in a certain way. Let's talk about that.
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  Speaker 1: Let my listeners know.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, my father he was you know, he was
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  Speaker 2: raised in kind of a strict household himself, and so
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  Speaker 2: he raised us kids very very strict with LDS. We
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  Speaker 2: follow that to the t. You know, he tried to
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  Speaker 2: do everything to the tea and what that was like
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  Speaker 2: for me, the child was very There's a lot of
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  Speaker 2: violence in our home, and I would say correction was
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  Speaker 2: over the top for a child. And he also believed
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  Speaker 2: that women should be underneath the mail. They are not
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  Speaker 2: to be respected or have a voice or opinions really,
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  Speaker 2: and so there was always fights because my mom was
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  Speaker 2: a very strong thirded woman. Yeah, and this just led
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  Speaker 2: to a lot of Like I said, I just saw
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  Speaker 2: a lot of violence and experienced it myself, grown up
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  Speaker 2: with my father and then at seven him going to
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  Speaker 2: prison and finding out what had happened later on, it
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  Speaker 2: really affected. It kind of snowballed and affected my life
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  Speaker 2: and the relationships there.
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  Speaker 1: On the way you described the it's a lot of
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  Speaker 1: day Saints that the church that sounds like it has
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  Speaker 1: a lot of parallels to fundamentalism Islam and and and
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  Speaker 1: Sharia law. Is that a safe or comparable thing a parallel?
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  Speaker 2: Well, I think anything that you take to an extreme,
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  Speaker 2: you know, I guess you could compare them. But yeah,
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  Speaker 2: I mean it was there was no color. It was
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  Speaker 2: black or white, there was just nothing really in between. Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: that was my experience.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, so you said he ended up in prison. Let
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  Speaker 1: my listeners know how exactly he ended up in prison
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  Speaker 1: and not just regular prison to life sentences them all right, correct.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, he took the life of my aunt and her baby,
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  Speaker 2: my baby cousins the filling you know, uh prophecy, oh stre.
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  Speaker 1: He killed them related to his faith in some twisted perception, specifically,
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  Speaker 1: what's the connection between the real religious fundamentalism in their death?
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  Speaker 2: They were well, he was excommunicated from the Eldience Church,
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  Speaker 2: and then him and his brothers started creating their own
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  Speaker 2: church or you know, doing their own thing where it
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  Speaker 2: was called the School of Prophets, and so they are
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  Speaker 2: all profits. And in that school the oldest pad of
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  Speaker 2: revelation that that this aunt of mine needed to be removed,
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  Speaker 2: and that my father was a prophet of he was
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  Speaker 2: the hand of God, and so therefore that was his role.
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  Speaker 2: And in their twistedness made sense to that.
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  Speaker 1: Bit of a red flag for an adult in this world.
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  Speaker 1: But as a child of I mean you had you
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  Speaker 1: couldn't speak out against it. And I suppose, given how
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  Speaker 1: young you were, you had no basic comparison, no world experience,
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  Speaker 1: being hidden from the rest of the world in your home,
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  Speaker 1: and how would you know, I guess you were either
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  Speaker 1: forced to believe him or you actually believe what he
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  Speaker 1: was saying. Rebecca, Am I right on that.
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  Speaker 2: Well, there's a part part of me that always you know,
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  Speaker 2: obviously my father. I look up to him, I trust him,
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  Speaker 2: I adored my father, and that was also a part
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  Speaker 2: of me that was fearful of him, and I didn't
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  Speaker 2: trust everything he said, the.
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  Speaker 1: Typical child reaction. I suppose at least that part was typical.
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  Speaker 1: You know, my children didn't always listen to what I
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  Speaker 1: had to say. So this is a completely autobiographical book.
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  Speaker 1: What prompted you to write this? Because you talk about
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  Speaker 1: your struggles and the emotions and everything you went through,
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  Speaker 1: and then also you talk about when he reached out
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  Speaker 1: to you from prison, which I want to ask you about.
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  Speaker 1: But what was the compelling reason for writing The Lafferty Girl.
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  Speaker 2: Well, I had somebody that I really admire and trust
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  Speaker 2: to recommended that I write my story. And when she talks,
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  Speaker 2: I listen, and so I felt, you know, once I
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  Speaker 2: get enough of my inner healing work and I was
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  Speaker 2: able to get to a place where I could speak
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  Speaker 2: from Pope and not just the pain, I knew it
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  Speaker 2: was time to tell my story. Yeah, him reaching out
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  Speaker 2: to me from prison. It was it was healing. That
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  Speaker 2: was part of the healing process. He took accountability for
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  Speaker 2: some of the things that he how he was was
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  Speaker 2: a father with me. He's never acknowledged that what he's
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  Speaker 2: done is wrong. He still holds very very strongly too,
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  Speaker 2: that he is a prophet and that he is here
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  Speaker 2: to fulfill a goal.
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  Speaker 1: Now, did you when you how old were you when
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  Speaker 1: he when he reached out to you from prison, because
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  Speaker 1: you know that's on the cover materials too, obviously that
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  Speaker 1: was a very profound moment in your life. But how
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  Speaker 1: old were you at that time?
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  Speaker 2: Yes, So I stayed in communication with him for a while.
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  Speaker 2: We had written, We would write back and forth, but
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  Speaker 2: then there was a period where I had not heard
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  Speaker 2: from him, and then the book Under the Banner of
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  Speaker 2: Heaven had come out, and so there was a really
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  Speaker 2: long gap. And I would have been thirty five maybe
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  Speaker 2: when we reconnected.
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  Speaker 1: So when he's still clinging to this idea that he's
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  Speaker 1: a prophet at age thirty five and now capable as
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  Speaker 1: an adult reflecting back on your childhood understanding what abuse
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  Speaker 1: is and is not, did you call him out on
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  Speaker 1: it by any change? You said you know, are you
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  Speaker 1: serious about this prophet stuff? I mean that I'm Brian Thomas.
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  Speaker 1: That's the kind of the thing, the in conversation I
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  Speaker 1: would engage in if it was my dad calling me
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  Speaker 1: from prison. You know, I wouldn't pull any punches. I'm
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  Speaker 1: just kind of wondering, giving the delicacy of the situation,
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  Speaker 1: if if you engaged in a process back and forth
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  Speaker 1: about that concept, you.
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  Speaker 2: Know, I think, I just know I still carried some
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  Speaker 2: fare around that. I you would always talk about it.
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  Speaker 2: I just didn't want to hear it coming from his lips.
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  Speaker 2: That would just I don't know, it was just another
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  Speaker 2: level of reality. I just does not want to go
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  Speaker 2: with you know too, with him.
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  Speaker 1: See those are words I can hear coming out of
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  Speaker 1: my mouth if I was having this conversation my dad,
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  Speaker 1: I don't want to hear this crap dad, that that's anyway?
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  Speaker 1: So who did you write that? I mean, obviously it's
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  Speaker 1: cathartic to write a book about this. Get it out
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  Speaker 1: of your system, and many people recommend therapists and psychologists
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  Speaker 1: that you write a journal. Get it out of your system,
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  Speaker 1: put it on paper. It helps you understand your situation
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  Speaker 1: and come to grips with your own reality, but you
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  Speaker 1: obviously had an audience you're writing this too. Is this
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  Speaker 1: for other people who struggle with abuse and are still
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  Speaker 1: dealing with the scars as adults? Is it for women
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  Speaker 1: in abusive relationships? Or I mean it sounds to me
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  Speaker 1: like there's a whole schmorgasboard of potential audience here. I'm
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  Speaker 1: just wondering what who you had in mind when you
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  Speaker 1: wrote it, other than yourself.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I really just well for all of that compassion
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  Speaker 2: for the little girl, you know, compassion and love for
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  Speaker 2: my family and the healing that I could bring, and
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  Speaker 2: then for anyone that's carrying the silence of shame and
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  Speaker 2: you know, just wanting to not feel alone. I wrote
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  Speaker 2: this because I want people to know they are not alone.
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  Speaker 1: It's a good message, it really, it truly is. And
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  Speaker 1: you alluded to under the banner of heavy in your
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  Speaker 1: comments earlier, that's an FX Hulu series And is that
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  Speaker 1: still out there that someone did a documentary about your
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  Speaker 1: father and the crimes he perpetrated.
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  Speaker 2: Correct, John Kracker was. He wrote a book under the
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  Speaker 2: arch cousin, He interviewed with my father as he wrote it,
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  Speaker 2: and then Hulu did a series on it.
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  Speaker 1: Did they interview you for that? I just don't wonder
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  Speaker 1: what your reaction is. I can't. I'm just struggling with
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  Speaker 1: what my emotions might be if someone's going to do
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  Speaker 1: a series about my father, How did you take that?
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  Speaker 2: They never asked, they didn't interview anybody from the family.
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  Speaker 2: In fact, a lot of it is there's a lot
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  Speaker 2: of fictitious stuff that they've all went into that. Oh,
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  Speaker 2: and that's how they got around that.
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  Speaker 1: Well, another reason to write the book to set the
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  Speaker 1: record straight about what you, Rebecca Lafferty, dealt with with
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  Speaker 1: him being your father. Well again the name of the
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  Speaker 1: book of the Lafferty Girl Surviving Trauma Abuse in My
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  Speaker 1: Father's Crimes, a Mormon Daughter's Story. We made it really
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  Speaker 1: easier for my listeners to get a copy of Rebecca
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  Speaker 1: Joe Strecker. My producers put it on a blog page
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  Speaker 1: fifty five caresy dot com at the link to the
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  Speaker 1: site where they can buy it, which all encourage them
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  Speaker 1: to do. And for those out there maybe dealing with
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  Speaker 1: similar circumstances or struggles, or maybe you got a friend
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  Speaker 1: or relative that's in this, get a copy of it
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  Speaker 1: and help maybe help them heal as well. Rebecca. I
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  Speaker 1: can't thank you enough for spending this time with my
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  Speaker 1: listeners and me this morning, and for putting this all
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  Speaker 1: on paper.