Exploring Trauma, Cult Dynamics, and Body Image Pressures

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The chapter delves into the interviewee's experiences of sexual and physical abuse, struggles with guilt and shame, and the effects of trauma on their perception. It also explores cult dynamics, tactics used to target vulnerable individuals, and the impact of cult experiences on familial relationships. Additionally, the chapter discusses societal pressures on women regarding body image, eating disorders, and reproductive choices in the context of historical and psychological perspectives.

Michelle Dowd was born into an ultra-religious cult, “The Field,” started in the 1930s by her grandfather, who convinced generations of young male followers that he would live five hundred years and ascend to the heavens when doomsday came.

Michelle Dowd is a professor of journalism at Chaffey College and contributor to The New York Times, Alpinist, The Los Angeles Book Review, Catapult, OnlySky, and other national publications. She founded The Chaffey Review, an award-winning literary journal, advises student media, teaches poetry and critical thinking in the California State prisons, and has been recognized as a Longreads Top 5 for The Thing with Feathers, on the relationship between environmentalism and hope. Her memoir is Forager: Field Notes for Surviving a Family Cult.