 This is Think Tech Hawaii, Community Matters here. And welcome to Working Together on Think Tech Hawaii, where we discuss the effects of change on workers, employers, and the economy. I'm your host, Cheryl Crozier-Garcia, inviting you to join the conversation. Please call in with your questions or comments to area code 808-374-2014 or tweet us at Think Tech H.I. This is episode two in our series on social groups, and today we're going to be talking about one of the most controversial groups in the United States. Surveys indicate that there may be up to 50,000 people in the continental U.S. practicing polygamy. Some of those families may be secular and independent, that is, not affiliated with any group, but many are part of one of the fundamentalist Mormon congregations headquartered in and around Utah. There seem to be two strictly delineated groups of polygamists. Those we see on TV in shows like Sister Wives, My Five Wives, and others who claim that polygamy is a difficult but satisfying lifestyle and should be legalized. And those we see in Escaping Polygamy and Escaping the Prophet, who say that polygamy creates an environment where child abuse, sexual assault, welfare fraud, and other crimes are commonplace and victims have no recourse. The anti-polygamist groups say that polygamy should remain illegal. Today we're going to talk to Brenda Nicholson. Brenda is a former member of Warren Jeff's FLDS group, and we're going to find out from her firsthand what it's like inside the FLDS. She's joining us live via Skype. Welcome Brenda. Can I hear you? Can you hear me now? I can hear you. Thank you. Okay. Thank you for inviting me on. It's my pleasure. I really want to, well, the first thing I like to tell you is that the shows about polygamy in Hawaii are guilty pleasures. I mean, people don't admit to watching them, and yet Monday morning it's like, me, I binge watch such and such this weekend, and oh, can you believe what happened? So there's a lot of that. It's kind of like watching a car wreck, you know. You can't look away, but it's at the same time almost horrific to imagine being part of. Yeah. Can you tell us about your history within the FLDS? Yes. So I was actually born into the mainstream LDS church, but my parents had met some people that were part of the FLDS, and they were investigating that group. And they joined when I was about eight months old, I believe. We moved from California where I was born to Salt Lake City, Utah, and they aligned themselves with the FLDS. And I was, so that was all I ever knew. And I was a faithful member until March of 2012, and that's when me and my husband and our six children made the choice to leave. What can you tell us? What made you decide that the polygamous lifestyle was not for you anymore? Growing up in polygamy as a girl, I had always struggled with the idea. It never, you know, women always put on their smile and say that they love it, but that if you spend any time around them, you could tell that there was a lot of jealousy and a lot of sadness and loneliness. But the final straw for me was Warren Jeffs was making everything much more strict, and the rules were more restrictive. They had brought in the United Order, which you had to be judged whether you were worthy or not to be in it. And my husband and I, and three of our six children, were judged unworthy, and the other three were judged worthy. And it reached the point where they said that worthy and unworthy couldn't live together, and so they were going to take three of my children away from me and give them to more worthy parents. And that was the point where I was done. There was no way I was going to stay and let them take my children. Now, the three children that were deemed worthy of being in the United Order, were they all girls? No, I actually only have one girl, and then I have five boys, but my one girl was one of them, yes. And then my oldest son, who has cerebral palsy, and so that was another concern where I wasn't allowed to be part of their meetings and stuff. He had been bullied a lot, and I didn't like letting him go, or I couldn't be there to make sure people were treating him properly. And then my son that was just nine at the time, so that was the three. And did those children know that they had been deemed worthy while the rest of their family were not included? Yes. So there's a deadline of midnight on December 31st of 2011, where you had to have been through the judgment process. And we, our family didn't get called to go through the judgment until the afternoon of December 31st. And we went through our interviews, and then the bishop's office called to let us know they wanted to talk to our daughter and let us know that she and the two of our boys had been found worthy. They wanted to talk to them so that they'd come up and get their ordinances and things done. And as for the rest of us, they never tell you you're not worthy. They just leave you, you know, if they don't tell you you're worthy, you have to assume. And so, from that point on, the three children who were worthy started going to separate meetings that we weren't allowed to go to, and they weren't allowed to tell us what they were told. And we had to go to repentance meetings to try to prove worthy for the next round of judging and hope that you'd get in the next time. How is it that, do you know the process that they went through to determine that some of your children were worthy and others were not? Did they ask specific kinds of questions or how did they? They did. They had that questionnaires that you were supposed to make sure you could fill out with all the appropriate answers. You know, it had a lot to do with sexual purity. It had a lot to do with not having bad feelings. Do you say your prayers all the time? Are you giving all of your extra time and money and belongings to the church? Those kinds of things. And so you had to be able to fill out that questionnaire ahead of time. And then they only asked a few questions when you went into the room. There were three men who were set apart to be judges. One of them was Lyle Jeffs. One of them was my father and then John Barlow. And I have no idea. I know it wasn't inspiration like they claim it was, but it came to a point where I felt like with some of the younger kids, they just wanted the kids. But beyond that, I started to wonder if it was more of a, through your, we had to also write confession letters before that. If the people they found worthy were people that they felt like they had something over them so that they could get them to do whatever they were told or that through their confessions, they're like, these are people who would actually be willing to carry out the kind of things we're going to require. I have no idea. So it was kind of, it sounds like salvation by blackmail. Oh, absolutely. Where, you know, they're purposefully looking for fault or rule breaking behaviors so that those things can be used as a weapon against people who for whatever reason are deciding that they cannot carry through with, say, the Prophet's directives. Absolutely. They also, there were a lot of people that would receive a correction. They'd find out they were getting kicked out or they lost their family based on what someone else confessed of in their letters. And the things they started kicking people out for, like they, women would be sent away. And it was an accusation of murder of unborn children. If you had had miscarriages or if you had ever taken birth control for any reason, it just, the stuff was insane. And there, a lot of times there was no way to, I mean, I knew people that were like, well, this is what I was accused of, but I can't see how I did that. I don't know how they're, but if God said that I did, then I've got to figure out it must have been in my feelings. It was just crazy. Okay. You know, Carolyn Jessup in her book talks about this issue of birth control being considered a form of child murder and her husband or her priesthood head was the one who would determine not only if she would have children, but when she would have them, how many she would have, et cetera. And she also tells the story. She's got a special needs son who has a really some fairly big special needs, I guess, similar to what your son has, and that that was viewed as a, like a statement from God to say that Carolyn as a mother was not appropriately obedient to her priesthood. Did you get that? That's another thing that it's a, it all depends on how the leaders feel about you. Warren Jess had a child that was born with a disability and in his case or people, other people that were seen as in the favor of the church, they would say that that was proof of that that child, the spirit had been injured in the war in heaven. And so it was a sign of this was a very valiant spirit and, you know, some of them that were, that were born very disabled, it was that they were so valiant and so pure that they only needed to come to this earth to get a body. And that was to prevent them from giving into the temptations that people that aren't disabled deal with. And if you weren't in favor with the church, then yes, many times they would say that was proof that of some sin, you know, that was the result of a sin, that that child was cursed for your disobedience or whatever, which is really a horrific thing to tell someone. Yes, it is. I have a special needs brother myself. And the idea that those diagnoses could have come as punishment from heaven or God or whatever you believe in is frankly sickening to me. So I is, is your child okay, your, your son was okay. He has mild cerebral palsy and he has a few other like disabilities. We actually just got him involved in some training and stuff to help him navigate things and get a better job. So he's actually doing pretty well. He's, he suffered a lot in the church because people were very cruel. You know, the children there were would bully him and make fun of him, but stepping away from that. He does a lot better now. Good. And, and you're comfortable that now that he is out of that environment, it's more, it's more, it's easier for you to get the services for him that he needs. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, a lot of that, even going to the doctors, any kind of education, we were so drawn back and supposed to stay out of the world, not just because, you know, I came to find out why they wanted us to be ignorant and not like hear the news. But also it was really, a lot of it came down to a matter of money. They didn't want us putting our time and money into anything like that. If you could then be giving it to the church and I was such a believer in the whole thing that I just kept, I mean, I felt bad that like we didn't get dental work done because we couldn't afford it and I just kept thinking, well, we've been told the distractions are going to come any day and part of that if you're worthy is you'd be lifted up off the earth and your body be renewed and made perfect and then set back down and that was what I was counting on was that these things I couldn't take care of for my children that their salvation mattered more because as long as they were worthy, we'd all be okay. We'd be renewed and it would all be taken care of and that was another one of the things that really hit me hard as I came to realize that the church and all of that was a lie was that they had robbed us of even having the quality of life that we should have had and it really does, it comes down to money to a great degree. They want your money. They don't want you spending it on other things. So tithing is a big part of appropriate membership? Yes, you absolutely have to be paying your tithing. In the last few years before we left, they also started once in a while requiring a thousand dollar donation from every elder and elder is someone ordained into the higher priesthood office. You had to be ordained to be an elder in order to get married and stuff. You had to be over 18 and then it reached a point where they said that you needed to be giving that extra, that was above your tithing every month and we did. We were paying our tithing and also that thousand dollar donation and then they'd make all these calls for more money. By the time we left, we had refinanced both of our vans and got loans and we'd gone into debt just to try to keep up with what they were asking for. Wow. How do you raise six children and yet feed, clothe and house them adequately and still have that much money to give to anybody, church or any other organization? Well, and you just can't. And we were somewhat isolated for the last several years because they sent us to live in Las Vegas and we just lived inside a house there. But after we left, we came to realize that not very many people kept doing that thousand dollar donation. There were a lot of people that they took care of their family needs first, but that wasn't the impression they gave you if you were to just listen to what they were telling you. And so we were determined to follow all the rules and it was very detrimental. Wow. Yes. Brenda, I'm hearing from the guys in the booth that we need to do some housekeeping and share with our viewers some of the other great programming available on Thinktec Hawaii. Please hang around though because I want to ask you about your exit from polygamy and what we can do to support those who are wanting to leave. So stay with us. OK. This is Thinktec Hawaii, raising public awareness. Aloha. I'm Kayleigh Akina and I volunteer at Thinktec Hawaii as a host of the program Hawaii Together. Why? Because Thinktec Hawaii is doing a very important job in making sure that there is a conversation ongoing between people of all backgrounds and all views. That's what civil discourse is all about and Thinktec is an important part of finding solutions for a better Hawaii. For the first time, Thinktec Hawaii is participating in an online web-based fundraising campaign to raise $40,000. It's called Give Thanks to Thinktec and it will run only during the month of November and you can help. Please donate what you can so that Thinktec Hawaii can continue to raise public awareness and promote civic engagement through free programming like mine. Please send your tax-deductible contribution by going to this website on the screen, www.thanksforthinktec.causevox.com. On behalf of the community enriched by Thinktec Hawaii's 30-plus weekly shows, thank you. Mahalo for your generosity. Welcome back everybody. This is Working Together on Thinktec Hawaii and I'm Cheryl Crozier-Garcia. Today we're talking to Brenda Nicholson who is a survivor of the Warren Jeffs fundamentalist LDS group in Hildale, Utah. She's sharing with us some incredibly surprising stories about her experiences living in the community. So Brenda, thank you again for joining us. Thank you. I want to ask you about the kinds of support you needed for yourself and your family in order to become mainstreamed into society as we know it. But before I do that, I have got a question to ask that has plagued me since I've been reading all these books about folks that have left polygamy. So if you could, could you explain exactly what keeping sweet means? Okay. Basically, it means that you never complain. You never criticize. You never allow your feelings to feel bothered. You're supposed to have this kind of serene peace about you and never question anything you're told to do by anyone over you, especially not the prophet or priesthood leaders. And, you know, getting angry was looked on as a very terrible thing. And you can see with what the kind of things they're forcing you to do that the only way to really control people is if you can also deny them having any emotion and asking any questions. If you've got a guy with 30 wives, he doesn't want to listen to their problems and complaining. So they just have to be quiet. So keeping sweet might be the equivalent of drinking the Kool-Aid, accepting the brainwashing, not challenging those in authority over you kind of suck it up buttercup. You just have to go on. Basically, yes. It was a, I guess, more outward show that you were accepting everything. It was a way for them to keep people from being a problem. And, yeah, just, you know, especially don't ask questions. And, you know, anytime something would come up, if you were, like, struggling, you're having a bad day, you know, that was the need here. Are you keeping sweet? And you'd say it to your kids if they were having a bad day or they didn't get what they wanted, you're like, you got to keep sweet. And it was kind of the go-to for FIXOL for anything you didn't like. Just tell people to keep sweet. Well, I would be a dismal failure at keeping sweet. I felt like we did really good. And now I look back at it, even just hearing the word sweet, sometimes I'm like, don't ever call me sweet. I'm, you know, it's, it has some really negative connections for me now. Yeah, when we hear the stories of what some of these polygamous leaders have done, especially to underage girls and in terms of defrauding the government out of social benefits and things like that, it seems to me maybe people ought to be doing a little less keeping sweet and a little more crack in skulls. But that's just me. Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, for sure, the keeping sweet idea keeps you from allowing yourself to question anything. It's not just saying, why do I have to do this. It's in your mind say, you know, I don't feel like this is the right thing to do. I feel that, you know, I feel like this is wrong, you know, they had you all, it all worked out to where you were convinced that if you felt like something you were told to do was wrong, it was your fault because you weren't praying hard enough about it or you weren't keeping sweet. And so absolutely, you know, following your, if anybody can just follow their gut feeling on things, I would have been out of there a lot of years ago. So tell us about they have to stop you from doing. Yeah, tell us about your exit because you left with your family, your husband and all of your children, right? Yes. It was, it was tough because meetings and stuff, everything was getting crazy and I had decided that this, I just, I couldn't live there anymore. Living in Short Creek in Hilldale, Colorado City was truly hell. And but things started getting more strict and crazy. And it had to be really careful, like for me to try to approach my husband and say, what did you think about meeting today? Because I'm thinking this was way out there. You're at risk of, if he agreed with it, he could go and talk to the leaders in the church and say my wife is questioning or she isn't believing. And I mean, it happened all the time. I was at risk of having my kids just be taken from me and I wouldn't know where they were, you know, and so you had to go really careful at it. But once we realized we were on the same page and we felt safe, then we spent a lot of time around and around and around because it was like, well, but we've been taught this, but this isn't, you know, the pieces didn't fit anymore. And once we finally decided that we were done, he, you know, we were living in church owned housing. My husband worked for a church company and we knew that once we made it known that we were no longer going to stick around that, you know, he'd lose his job. They'd try to kick us out of the house. So we spent probably a month or more trying to find a house to rent. He was trying to find a different job and he had never written a resume. He'd never gone to a job interview because you just got jobs, you know, you work here, you get a job through your father or whatever and, you know, start packing up our stuff. And the hardest part was trying to get through all of that without making the people that you're, you know, your next door neighbors and your family realize that there's something up. Because we were really concerned that if nothing else, they'd come and try to, you know, convince our kids to stay and not go with us or show up while we're trying to leave. And it was such a hard decision. That was the last thing we wanted to do is have to deal with our friends and family in our face, crying and trying to convince us otherwise. So we finally got things lined up and one night we started loading stuff up and just made trips in the dark. You know, we'd have to stop for a while if people were driving by so people wouldn't, so nobody would realize what we were doing. And it pretty much took the whole night making loads and we, and then we were out and it was such an overwhelming mixture of emotion because it was like we made it, we're out. Nobody stopped us. We've got our stuff. We've got a house. We're all safe. And then the realization hits you again that you've just cut the lifeline. This is it. You've, you've taken a step. There's no going back. Everyone, everything, your entire community, everything that was part of your life is gone. Your family will never speak to you again. And all of a sudden you feel incredibly alone. And so there's the freedom of now we can make our own choices and the fear of now whatever we have to make our decisions. And if we make the wrong one, we're responsible. We now are, you know, did we do the right thing? We've got all these kids that we pulled out of their life. And it was, it took a while after we left of, you know, these, these absolute roller coasters of emotion where one minute you feel like this is great, we're out and then devastation. You want to talk to your mom, you know, right? I, that was the part that was really hard too is I knew we were leaving. I knew that it was going to make it to where my family wouldn't talk to me and I wanted so bad to spend more time with my mother and to give her a hug and be able to say goodbye. But you couldn't do any of those things. You had to act like nothing was different. Right. And, um, now we were able to get out, you know, as a unit, as a family, which is very unusual. And it was, you know, it's still, it's been a long journey trying to get our feet under us and adjust to an entirely different life and world and, um, we had, you know, the church did a really good job of vilifying all the people who want to help by holding out help in some of these organizations. And so we were determined not to go to any of them. And we just, we pretty much did it on our own, but there are organizations like that that do huge amounts to help people. Yeah. And some people when they leave aren't as terrified and they do get helps though. Well, that's good. And Brenda, what I want you to know, uh, as well as, uh, your family and any of the other folks that are leaving any of these groups is that you've got people in Hawaii pulling for you and supporting you and wishing you well. I've got, I've got more friends all over the world through Facebook than I ever had in my entire life. And I can say that some of them are better friends. I think than I've ever had. And it, you know, I'm always open to new friends. I can use all the friends I can get at this point. Well, you've just made a million and a half more because that's how many people live in Hawaii. Uh, awesome. I've never been there. My son did go there on a, on a construction job for about four months. But well, if you ever come here, visit, I'm sure ever come here and don't call me, you'll be in big, big trouble. You have to call me. I will make sure to do that because I know where all the good food is. Oh, sure. Yeah. So Brenda, thank you for joining us. Uh, I, I appreciate the time. Um, one of the rights we claim in the United States is the freedom to marry whomever we choose over the years we've passed laws that put an end to miscegenation and legalized same sex marriages. It seems that polygamy is the next issue for, for discussion on the subject of marriage and family. It's true that all groups have their share of abuse and of members who will use the group as a screen to shelter their illegal behaviors, but that doesn't mean it's okay to overlook the abuses and lawbreaking within those groups. Victims have a right to justice and society has a responsibility to protect those who have been preyed upon and to prosecute those who commit crimes, regardless of the rationale used to justify those crimes. Religious freedom does not allow one person to harm others. As a society, we've got to think about what we want families to be and then work together in our communities to assist families in becoming safe havens for people full of love and support, no matter what religion that family may practice. We've come to the end of another episode of Working Together on Think Tech Hawaii. On behalf of all the volunteers here at Think Tech, happy Thanksgiving. We'll see you in two weeks. Till then, take care.