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Veena Dinavahi - Author of The True Happiness Company Memoir · She’s Smart

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Hey, everybody. Welcome to She's Smart. I'm your host, Maria Robotham.
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On today's episode, I sat down with Veena Dinevahi, the author of the powerful
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memoir, The True Happiness Company.
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Veena takes us through her incredible journey of self-discovery,
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healing, and breaking free from a controlling cult.
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Her book offers an intimate look at the manipulation and mental conditioning
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she endured and how she ultimately found strength and clarity on the other side.
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Veena's story is one of resilience, and today she shares not just her experience,
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but the lessons she's learned about trusting yourself, reclaiming your power,
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and navigating life's messier truths.
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You won't want to miss this candid conversation.
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So get cozy as we connect, learn, and laugh together on She's Smart.
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Music.
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Oh my God, this is training for all of the interviews you're going to go on
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after this. I'm your first.
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I've listened to every single episode. Oh my God, I love you.
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You're my biggest fan. Thanks for being here, first and foremost.
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So there were so many parts in this book that I want to get to and ask you about.
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Are the kids excited about your book? Do they know about it?
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They are. Yeah. Which I was like nervous about because my oldest is most inquisitive
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child I've ever read on social media. Yes.
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And she used to have some anxiety. And like at the time when I started writing
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this book, she was a pretty private person. And she's come full circle where
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she's like super excited for it now.
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It's kind of a funny situation because I'll like chat with her friend's parents
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and then her friends will find out that I'm writing a book and they'll start
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chatting with me about it. Oh, that's cute.
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I love the inquisitive kids we have around us that love to ask questions and
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actually engage with you in a conversation instead of looking at their phone,
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which is always a nice feeling. You don't always get that.
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And your littler ones, they don't really, do they know you've written a book?
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Do they know what's happening? My middle one does.
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She's excited about it. She's not as deeply invested as my oldest.
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And then my youngest has no idea.
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He's chilling. So did your parents read it? Did they finally read it? They did.
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They just finished. So my dad read it over Christmas and my mom just read it.
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And it's funny because they have totally different approaches where I tried
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to give my dad an early copy to borrow, right? Because I had limited marketing copies.
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This is one right here. Limited copy. I got to read it.
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And initially he was like, oh, it's fine. I'll just wait until it comes out.
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I don't want to take your copy. And I was like, you know, I really think you
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guys should read it. You're huge characters in the book.
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I think you should know what it says before the public does.
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So he read it and then refused to give it back to me afterwards. He was so attached to it.
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He read it in three days, like over Christmas, and then was like, Veena...
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I don't think I want to return this to you. And I thought he was joking.
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And then he kept saying it a couple of times. And I was like,
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oh, I'm really not getting this copy back. That's gone.
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My mom was totally different. She was like, I don't need to read it. I know what's in it.
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The entire book was fact checked. So a fact checker called my parents and went
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through everything that's in the book with them.
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So she was like, I know it's in it. I don't need to read it.
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I haven't read a book cover to cover ever in my life.
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Let us be remembered that your mom is brilliant, scientist, very, very smart human being.
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Right, right. Reading is just, you know, not her thing. She self-proclaims.
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But then she was like, OK, I want to start marketing your book to people when
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I was telling her how important pre-orders are.
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And I was like, OK, well, before you do that, I think you should read it.
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You don't have to, but if you're going to be pitching it to people, maybe read it.
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So she actually read the whole book.
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Did they both cry? Your dad cried when he saw the cover. I saw that on Instagram. Yes.
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I mean, I would have been a ball of tears seeing my dad cry.
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Like, that doesn't happen very often. Yeah. Same for my dad.
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I think it's maybe like three times in my life I've seen him cry.
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Every time I approached him while he was reading the book, he seemed on the verge of tears.
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And my mom was like, no, he cried. He didn't show you. he cry,
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you know, behind closed doors. Yeah.
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My mom did not cry. She's much more practical.
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Yeah. She's very stoic. Yeah. Yeah. She was like, there was one part of the
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book where I got really angry, but then I remembered this is in the past.
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God, I love her. Yeah. It's like, oh, great. Does that strategy work for me? Yeah. Can we do that too?
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I wonder if it was difficult for them to go back and basically relive all the moments in the book.
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Yeah, that's what I was expecting. I was like, if I had a child,
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I would find it incredibly difficult to read their worst moments in such detail.
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I think they handled it much better than I did. You know, I think that generation.
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Probably they compartmentalize. They do. I take it so personally. Yeah. Yeah.
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I take it so personally. I really would. I asked my mom, I was like,
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so you weren't offended by anything?
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And she was like, no, I thought you described me in a very flattering way. Yeah.
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Like, I think so, too. You did. Glad you see it that way.
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You did an amazing job describing your parents and the love that they had for
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you and just not knowing what the hell to do. Yeah.
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This was a really raw memoir.
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How much did it take out of you emotionally to write this? Or was it like a
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purging? Like, you needed it. It felt good. Like, what was that feeling?
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I think it was both. So initially, I wrote this not necessarily to write a book.
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I was literally just processing the events that I had been through,
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and it was really healing and really valuable because I had been mired in this
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world and thinking of myself in this particular way that I was taught to for so long.
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And then when I wrote it all down, I was able to like identify the coercive
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strategies that were used against me.
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So it like went a long way in terms of helping me reconnect with myself and
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identify which beliefs about myself feel true and which ones don't.
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So it was really helpful initially when I was drafting.
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And then when I had to go through editing it 50 million times and marketing
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it, like selling myself, that felt a little trickier.
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Because you're also selling a really impactful story of your life.
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And it's not a great, it's not, I wouldn't say it was a great experience that you had.
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No, yeah. I'm glad you came out of it on the other end.
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But that's probably got to be difficult too. It'd be like, oh,
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you need to read this and all the crazy things that happened to me.
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Yeah, it's literally a compilation of the worst moments of my life and none of the good ones.
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So it's a very particular slice of my life that's not...
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Accurate or reflective of my actual life as
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i was reading this book i was so angry i was
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angry at the therapist i was
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so frustrated that he that
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i was frustrated with myself because you're writing i was
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like oh i kind of get what he's saying it kind
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of makes sense that he says that okay and then i'm
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like holy shit i'm being manipulated to be
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okay with this man and then there was the scene
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where he asked you to call him a specific name and I
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lost my shit I think their book is torn because I
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threw it I was so mad and I was like
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no it's like thank god
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it would be if I was sitting in a movie watching this which by the way
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like Reese Butler Swift needs to pick this book up and make a movie about
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it or Mindy Kaling if you guys listen I
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have a great book for you to make a movie on the emotions that
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you bring got me to feel were really
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real and i'm so glad that i know you and know that you are on the other side
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of this yeah for the most part right the healing journey is i think probably
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going to last forever i mean we always have to keep healing from our traumas
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almost constantly i feel sometimes but if i was sitting in a movie theater watching this,
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I would be lurching in my seat.
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I'd be like, don't do it. Don't do it. You know, so you have this way about you of writing.
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And I've read your essays. And I mean, I was in one, just so everyone knows.
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Just so everyone knows I am referenced in one of her essays.
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I do this. It's amazing how you bring this to life.
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Did you have to rewrite it to get to that point as you, you know,
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you're journaling and that you're going through that process.
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How did you get to this version of it where you were giving us such good examples
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and feelings of what you were going through that I was feeling it?
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And I think most people say this, too, that the reviews I've read about people
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reading it feel like I was in there. Yeah.
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Well, it actually went the opposite direction.
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Starting out, my goal was to really give people that experience.
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And actually, parts of this I pulled from my writing while I was actually in the cult still.
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So initially, when I started drafting this, I was in the cult and I was thinking
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I was going to write my memoir of this amazing man who saved my life.
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That's how it started, right? And then once I got out, I had to revisit these
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things and be like, wait, hang on.
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Now I see what he was doing here.
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Now I see this wasn't to help me. This was like an isolation tactic.
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This was this tactic. because when I have read cult stories,
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it's the typical stories that I've heard are so sensational that you don't understand
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how any human being could wind up in a situation like that.
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So that was my big goal was I want people to know how this can happen because
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ultimately it's the same psychological principles are at play in our everyday lives, right?
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It's just group dynamics, which impact all of us without fail.
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So I actually had to take the book a little bit in the opposite direction,
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where I think I was maybe too convincing initially, where I just wanted to keep
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you so in the moment that I didn't flag to the reader enough of the moments
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and the techniques while they were happening.
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So my editor really worked with me to kind of highlight which moments to pay attention to. Okay.
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And then you circle back to those. Yes. Talk about those. Yeah.
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Do you talk to any of the people still that when you all got out,
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there was a couple of women that you had spoken to? Do you still talk to them?
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I talk to some of them briefly, the ones who are mentioned in the book,
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because they had to be contacted by the fact checker.
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So in writing this book, I reconnected with a couple of them.
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Some of them, I think, follow me on Instagram, but I'm not in regular contact at this point.
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That one woman who approached you or called you later and was like,
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Veena, I think this is a cult.
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And you were like, it's fine. It's not. You don't know what you're talking about.
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Did she ever pop up again? No, I have wondered about her. I really wonder how
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she's doing. Right? Yeah.
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Because she legitimately tried to save you. It was weird because the way that
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the cult leader, you know, he like structured the community with like a very
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specific power dynamic.
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Right. So and it was always like one way. So you couldn't really have friendships
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with people. There was like isolated you.
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Yeah. Yeah. So they're like I was in a position where I was taking calls from her.
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Right. So she was calling me as the experienced person within this group. And she was brilliant.
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I think she had three PhDs. She was whip smart.
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She had been preparing to go to his house to have a weekend intervention.
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Actually, I think he was visiting her.
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Concerned friend of hers had googled something and
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flagged to her like hey i think this group is not good and
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was able to get through to her luckily yeah but
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one of the tactics that the call leader used is he would always preemptively
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give you the reason for any kind of red flag he would give you the excuse beforehand
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so immediately before i'd had that conversation with her i had been in a room
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with him where he was making fun of the fact that people would call this group a cult.
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And he was like, you know, all we're doing is trying to be better people.
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We're trying to love our family. When people say this is a cult,
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you know, I laugh like, sign me up.
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So he fed me the response and I just immediately parroted that back out.
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I'm so glad you're here right now sitting with me. The amount of self-reflection
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that you had to go through in writing this book,
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did anything surprise you as you were writing it about yourself that came out
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or were you surprised by any feelings that you had when you were writing it?
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No, I mean, I was shocked to discover, I really believed this man had given
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me the impression that I'm this crazy manipulative bitch and like hyper controlling.
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And as I was writing this, even as I was like dating after I got divorced,
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I was kind of shocked to learn that I'm actually a nice person. Yes.
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I was like, oh, none of that applies to me. Like, I'm quite reasonable.
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So that was a big relief. But it took me a while to get there.
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Right? Do you ever find yourself questioning it? All the time.
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Right? All the time. I mean, to have someone telling you that constantly about
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yourself and then to realize, wait, I'm not that person.
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It's like you have to constantly remind yourself being like,
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I am not that person. I know who I am. Yeah. Yeah.
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Affirmations. All the time. Yeah. Again, sign myself up for therapy. Yeah.
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Well, that's good. I love therapy. I keep going back. I had a therapist once
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tell me that maybe I was gay. Yeah.
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Wait, I'm not kidding you. I've been in therapy since I was like 19 when I had
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a really bad eating disorder.
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So I was sent home from college because I was really sick. They're like,
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you cannot die here. You're going home to your family.
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So at this point, it was like 98, I think it was.
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So they knew about eating disorders, but it wasn't like now where there's so
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many more resources and they're trying to understand it a lot more.
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You were just put in a bed at Stanford Hospital, but there were no beds available.
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So I was put in an outpatient for drug addicts and alcoholics because it was
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seen as an addiction, which in some ways, you know, anorexia is an addiction.
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You're addicted to control and all the other things that come with it.
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I went to this one therapist and she was like, you know, I'm listening to your story.
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I wonder if you're a lesbian.
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And I was like, and it's coming out as not eating?
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Like, I think if I was a lesbian, I would just be a lesbian. So there are so many.
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I'm trying to follow the logical leap there.
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You might be a lesbian. I'm like, okay, well, I don't think I am,
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but I can question my sexuality, sure. But I really like penis, so probably not.
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And then, right, and then I had another therapist after that who legitimately
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walked over to his wall of medical books, pulled one out, and flipped through
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it and diagnosed me from his book.
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He was like, I think you might have this. And it was some random disorder.
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And I was like, no, I'm pretty sure that, that is not right.
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Pretty sure I don't have that. I'm like, I'm pretty sure I'm controlling as
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fuck and not comfortable with my body. So I'm going to find someone else.
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So then I found another therapist who let me beat the shit out of pillows with
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a bat. And I was like, this is my lady.
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She's like, take this pillow, take this bat, and I want you to hit it. And I was like, what?
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She's like, get it out. And I'm like, this is what I needed in my life.
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I needed this person. That's maybe why I wound up in a cult,
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because I didn't have therapists with a bat.
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With a bat, where you could be like, get the fuck away from me.
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No, but I remember hearing that on your podcast. And thank you so much for sharing that.
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So usually I feel like alone in that, you know, so I appreciate. Yes, totally.
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But no, it's literally that those experiences with like traditional therapists
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is why, you know, a cult leader seems appealing.
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Yes, because they can help you. Yeah. I feel like you can, I don't know,
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give up that sense of you can't control your own thoughts. You can't control what you're doing.
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Someone else can just do this for me. So I think that makes it probably a lot
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easier to just not see the signs for a while.
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I think that in talking about it, it's got to be more freeing to know that other
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people are going to read this and be like,
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I've felt this. I know what this is in the beginning when you talk about suicide.
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Yeah. I think a lot of people ask me how I'm able to be so open or express,
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you know, something to that effect.
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But I also think, you know, the way I was raised was to withhold information
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constantly, which is in the book. Every time my mom is like,
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what are people going to think?
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You have to hide yourself. You can't share.
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And I think that felt so destructive that just being myself feels so much more
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like healing and rewarding.
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And you know I think my
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reasons for sharing have varied greatly throughout
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my life you know when I was young I felt isolated and I was desperately trying
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to connect with people I was searching for community I was searching for that
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sense of belonging and now I'm very established I have my community I feel super
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satisfied and I don't necessarily feel a need to like.
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Expose myself or like rock the boat in any way.
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So now it's much more a deliberate choice in case this is something that is
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helpful to other people.
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Yeah, I think it will be. I think it will be.
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This, the high school you went to,
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The suicide rate was the highest in the nation at this point,
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right? I think that's what you wrote in your book. Yeah, it was nicknamed suicide high.
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Is it still happening? Do you know if it's still high there?
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I don't know. I haven't been back in very long. I think it's been about five years.
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But, you know, even when I do go back, there's usually like someone will say
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something like, oh, the girl's softball coach committed suicide.
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Oh, my God. So I suspect, but I don't know for sure.
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Yeah. How do you feel living in an area that is a high-achieving area?
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It's not the same stressors, right? It's not the same.
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I mean, I still I have mixed feelings about it, maybe for other reasons.
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But I think also generationally, like you were talking about,
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we have the conversations that are happening now surrounding mental health,
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surrounding race, surrounding gender are so much more evolved.
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And there are so many more tools for people.
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And also, I feel uniquely equipped to help my children because of what I've
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been through. I'm like, nothing that you say can shock me, can scare me,
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as long as we keep an open dialogue. My oldest is in therapy.
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The thoughtfulness of your oldest daughter boggles my mind. It is incredible.
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Her emotional IQ has to be off the frickin' roof. Yeah. Because she is so in tune.
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Some of her questions remind me of when Grayson was little and he'd ask me this
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very deep questions right before bed. Yeah.
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It always comes out before bed. Right before bed. There's a comfort in that.
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I know. I'm like, can we do this like in the morning when we have time,
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not like at 9.35 when you need to get to bed? I think we've talked about this before.
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It's like right before bedtime. they get real inquisitive. Grayson asked me
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one day, does everyone have a mom and dad?
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And I was like, well, let's sit down. This is hard.
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This is going to be a longer conversation and I'm going to tell you all about
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it. The answer is no. And here are all the things.
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And he goes on to ask, did Grampy and Grampy have a mom and dad? I'm like, they did.
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Right up the family tree. I was like, they did. I'm like, but don't forget,
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Grampy's parents were adopted.
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They don't know where they're. So there's a different family dynamic.
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So it literally was like a 15-minute conversation of as long as people love
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each other and they're kind to each other the dynamic can be whatever it is
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yeah as long as there's love and then he was like okay good night like that
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was it and then i went to bed and i'm processing this for like an hour.
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How did my what's coming tomorrow how did my eight-year-old just ask me about
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this was there an experience in the book that was especially difficult to revisit yeah,
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It was difficult to admit that I called this man daddy.
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Like, you know, it's in the copy. It's going to be on the back of the book. I feel that. Right.
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I feel that. Whenever I'm explaining it to people, there's no getting around
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it. I'm like, yeah, it was bad.
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It was bad. It was not great. Sit on his lap and call him dad.
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Is that something that people ask about often? The people who have read it?
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I mean, no. It's one of... It's so literally on here.
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The comment I wrote about it, because I made notes because I didn't want to
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write in the book because I was supposed to give it back.
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Calling him daddy, I almost fell off my seat. Yeah. Literally.
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I was sitting there and I'm like, what?
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So I get that could be a little triggering. I resisted it for years, you know.
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And then finally, once you hear enough educated, smart adults just like freely
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calling him daddy and jumping into his lap, I was like, am I crazy?
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I must be the crazy one. Be really resistant to love. Are you finding your intuition again?
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Are you trusting it? No. You're not. Okay.
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Hopefully that's on the roadmap. I think I've come a long way.
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You know, I'm probably my harshest critic, so I don't give myself credit for
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the progress I've made. I think I've come a really long way.
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Yeah. But it's also a double-edged sword because I think the ability to see
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things from other perspectives and that kind of flexibility of thinking has been a huge asset for me.
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It helps me learn things. It helps me see things from other people's perspective.
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I'm not as rigid in my thinking as I used to be. In the book,
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you say things like, this doesn't feel right.
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Like there are moments when I know your gut is in there and you just don't listen to it.
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So are you doing a better job at listening to the gut?
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Not in just hearing other people's stories and hearing both sides of the thing,
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but if you're really feeling like something's not right, are you listening to that now?
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Well, it's still tricky. And I think that's why I always struggled with the
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advice like trust your gut, because when you're in the situation,
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how are you able to identify which feeling is your gut and which feeling is
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the manipulation or the doubt?
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So for me, this man was incredibly charismatic.
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He seemed like he understood me in a way that no one else had.
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So in that moment, it was equally plausible to me that that could have been
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my gut feeling. And that was the feeling I was supposed to trust.
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So confusing. It's really confusing. So initially coming out of that situation, one of the.
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Techniques I would rely on to help reset my judgment was getting feedback from my friends and family.
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Because I'm like, if everyone is raising a red flag, it usually means something's off. Yeah, for sure.
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Because many of my close friends had, my parents had, about my eventual deep
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involvement with this group. Yeah.
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Well, I love in the book how your mom was like, you know, you don't have to
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talk to him anymore. I don't.
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Right. And I was like, this is your fault you brought me
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here you forced me to talk to this person I absolutely
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don't want to hear this right I was like wait mom
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why didn't you tell her that before right but she didn't
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know that they and you talk about this in the book how the isolation was so
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strategic yeah and how he talked to everyone separately and you weren't supposed
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to talk to any of them because that's part of the therapy right the healing
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or whatever it was to make you better yeah so she didn't know the extent of my involvement.
25:17
So when she said that one line, I was like, that's amazing. You don't have to talk to him anymore.
25:23
There is a part of the book that you talk about your ex-husband,
25:27
who was your boyfriend at the time, calling the cops on you.
25:32
And you're literally put into a hospital in New York City.
25:35
That scene actually was incredibly difficult to revisit. I can only imagine,
25:40
as you wrote that scene, I was so scared for you because...
25:45
There's this person controlling you who's also controlling your boyfriend and
25:49
everyone around you. So no one trusts you.
25:52
Yeah. And then tells the therapist at the hospital not to trust you.
25:56
Like, that felt like you could have been stuck there.
26:01
How did that feel to write that again? It felt so unnerving.
26:05
And actually, a lot of that scene, I had to talk to my ex to ask,
26:11
like, what do you remember happening here? because it was so overwhelming for me at the time.
26:17
But yeah, it took me a long time to understand what actually happened in that scenario.
26:22
It was just crazy as I was writing about it, constructing this timeline.
26:26
And I realized that happened only two or three months after my ex met the call leader.
26:33
They met in person once, and then they had kept in touch over a text and phone call.
26:38
But it was moments like that. And also I realized in talking to my parents about
26:44
it, which I didn't know until years after, that he had tried to get them to
26:49
call the cops on me several times prior to that.
26:52
It was a tactic for sure. And I didn't realize it at the time.
26:55
So my memory of that was like, I was just out of control.
27:00
And definitely my behavior wasn't great. I think I needed help.
27:04
But now I'm able to recognize that, like, okay, he was specifically trying to
27:09
engineer that situation in order to be able to exert control over me.
27:13
And then by talking to the head psychologist, having them keep me in the hospital,
27:19
basically at his will, without even bothering to verify his credentials,
27:24
because he's not an actual therapist, right?
27:26
He was a medical doctor who had his license revoked. It was moments like that
27:32
that were so powerful and scary to me, like knowing that he could just control
27:37
the course of my life like that.
27:39
That was what motivated me to call him every day. It's not just that,
27:44
like, I was really gullible and I was like, this seems fine calling a six-year-old
27:49
man in Georgia, like, every day when I'm, like, 19.
27:53
It's not that that, like, felt comfortable or that he was just really convincing.
27:59
It's that he was, even from afar, able to control my physical circumstances to such a great extent.
28:06
I already, at that point, mistrusted the mental health system because I'd already
28:12
been kept against my will. Yes. In high school.
28:15
Yes. And he would constantly tell me, if you don't listen to me,
28:18
you're going to end up dead or permanently institutionalized.
28:21
He would say that over and over again.
28:22
And I was like, that's plausible. That's genuinely plausible.
28:26
Because he could control that. Yeah. I think, and I think other people will
28:31
read this book, I think that your strength to survive is well beyond what you think it is.
28:39
Because you were manipulated by this man, but you also knew that to survive
28:45
and keep going, you needed to call him and be a part of this.
28:50
So I think that coming on the other side of this and seeing who you are as a
28:56
person now, you're a strong-ass person.
28:59
Someone that I admire very, very much. Even without knowing this whole story,
29:04
when we first met, I knew blips about you and we conversed.
29:08
But you're a fucking rock star. I just want you to know that.
29:13
When I first met you, I was on the playground at the co-op.
29:16
I remember that. And you wore the best multicolored furry boots that your friend designed in Brooklyn.
29:22
Oh, yeah. Do you remember those
29:23
boots? I think I do, yeah. And I was immediately like, who is this woman?
29:28
And are we going to be friends? I think your oldest was playing on the playground,
29:32
right? Because she was at the co-op at the time. Yeah.
29:35
And I was like, I need to be friends with this person. She's really cool. Who is she?
29:41
I need more. And then we'd run into each other on occasion.
29:45
Yeah. As the kids were growing up. Yeah. I remember you being so warm and charismatic
29:49
and I was like, how do I get to know this person more?
29:53
And also being like, oh, maybe Connecticut isn't all that bad.
29:56
We're not. Well, I have a couple of quotes.
29:58
The isolation. I focus on the family I've gained instead of the family I've lost.
30:06
Was that at the peak of his manipulation that you were going through that? Yeah.
30:14
And, you know, it's I think isolation is like a pretty well-known tactic of abuse.
30:21
But for me, it was interesting the way in which he was able to do that so that it seemed compelling.
30:28
In today's society, we're quick to label behavior as toxic and people are quick
30:35
to cut ties with their parents.
30:38
Right. And so that was how he positioned it. Or he was like,
30:41
it's not healthy for you to be interacting with them right now.
30:46
You need some space. This is just to work on yourself temporarily.
30:50
It's not going to be a long term thing. This is your doctor's note.
30:55
And that makes sense. It did. It made sense when I read it. Yeah.
30:59
Yeah. It's like it's totally plausible.
31:01
But, you know, it ended up not being a temporary thing.
31:04
It ended up really erecting boundaries between my mom and I,
31:08
where even when she would visit, even when she would interact with me.
31:13
And she was great because even despite all of this, she would still come help out with the kids.
31:17
The way that he spoke to me about her impacted the way that I saw her and impacted
31:23
my ability to connect with her and to open up to her.
31:26
Because I had this idea of like, she's never going to understand.
31:30
People are just going to misunderstand me.
31:32
Actually, one of our friends at the co-op, I had interacted with her when I was in this cult.
31:40
And then later on, when I got to know her, she was like, I was so intrigued by you.
31:45
I really wanted to get to know you and you seemed so closed off.
31:49
That was fascinating to me because I didn't realize I was projecting something
31:53
out into the world to push people away.
31:56
I've heard that from several people and I was just in my own world being like,
32:00
why does nobody want to be friends?
32:03
Not realizing that this is how I've been trained to act.
32:07
Yeah. I love when the sisters showed up at your apartment building.
32:12
Because we lived in New York for like 10 years. We had this beautiful building with the doorman.
32:18
I could only imagine Sal, the doorman, being like, Maria, there are some people
32:24
here to see you. Are we good?
32:27
Hector knew. Hector knew. Love doorman. I love him.
32:32
The other quote, sometimes you have to take out the fucking fork.
32:36
So earlier you had said something about how the way I wrote,
32:39
it was able to make him seem compelling, which is such a compliment to me.
32:43
So thank you, because that was my goal.
32:45
I want you to understand why he seemed plausible.
32:48
And I think one of the big things with leaders like this is that they mix in the truth.
32:56
It's not that they're just lying to you and saying crazy shit off the bat.
33:01
They start with things that are genuinely helpful and insightful.
33:08
So when I first met him, he was really big into metaphors.
33:12
One of the metaphors that he would use is that imagine you stick a fork in someone's leg.
33:19
How are they going to act? They're going to look crazy, right?
33:22
They're going to be like waving their arms. They're going to be screaming in
33:26
pain. But it's because of the fork, right?
33:29
And you know that. It's like it's a natural response to pain.
33:33
If you take a video camera and film them from the chest up so you can't see
33:37
the fork, they look like they're totally nuts because you don't know what's causing the pain.
33:43
So you just are seeing their reaction, and their reaction makes them look like a crazy person.
33:51
And that really resonated for
33:53
me. And of course, then he manipulated that and used it to his own end.
33:58
But at the end of this whole journey, I kind of circled back to that because
34:02
I think there's always this question with mental health issues where it's like,
34:06
how much is me is just in my mind? And how much is in the circumstances?
34:12
So that's kind of what I came to at the end of this where I was like,
34:17
my reaction is because I have been so controlled by this person and because
34:23
I haven't been allowed to make a single choice for myself in my adult life.
34:27
It's all been orchestrated by him and my husband at the time.
34:31
Leading into that is the next quote, which is truth is never as clean as we like.
34:37
And I freaking love that. Because true or false, there could be so many things in between all of it.
34:48
Circumstances. Who was there? What happened? It's not just like your kid pushed my kid.
34:53
I'm like, okay, but how did they get into that?
34:57
What made you use that line?
34:59
Because I think it's brilliant. Well, I think, you know, I fell into this man's
35:04
influence when I was a teenager.
35:05
And at that point, you have a very black and white thinking.
35:09
Life isn't worth living, or it is. And you want an answer to,
35:13
like, the meaning of life. And what are we doing here? And what's our purpose?
35:16
And what made him so compelling to me was that he purported to have an answer
35:22
to that. He's like, I have an answer.
35:24
You just follow these simple steps, and then you can get to everlasting happiness.
35:28
I was like, that sounds great. Nobody else has offered me that.
35:31
Now as an adult, I'm like, right, no one else offered me that because it's literally
35:36
not a thing that you can offer.
35:38
Like, life is messy and you have to make meaning out of it, which is what my
35:44
actual psychologist had been
35:47
trying to tell me. But I like wasn't in a place where I could hear that.
35:52
I needed some kind of hope first before I could be open to that idea. Yeah.
35:58
I think a lot of mental health is about reframing. It's like knowing when to
36:02
zoom in and when to zoom out.
36:04
It's not clean solutions. We're just muddling through.
36:08
I did not know that hysteria and uterus were connected. Mind blown.
36:14
Of course, all of those words would come about because of women.
36:18
Like, guess what, guys? If it wasn't for us, y'all wouldn't be here.
36:21
Yeah, I know. So let's just remember that.
36:23
So when you're burning witches and calling us hysterical, good luck procreating and making more of you.
36:30
Literally the vessel that gives life. It's like the word pussy.
36:34
Okay. So we talk about this. I tell the kids because I've heard them use this word.
36:39
And I'm like, I go on a rant. And Ben has had to tell me to stop.
36:43
I look at the boys and I say, do you know what a pussy is? And they're like,
36:46
what? I'm like, it's a vagina. And do you know what a vagina does?
36:50
A vagina gives birth. with.
36:53
It literally brings life into the world. I am so glad those boys have you.
36:57
Yeah. Like, it literally brings
36:59
life into the world. They're going to be okay. And what does a penis do?
37:01
Nothing. It goes up and it goes down.
37:04
It doesn't deliver a child. Ben's like, I believe you are. And the boys were
37:07
like, okay. I'm like, we never use that word.
37:10
If you're going to call anyone something, you should call them a weenie.
37:13
Because that means a penis. And it doesn't do anything.
37:17
It's like, I was like, it's like one of those words that I just can't with it.
37:21
So don't worry. We're bringing in boys into the universe who will not calling me hysterical.
37:27
The world will be better after.
37:30
And they know never to use the P word. What do people get wrong about the manipulation
37:34
and the cult-like control?
37:36
Oh, I think so much. One is like it's really the basic group dynamics that literally impact all of us.
37:45
So, like, one of the biggest factors on whether or not someone will join a cult
37:49
is if a trusted family member or friend has been in that cult and has specifically recommended it.
37:57
So it's like the same way if you get, like, a skincare product recommendation
38:02
from a great friend, right?
38:04
From a friend you really trust and you feel like they understand you,
38:08
then it's that social proof that's so strong.
38:10
A lot of the moms in town wear Golden Goose sneakers, right?
38:15
I will never buy Golden Goose.
38:17
Me neither. Or Uggs. Me neither. Oh my God, we have that in common.
38:22
But I'll buy like six pairs of moon boots and wear them all the time.
38:26
I love you so much. I've never loved you more.
38:29
It's the same principles of conformity, right? Those are really,
38:34
really strong. They're hardwired into our brains.
38:37
And there's a reason for it because those things protect us.
38:42
Typically, they're supposed to protect us. If you think about a tribe,
38:45
staying within the tribe keeps you safe.
38:48
Solomon Asch conducted this incredible experiment on conformity that's very
38:53
famous now, where he showed people three lines.
38:58
Two of them were the same length. One was shorter. And in this experiment,
39:04
all of the participants except one were paid actors, and they were paid to lie
39:09
about the length of the line. There's no skill involved.
39:12
All you need to do is look at it with your eyes.
39:15
The person who is actually the participant for the vast majority of the times
39:21
would agree with the other people who lied about the length of the line because it's that strong.
39:27
Right. And there are different reasons for it. One potential reason is you start
39:31
second guessing your own judgment, right?
39:33
You're like, well, these three people are seeing that like I can't be the one who's right.
39:40
Or you think maybe they have access to some kind of information that you don't.
39:45
Right. Like if you're going to a theater or a concert and you don't know where
39:50
the entrance is, but there's a long line of people headed in one direction.
39:53
And you're like, these guys probably know where they're going. Yes.
39:56
And so you wait in that line. Right. That might not be the line.
39:59
Nobody checked the door. Right. Right.
40:01
And then you're like, actually, the door has been open the whole time. You could go that way.
40:04
So it's those same principles that leave someone susceptible to a cult.
40:11
Right. Once you're in that situation, I'm surrounded by all of these people
40:15
who are like, this guy saved my life. You just need to listen to him. You're acting crazy.
40:20
And I was like, I have a pretty colorful mental health history.
40:25
What are the odds that i'm right versus this man who has written all of these
40:30
books and delivered all these seminars i i feel like i'm betting on him not
40:34
betting on me yeah so i think that's one of the big yeah what was the hardest
40:38
part of an untangling yourself from this world.
40:45
I think definitely starting to trust myself that's still an ongoing process
40:51
i still find it difficult.
40:53
When you're so completely mired in another way of thinking and then you find
40:58
out that all of your beliefs were completely wrong, it's so difficult to be
41:04
like, okay, I trust the way that I'm seeing things. No, I'm probably right.
41:08
What's next? A book comes out at the end of,
41:11
May. I will put the pre-order on here so people can get it. But are you starting to write again?
41:17
Are you trying to stay focused on this book and launching it into the world?
41:23
Or are you back into writing?
41:24
I am not focused. No, it's all over the place. It's everything all at once.
41:30
I have been writing again, and I've been talking to some agents about some potential opportunities.
41:40
You're We'll see what happens. But yeah, I am definitely starting to think about
41:44
a second book and what's next.
41:47
Yes. I want more. Being a fan club, it's going to start right here.
41:52
Oh, good. So you can come back on the podcast when you launch your next big thing. For sure.
41:56
For sure. Okay. At the very end, I asked the same three questions of all my guests.
42:00
So the first question is, what have you changed your mind about recently?
42:04
Oh, okay. Speaking of Oggs.
42:07
I mean like i have changed my mind and i haven't because i think they're so vile and hideous,
42:13
but i i think i recently came around to them as
42:16
a necessary evil not for me but for my kids i had a conversation with someone
42:21
where they were like Venus you know you don't always need to look cute sometimes
42:25
you just need to be warm and i was like okay fine so i finally broke down and
42:29
bought my daughter Uggs i wholeheartedly disagree with that person and if we're
42:33
friends just let me know who it is. We're going to have a discussion about it.
42:36
Because you can be cute and warm at the same time. True.
42:40
It's called moon boots. And they are life-saving. And everyone was like,
42:44
why are you wearing those? And I went, don't get to me. Just wait.
42:48
And now everyone's buying them because they're the warmest damn things.
42:51
My children take mine now.
42:53
Wow. I'm like, don't take my moon boots. And now I want them in every color.
42:56
Adding to cart. I stand on the side of a mountain for an hour and a half.
43:00
My body might start to get cold. My feet are
43:04
always warm. Okay. You've convinced me, Marianne.
43:08
And Moon Boots, if you would like to sponsor She's Smart, please reach out because
43:12
I've worn them on the podcast.
43:15
What's on your bucket list? Is there something fun on your bucket list?
43:19
Yes, I would like to do a split.
43:22
Oh, okay. So a front split or like right or left, any kind of split.
43:28
Yeah. Last year I started doing aerial silks. Yes. And it's been so fun.
43:34
And flexibility would be nice. I don't have it. And I won't actually do anything to get there.
43:41
Like stretching to me is just like the most unpleasant physical sensation known to man. I cannot.
43:48
But I would like. Okay, so the final question is, is there one piece of advice
43:52
that you would give your younger self?
43:56
Oh, I don't think I would give her any advice.
44:00
I don't think she would have listened, to be honest.
44:03
She kind of thought she knew. I think I would just give her a big hug.
44:07
I think that's probably what she needed. Yeah, absolutely.
44:11
Yeah, I think that was a big thing with writing this book.
44:15
For me, it was like being able to get some distance from that younger self and
44:20
really have some compassion for her and be like, you were like,
44:24
you were lonely and you just needed some support.
44:27
This has been truly amazing.
44:30
And I'm so glad you came to the podcast. Thank you so much for having me.
44:34
Thank you so much for joining me today on She's Smart. New episodes drop every Thursday.
44:39
Don't forget to subscribe and share. Stay cozy.