Stolen: Elizabeth Gilpin on the ‘Troubled Teen’ Industry

A Little Bit Culty

Sarah Edmondson & Anthony “Nippy” Ames

True Crime, Society & Culture, Education

4.6 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 8 November 2021

⏱️ 66 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

A Little Bit Culty – As a high school student, Elizabeth Gilpin was taken from her bed in the middle of the night, left in the woods for three months of forced camping with 12 other girls, then remanded to a prison-like boarding school where she and other so-called ‘troubled teens’ were subjected to nightmarish conditions and psychological abuse. Her debut memoir, “Stolen” is a harrowing account of her time at Virginia’s Carlbrook school, and examines the therapeutic boarding school industry’s culty trajectory from an actual cult named Synanon to an entrepreneurial charismatic type with zero credentials named Mel Wasserman. In this episode, she joins Sarah and Nippy to discuss “Stolen”, her healing path, and how it feels to shine a light on a dark and insidious industry. Elizabeth Gilpin is an actress, writer, and producer. She starred in and produced Life Boat, a short film directed by Lorraine Nicholson which premiered at the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival. The film was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize for Live Action Short Film at AFI Fest and won the Audience Award at the Napa Valley Film Festival. Elizabeth also starred in Endings, Inc. and Guerra. ‘Stolen’ is her first book. ~ The views and opinions expressed on A Little Bit Culty do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the podcast. Any content provided by our guests, bloggers, sponsors or authors are of their opinion and are not intended to malign any religion, group, club, organization, business individual, anyone or anything. ~ A Little Bit Culty is proud to support the #IGOTOUT project, which empowers survivors of cultic abuse to share their stories online as a catalyst for education, prevention, and healing. Learn more at igotout.org ~ For more information on A Little Bit Culty and co-hosts Sarah Edmondson and Nippy “Anthony” Ames, visit our official website at alittlebitculty.com. Follow us on Instagram & Twitter @alittlebitculty ~ CREDITS: Executive Producers: Sarah Edmondson & Anthony Ames Production Partner: Citizens of Sound Producer: Will Retherford Associate Producer: Jess Tardy Theme Song: “Cultivated” by Jon Bryant co-written with Nygel Asselin Additional Music Score by Will Retherford Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	The views and opinions expressed by a little bit culty are those of the hosts
0:04.1	and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the podcast.
0:08.1	Any content provided by our guests, bloggers, sponsors or authors
0:12.1	are of their opinion and are not intended to malign any religion,
0:15.8	group, club, organization, business individual, anyone or anything.
0:19.8	Hey everyone, I'm Sarah Edminson.
0:31.5	Hi, I'm Anthony Aims Sarah's husband, aka Nippy.
0:34.4	And we're here to talk about things that are just a little bit culty.
0:38.6	We were in a cult and we woke up and it was all captured in a
0:42.4	docu-series called the Bow on HBO, also in my memoir, Scarred.
0:46.4	And then we made this podcast. I guess you could say we're technically a cult show now.
0:50.8	But not your typical cult show. We're not so much about the grizzly details.
0:54.4	We are about kicking the doors down on the shame and the secrets that make these
0:58.8	culty things so destructive. We're here to have frank conversations about how cool things can
1:03.6	cross over into the cultiverse. How to spot trouble when you see it and what
1:07.3	happens when it comes to recovering from something culty if that happens to you.
1:11.0	Each week we'll call on experts, advocates, fellow survivors and whistleblowers
1:15.6	to help us unpack what's going on in the cultiverse.
1:18.6	We're here to share what we know on everything from red flags to resiliency
1:22.0	and to have a few laughs along the way. Because sometimes you gotta laugh.
1:25.9	Thank God. Now we have a lot to cover, so let's get this show rolling, shall we?
1:29.9	A little bit culty season two drops new episodes every Monday on the A-Cast app,
	...

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