The Most Devastating Cult Story I've Read

Comments · 332

• AL

  @allieconzola · 1 year ago

  “I’ll stop going off on weird tangents” Buddy, your weird tangents are why I’m here

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• WH

  @WhenTheHuman · 1 year ago

  You speak very precisely about disability and mental health rather than stepping awkwardly around it, and I greatly appreciate it :)

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• DE

  @deltacosmic5358 · 1 year ago

  Jude getting excited when someone actually remembers her name is adorably sad to me

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• SH

  @Shephyrdfeathers · 1 year ago

  I guess cults run by children about corn tend to make fantastic stories

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• RO

  @rotaryPiler · 1 year ago (edited)

  Jude being fine with dying by fire because she thinks it would only hurt a moment, while Marissa remembers her screaming as she died. Along with many other points, this made Jude a really fascinating character to me. She has done many terrible things yet she still screams out of fear and pain because she’s a kid out of her element. <br><br>This story is a lot to chew on! Thanks for the video

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• OS

  @osmosisjones9341 · 1 year ago

  Jude&apos;s role in the story resonates so much with me as a former &quot;troubled child&quot;. Suffering is not always pretty, victims are almost never perfect, and often unintelligible to those on the outside. The religious, violent reverence/jealousy Jude has towards Marissa and Mr. Zallman is something I&apos;m familiar with myself and I feel a catharsis knowing this story was written.

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• TH

  @theflyingspaget · 1 year ago

  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KB4dWaTKdn4&amp;t=1480">24:40</a> As someone who&apos;s dipped their toes into pro ED circles, this sounded so familiar to me. The idea of thinness as purity is obviously really old but only eating foods of one color reminds me of so called &quot;mono&quot; diets that were (maybe still are?) popular. I specifically remember seeing a &quot;hello kitty diet&quot; that had specific calorie counts for each day (not gonna say the numbers but they were absurdly low) except for one where it instead had the rule of white mono, only eating white foods. The character diets have always felt particularly insidious to me because obv they appeal to children, and I understand they&apos;re by mentally ill people trying to romanticize their suffering but when they escape those circles they&apos;re really hazardous.

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• EE

  @Eerie_Red · 1 year ago (edited)

  I feel like Marissa talking fondly about how Jude fed her and repeating the things she said shows that she’s learned more from her misguided kidnapper than her own mother who just let her loose. I feel like that would have some effect on a child‚ and now she seems scared to learn more things because the only person who told her anything new was very unwell. She was ignored by her teacher and often independent from her mother‚ so she gets attention for the first time and it’s a nightmare‚ but probably also something she craved. Idk I’m bad at explaining‚ but hopefully this makes sense.

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• RA

  @rafaelsampaio5577 · 1 year ago

  I listened to this on audiobook format and I thought I was having a stroke listening to that first part because I could not for the life of me understand a single thing that was being said.

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• CL

  @claressadubs · 1 year ago

  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KB4dWaTKdn4&amp;t=1421">23:41</a> Reading smutty books is totally normal and harmless- until someone accuses you of a sexual crime. Then it&apos;s evidence. 😐 One of the scariest parts of being wrongfully suspected of a crime is not knowing what normal things you do every day that will look like proof of evil. I always think of Amanda Knox texting her boss &quot;see you later&quot; after work, and bc of translation misunderstandings the Italian police took that as a plan to meet up later the night of the murder, implicating the boss as an accomplice.

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• XO

  @xoderota · 1 year ago

  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KB4dWaTKdn4&amp;t=605">10:05</a> I just wanna point out that ODD is a very controversial diagnosis and very often gets slapped onto kids who are neurodivergent in other ways but the adults dismiss it as being rude and unwilling to stop. It&apos;s possible that if written now, she would&apos;ve been diagnosed with ODD, but I&apos;d hope that it wouldn&apos;t be the case since more and more experts are now talking about whether it&apos;s even a useful diagnosis to keep around

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• JU

  @justyouraveragemutantblood2185 · 1 year ago

  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KB4dWaTKdn4&amp;t=1739">28:59</a> fun fact my dad did a study on the poly graph test. So the first thing I ever learned about them was they were utter nonsense.

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