Jehovah's Witnesses: No One Tells You What Happens After You Escape
Cults to Consciousness
Shelise Ann Sola, Jonathan C Rosales
4.8 • 570 Ratings
🗓️ 13 May 2026
⏱️ 57 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Désirée Ohrbeck grew up in Denmark in the rigid control of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. She survived CSA from her stepfather, and when she sought help from religious leaders, she was dismissed, blamed, and told to retract her statement to the police. She explains how she went from a house where books were banned, to becoming a professor. However, deconstruction is incredibly lonely and challenging. Lingering effects of the trauma impact her daily life.
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Watch our initial interview with Désirée here
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Book: The Scandinavian War Bride
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Transcript
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| 0:30.3 | Hey everybody. Welcome back to Colts to Consciousness. My name is Shalise An Solo. We are talking |
| 0:34.5 | about the aftermath of leaving a cult, the reality of once you're out, what happens when you need to deconstruct and also rebuild your life in complete isolation. |
| 0:44.3 | We are bringing back a guest who left Jehovah's Witnesses in Denmark and talking about her story more in depth. |
| 0:50.6 | You can go watch her full interview, of course. But thank you so much for coming back, Desiree Orbeck. Thank you so much for having me. Yes. You have gotten quite a big response on your |
| 1:01.8 | video. It's, I think, really resonating with a lot of people, even though it is in a country |
| 1:08.7 | different than the United States, which we normally talk about, not because |
| 1:11.7 | we choose to, but because the United States tends to be a little bit more culty than other |
| 1:15.5 | places in the world. But for those who haven't seen your initial interview and are just |
| 1:20.6 | stumbling upon this now, let's give a nutshell version of your story. Yeah, so I did not grow up as a Jehovah's Witness. |
| 1:29.6 | My mom had me when she was 18, and I was born into a very dysfunctional environment. |
| 1:36.4 | I was born three months after her sister died of an overdose. |
| 1:40.1 | She was a drug addict and prostitute. |
| 1:45.2 | So when I was nine months old, my biological father had left at this point, and she got |
| 1:52.6 | pregnant with a new man, and she had two kids with him. |
| 1:55.9 | By the time she was 21, she had three kids, so three in total. This man was very violent to the point where my mom was |
| 2:05.6 | afraid he was going to kill me. So in the middle of the night, we fled to the other side of the country |
| 2:11.8 | and lived shortly with a family there. And while we were there, the mom of that house committed suicide or died by suicide. |
... |
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