A Statement on Daniella Mestyanek Young

Many of you know I grew up in a religious cult known as the Children of God or the Family. Just as many of you likely know that I don’t talk about it much anymore. I feel like I closed that chapter of my life. It was a long time ago. I'd rather write about dogs and shitty jobs and poverty and road trips, or colonoscopies for that matter.

Sometimes, however, it’s important for those of us who have a voice to speak. I cannot and will not speak for all survivors of the cult. But I cannot be silent. I hope you can understand.

For all the reasons you can imagine, many of us who grew up in the cult do not broadcast the fact of our upbringing. Among those reasons, words like “cult” and “sex cult” come with a few assumptions. For many of us, we’d rather tell you our own story or not at all. Like I said, it was a long time ago. Most of us are around my age. We’ve lived a few lives since leaving. We’ve got families and careers. We’ve traveled. We have cool hobbies. Some of us went to school. Some of us have kids and grandkids. Some of us are great aunts with nieces we’d love to tell you about. We’re writers and lawyers and doctors and we’re waiters and podcasters and carpenters and everything between. We have dogs or cats or both, god help us, and we’d love to show you a picture or three.

What I’m trying to say is, I don’t think many of us consider our childhood the most important thing about us. It’s no longer that interesting to us. Just like yours isn’t that interesting to you. It simply was. Maybe you tell someone so they can know you a little better. Maybe you like to talk about the good parts, the funny parts, even the sad parts. But just parts. Those stories we tell to form a connection.

There’s a content creator out there named Daniella Mestyanek Young. And if you’ve followed me for any length of time, you’ve likely read the piece below, a piece I felt I had to write. It’s not easy for me to speak up to defend myself. Not in my nature. There are times I’ll do it for a friend, that’s a little easier. But in this case, I’ve stayed silent, because I didn’t want to become the story. The reasons are probably better explained in this:

The state of my virginity, according to Daniella Mestyanek Young

I posted that. But I didn’t say all of it. There are stories that aren’t mine to tell. Around that time, a woman we’ll call Vanessa contacted me. She said she’d been named in Daniella’s book, her legal name, Vanessa. She wanted to know what she could do. I didn’t actually know the answer. I cannot imagine how you could use the name of someone who was a minor at the time, someone you describe as “the first girl you made out with.” That’s a name legal should’ve flagged. But I’m not a lawyer. I directed Vanessa to Daniella’s editor.

Then, as things go, more of the story came out. Vanessa doesn’t describe this incident as making out. She describes the incident as assault. She says she was frozen, crying, waiting for it to stop. Which is… Christ. Yeah that’s how it goes.

She asked for an apology. That is all she asked.

Daniella responded in a series of videos in which she defended her actions thusly:

-It wasn’t assault because they were both 15
-It wasn’t assault because Daniella was getting kicked out
-They were sharing a bed, what do you expect
-Vanessa didn’t say no
-Vanessa didn’t come forward until Daniella wrote a book

No shit.

We’ve seen this play out, every goddamn time. Usually it’s a man. But it’s hard to watch someone DARVO a person—deny, attack, pretend to be the real victim, and watch their followers praise them for bravery. For honesty. For…

JESUS FUCKING CHRIST. Do you not hear it? How do you listen to it and not see it? How do you not fucking care?

Unfortunately I know some of it is the usual, why DARVO works. Some of it, however, is these people are listening to Daniella, who describes herself as a cult expert. She says we were all hurting each other. She says we didn’t understand consent. She says it’s just the way it was. She says hurt children learn to hurt children. And this is where I have to speak.

We weren’t all hurting each other. Most of us were very careful to not hurt one another. We didn’t need to be taught consent. We were and are capable of basic empathy and recognized when someone didn’t want to participate.

Not all of us. I have friends now, boys at the time, who fucked with me. We met again as adults. Some of them started the conversation. Sometimes I did. We’re friends because when I needed them to understand what they’d done, that it hurt, they apologized, and they meant it. We’re friends because when it comes to what we did as children, that’s all most of want—aknowledgement and apology. We want to know they understand. We want them to agree what they did was wrong. And it feels better afterwards, just the acknowledgement. All it takes.

I can’t imagine what it feels like to be Vanessa. To tell another survivor, you hurt me. And instead of an apology, you get blame. Public blame. Unrelenting blame. And threats. And lies. And we ask why people don’t come forward.

I’ve been thinking a lot these days, about how it must feel, when those of us who do have a voice and might speak for you, instead choose silence. The fucked up thing, I know it’s actually wise to stay silent. Silence is the correct choice. Daniella will turn this around and it’ll be her usual schtick. Cult members are attacking her for speaking out. They’re just mad she’s super famous and wrote a book. They’re mad she told her story. Lauren Hough is mean to her for no reason whatsoever and she can’t understand at all. It’s very unfair. Lauren Hough accused her of stolen valor. (No I didn’t. I said vets on twitter called you on your bullshit. I wasn’t in the Army. I have no way of knowing. But I tend to believe veterans. Especially when you’re burying the legacy of the Lionesses.) They’re all trying to silence me. By the way libel is extremely illegal. (No it’s not, dipshit. And it’s not libel if it’s true.)

But sometimes the right thing isn’t right. So here we are.

I believe Vanessa. And I believe in my fellow survivors.

I’ll link one of the videos below. The others can be found on her page. Watch at your own risk. Thank you for giving me this space to speak. If you don’t mind, and I know this subject is uncomfortable, but I don’t want Daniella to be the loudest voice in the room. So if you don’t mind. Please share this somewhere.

I should note that while writing this, another survivor with a voice,

Natacha Tormey

, made the same choice. I am really fucking proud to join her. I want you to know, this is who we are. We didn’t hurt each other. We didn’t lose our humanity. We tried to help. We’re trying to do that now.

Link:

She’s deleted the video since. This is a google drive link to the video.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PiMlEMuVwEvPXZf5nFB30cd8V5Mz3hM8/view?usp=sharing