Scarred

obedience-and-authority

• Rational Inquiry is a way to explore inner workings to find inconsistencies in beliefs — a framework that made questioning the group feel like self-sabotage.

  SSE-RC-036

• If I expressed a concern, a higher rank could simply say it was my own issue — I was 'out of cause' and would need to work it.

  SSE-RC-070

• Keith spoke in highbrow philosophical terms so that no one could understand — later I learned this was called 'word salad.'

  SSE-RC-062

trauma-and-survival

• My blindfold was a thin black napkin from the members-only clubhouse — I had removed my watch with my clothes, stripped of time and orientation.

  SSE-RC-006

• Lauren said this was a lifetime commitment. I trusted her implicitly — but this night was so bizarre, like hazing dressed as sisterhood.

  SSE-RC-009

self-and-identity

• I didn't just persuade recruits that NXIVM's principles worked — I was proof they did, because I wholeheartedly believed they'd worked in my own life.

  SSE-RC-017