Daniella was born into a religious sex cult. Age 15, she escaped.

The following is an excerpt from Uncultured by Daniella Mestyanek Young, a memoir about a woman's ability to transform the circumstances of her life through inner strength and resilience.

When we moved to our third commune in Mexico in less than a year, in Guadalajara this time, I was not only angry enough to burn it all down; I was ready. After fifteen years of being forced to worship a Prophet I never believed in, sacrifice for a God I didn’t love, and live a life in a religious prison camp, where they controlled my every thought and movement, I was drowning. It didn’t matter how much I loved and didn’t want to disappoint my parents. If I didn’t come up for breath soon, I wouldn’t survive. But how could I tell the people I loved that I was rejecting their world, and everything they believed in, forever? That I was prepared to never see them again because I didn’t have faith? That I was willing to go to Hell to escape them? That I was choosing me over them? I couldn’t do it.

I met Noé, a tall and handsome seventeen-year-old Mexican boy who’d lived in Arizona for years and understood my English just fine. He and his twin brother, Carlos, worked at the restaurant on the corner of our street and lived across the park. I’d learned to somewhat tame my hair and wash it with lemon juice so the sun would bring out the blond highlights that had faded to brown with puberty. I only wore my glasses for reading and my body was starting to take shape— slim, tall enough, and with a few curves in the right places. I guessed I might even grow up to be pretty. When Noé noticed me first, I felt flattered. He started to come and see me every day at the park, often bringing me leftover food from his restaurant—the perfect way to my perpetually hungry heart. I still loved David and thought about him every day, but it felt nice to be pursued.

Merry and I had been given the maid’s room to sleep in at this newest commune, which turned out to be the best thing that had ever happened to us. We were far away from everyone else, upstairs and outside the actual house, on the patio near the laundry lines. Our new commune friends, Melody and Vanessa, would come up and we’d talk openly about backsliding and what we wanted to do with our lives when we finally got away. We wanted freedom, and, in the hours we spent chatting in that room, we told stories of what we’d do when we could think for ourselves and have outside friends. We watched vampire movies secretly rented with money we stole from the earnings we were supposed to give back to The Family, but since we were the ones earning it, we rationalised that we had the right. We practiced Systemite makeup techniques, read forbidden books, and snuck onto the roof of our maid’s quarters to smoke cigarettes. When nobody was looking, I would hold the lit cigarette to my skin, marking myself. At least it felt like something.

When Noé asked me out on a date, it was hard to explain to him why I couldn’t go. More than anything, I wanted to be a normal teen, not this weird Family member. But, of course, I was a White, blond girl living in a single house with twenty other White, blond people in the middle of Mexico, so it must have been obvious that we were the furthest thing from normal. Instead of pushing, he came to our house for Bible classes. We’d spend the whole two hours staring at each other and passing notes right under Dad’s nose, his in Spanish, mine in English. I was falling for him hard and it was so deliciously rebellious—he was a Systemite, an outsider, so I knew it would never be okay. But maybe if I was with him, I wouldn’t need The Family. Maybe, just maybe, he was my way out.

Late one night, when the house was finally free of the noise of twenty people moving about, I lay in my bed, fully dressed under the covers, my hair and makeup prepped by Merry and Melody, trying to will myself to be brave. I want to do it; I kept saying to myself. I want to sneak out. I want to meet with him. I went over the route in my mind, picturing the obstacles and how I would surmount them—climb the window grate, vault onto the roof, cross over four houses, climb down the side of the restaurant, and run across the park to the far side where he would meet me. His parents were away, and he had freedom, friends, and alcohol. I took a deep breath, threw the covers back, and silently crept out.

I returned just before 4 a.m., pushing any negative feelings out of my mind. I’d done it, I’d broken the big rule of the Charter and there was no going back now—I was basically a Systemite. Sleeping with a Systemite, someone who’d never been in The Family—and who had probably never even read the whole Bible—felt so much more dangerous than sleeping with David who, even though he was a backslider, I could still argue had come from The Family. But I didn’t need those paltry half excuses anymore. I soared high on my newfound sense of freedom, the power of sex as my choice, and the amazing feeling of being wanted by someone. All day I felt like I was floating on air, two hours of sleep notwithstanding, and I knew I’d go again that very night. I knew it wasn’t love. My mind kept flitting back to David, and something would tear in my chest. Maybe I was using Noé, just a little. But he was something different in a world of monotony, and someone who was solely mine.

Four days later, I woke with a start, sunlight streaming in the windows of a room I didn’t recognise in daylight. I flung Noé’s arm off me, noticing how beautiful his long, dark hair looked on his sleeping face while I struggled to get dressed.

“Wake up, we fell asleep,” I said. “I’m so screwed! Acorda, Noé.” He rubbed his eyes, looking at me with confusion. Then his eyes widened, and he leapt out of bed and began to dress with the urgency of someone who knew it was bad. Being caught in bed with the fifteen-year-old missionary kid wouldn’t be good for him either.

But I knew it was too late. Mom would have come to wake us for devotions at dawn and found my bed empty. I drew one finger down Noé’s cheek, and he paused with one pant-leg on, looking up at me. “Yo tengo que ir,” I said. “Te marque despues.” I have to go. I’ll call you later. And then I rushed from the room, knowing that I’d never see him again.

Just before I reached his front gate, the doorbell rang. Merry and Melody stood wide-eyed on the curb.

“They know you’re gone,” Merry said, out of breath. “Everyone is looking for you!”

“What are you going to say?” Melody asked.

I didn’t know, and I wouldn’t have much time to decide. But on the short walk back to our house, I resolved that this was going to be my ticket out.

In the past, when I’d gotten in trouble for smaller rebellions, my parents had been understanding, even kind, while they punished me. I’d never been able to go through with telling them how I really felt about The Family, though I had countless opportunities. I was always too afraid of breaking their hearts. But now I didn’t care—I wanted them angry. I wanted everyone to be as angry as I was. The rage grew as we got closer to the house, as a montage of injustices scrolled through my mind.

I opened the front door and stormed up to my room on the roof— past my blustering father and sobbing mother, past Uncle Phineas and Auntie Joy, the heads of our commune, who stood, mouths agape, sanctimoniously horrified, probably thanking Jesus it wasn’t one of their kids. I slammed the door to my room and locked it, and it didn’t take long for Dad to start pounding. It struck me as suddenly hilarious that the adults had forgotten to remove the lock when we moved in. We weren’t entitled to privacy; they were supposed to always have access to us. We could never be alone, not really.

But I had enough of that rule. And every single other one. I was done.

Suddenly all my doubts were gone. I wanted this. I wanted to be free so badly I could taste it. And though she’d never been strong enough to get herself away, I imagine that looking at her daughter that day, imagining me at sixteen, just a year from now, bringing home a baby rather than a prom date, Mom wanted that for me too.

Finally, taking a deep breath, I opened the door. Dad’s face was bright red, his breathing heavy with asthma and anger. He called me a slut. He asked me if I’d used a condom with “that Systemite,” though we’d always been taught birth control was evil. He even had the audacity to ask me if I’d been a virgin before that night. I winced at the slur, but rolled my eyes hard at the ridiculousness of his questions, at his willful obliviousness.

Then, before I could lose my nerve, I yelled the words that had been building in me for nine years: “I want to leave The Family!”

Image: Booktopia.

Uncultured by Daniella Mestyanek Young is available now for purchase. You can buy it online, here.

Feature Image: Supplied.