To choose a controversial lifestyle is one matter, to be born into one is another.

This book is the true story of my life. 

I was born and raised in a religious cult, The Children of God, now known as The Family International. Their views and practices sexual liberation earned them a worldwide reputation and over time their beliefs edged more and more on the illegal and perverse side.

Many people have written their stories about life in a cult but the majority of those descriptions are written by people who joined the cult as adults - being born into a cult is a completely different matter. From birth you are conditioned to live your life in the group and are isolated from the world outside. It is a difficult notion for people to understand without having lived through something similar but it is one I have tried to capture in my story.

This story is not just about the first 18 years of my life spent in the cult, it is also about what happens after a cult-raised child leaves the community and is thrown into an alien world that they have no clue about. It is about the after journey, learning to live in the real world, having to figure out small practicalities like how to use a bank account or how to act around normal people in the outside world, these small actions that most people take for granted are ones that are part of the painful process of adaptation to the real world, a process that that reaches a successful conclusion for some, but a tragic end for others.

It is the truth of what happens behind the closed doors of secretive communities. The beatings, the trauma, the fear.

This book is my journey, from the dark depths of hell and down the long path of healing towards my freedom.

Natalie Sauret

Copyright © 2012 Natalie Sauret