My life with a cult
 Born into a polygamous, abusive sect, Carolyn Jessop was married off to a 50-year-old man and bore him eight children before she escaped.
 
By Torcuil Crichton
Sunday Herald - Glasgow, Scotland
 
SOMETIMES COURAGEOUS people don't look as if they have just laid down their armour before entering the room. Sometimes, perfectly normal-looking people carry the most exceptional stories of bravery in through the door with them and for Carolyn Jessop, a small, neat woman in a business suit entering a London hotel lounge, normal was another planet.

Jessop, now in her late 30s, grew up in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints (FLDS), created from a schism in the Mormon Church. Normal for her was being brought up to believe that the world outside her closed community in Colorado City was "evil". Normal was seeing her polygamous father marry three wives. Normal was being coerced, at the age of 18, into a marriage with a 50-year-old man she barely knew and being told that his sexual gratification was the key to her eternal salvation. Normal was becoming the fourth wife of a man who went on to have 12 other wives, and to bear him eight children in 15 years.

Normal was a polygamous, delusional theology with complete male dominance and the attendant bitter, paranoid, loveless society that came with it.

She sits now, five years on from her escape from that world: washed out from jet-lag and drained from several media interviews in quick succession. Jessop doesn't look as if she possesses the heroic qualities to do that rare thing - escape from the tentacles of a religious cult.

She had to plan her escape entirely on her own, she had to find the resources to take her children with her (and suffer them praying for her death as a result) and she had to fight to stop her husband claiming them back. Eventually, she brought the house down on the cult's religious leader, but before all of that, she had to overcome lifelong conditioning which taught her that God would punish her for any disobedience to her husband or her faith. Breaking out of that theological prison almost shattered her.

"The kind of God I was taught about was a vindictive God. The kind of religion I was indoctrinated into was one that had a contempt for humanity, and that's not who I am or ever was," she says. "But I often joke that I have more reason to believe in God now than I ever did. It's a miracle that I got my children away, a miracle that they are still with me."

But there is no such thing as a clean getaway. Her husband only recently gave up the legal battle for custody of her children and now sees them rarely. "I think I broke through a lot of mind control before I left," she says. "But with that kind of traumatic experience there is always an element of being haunted. I don't have them so often now, but for the first two years I had nightmares every night. And I got incredibly sick and unhealthy. But I had to stay functional, because I didn't want to lose my kids. As far as the physical side of it goes I think it is over and my therapist says that I am healing incredibly well."

To measure where she is now, Jessop has to explain where she has come from. "Five years ago, I had no life skills to fit into normal society, I didn't even know how to manage a bank account. Every day, I'd been told how to dress, when to smile, not to kiss or cuddle my children, then all of a sudden you're out and it's like coming out of a life sentence in prison."

As a teenager, Jessop had plans to continue studying after high school but the rules of the church, laid down by their elderly leader, came first. Those rules ordained that she should marry a middle-aged man called Merril Jessop.

Her description of her wedding night set the tone for her marriage. "I was paralysed. We didn't even know each other. There was no way I was going to consummate the marriage but I didn't have a choice," she recalls. As a naive young woman, Jessop didn't really understand the concept of rape but had been taught that a man had a right to father children with a woman once he had married her.

The FLDS believe their small number is among God's elite. According to the sect's doctrine a man must have multiple wives if he wants to become a god in heaven. As for women, if they obey their husbands, they could enter paradise too.

As a result, competition among the wives in a household was intense and dehumanising. Sexual desirability, loyalty, and dominance were the survival tools. "Female rational aggression came down to the level of being barbaric and juvenile," recalls Jessop of her the other concubines, who says they hated her for her rebelliousness. "I know they probably felt as trapped, bewildered and threatened as I did," she acknowledges - although she still feels hurt by their attitude towards her.

Jessop points out that physical abuse was part of the cult's way of life - and it was fear of what would happen to her teenage daughters that eventually drove her to action.

The new cult leader, Warren Jeffs, was more extreme than his predecessor had been - and started marrying girls off at a younger and younger age. Fearing paedophilia and a mass suicide pact were on the agenda, she rebelled more and more against the community.

Jessop's husband and the cult leader underestimated her inner strength. Her father did not. He warned Jeffs to listen to her complaints but this was interpreted as threat.

"Even when I was young I was able to scope out a situation and work out which was the best way to get through. My dad knew that when I'd had enough I'd had enough and that I would run through a brick wall rather than stop. And that's just about what I did to get away."

Life outside the cult was as much of an ordeal as before. Her protests led to the authorities arresting and sentencing the cult leader Jeffs, but her eldest daughter returned to the church community. Jessop's other children, including a severely disabled son, continue to live with her. Meanwhile, life has taken a turn for the better - she has fallen in love with an intelligent and supportive man.

"Sometimes I want to climb the wall and kill people," she says. "I don't want to be consumed by anger and I don't want to get bitter, but you have to experience it or otherwise you suppress it and have to start at the denial all over again," she says.

Polygamy, says Jessop, is growing in America. The crimes are becoming more severe and they are not being prosecuted.

"There are more than 300 babies being born into this community every year. It's growing rapidly - the society was up to 10,000 members when I left," she says.

The US authorities are in a constitutional and legal bind on polygamy. "Outlawing it is not the answer because people are not going to stop, but if the authorities regulate it then they are going to decriminalise it," says Jessop.

"So the answer has been to ignore it and that means women who are born into that kind of society have no rights. They end up invisible - either society throws rocks at them or pretends they don't exist.

"Meanwhile these women have no way of protecting themselves or their daughters."

Escape by Carolyn Jessop, Penguin £6.99
 
yorkpress.co.uk
Originally published February 9, 2008
 
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