My Mother, The Cult Leader: 'We Were Prisoners Under Her Absolute Control'

Deborah Green was a woman of undeniable charisma who established what she called a 'free love ministry' in California, claiming to be a direct channel for God's will. However, beneath this spiritual facade lay a deeply controlling, cruel, and sadistic individual. Her daughter, Sarah, courageously recounts the terrifying details of her upbringing within this coercive environment and her eventual, dramatic escape.

Sarah Green's first stark realization that something was profoundly wrong within the religious community where she was raised occurred when her mother forced three of its members into a locked shed. All three were women, shunned by their husbands, and compelled to subsist on meager scraps of food. Her mother, Deborah Green, declared that they had been judged by God, and this was their divine punishment. One of the women, an old family friend named Maura, was made to wear a white sackcloth dress and grotesquely renamed 'Forsaken.' The other two women were similarly stripped of their identities, renamed 'Barren' and 'Despised.'

Sarah is a formidable and striking woman, possessing a keen sense of irony and a joyous, infectious laugh. Yet, at this moment, she is overcome with tears. "I felt sickened to my very core," she confesses. "Even though I’d been indoctrinated, and my mom constantly told me, 'I’m God’s oracle, so I know what God wants for everyone, and this is what they must endure because they’re sinning,' it just didn’t make sense to me." Wiping back her tears, she apologizes, "Sorry, I’m getting emotional. So when they locked those people in the shed, I’d secretly bring them food. I simply couldn't comprehend why Maura, who was a part of our community and had children, was suddenly being forced to live like an animal and suffer such degrading treatment. I truly didn't understand why."

Sarah's voice breaks into a wail, as if she has been instantly transported back to the terrified little girl she was at that time. "What had she possibly done? I saw nothing, and I grew up right alongside them. From that moment onward, you lived in perpetual fear, because you knew you could be the next person on the chopping block."

Sarah eventually discovered the alleged "sin" that led to Maura's brutal punishment: her refusal to physically harm her own children.