Trigger warning. This podcast contains descriptions of various abusive situations.

Listener discretion is advised. My name is Eric Skrinski. As a former religious fundamentalist,

I'm shedding light on the dark side of the church, from the pulpit to the pews. But I'm not

doing it alone. Each week, I'm sitting down with survivors,

advocates, authors, and more to uncover the inner workings of these abusive religious groups

to give tactical tips on how to escape and to find out what we can do to take them down.

You're listening to the Bridge Boys podcast. Welcome back to the show. In my previous

conversation with Hannah St. George, we explored her upbringing in Fairbanks, Alaska, at Bible

Baptist Church. She described a life marked by poverty, strict religious expectations, and

abuse, both at home and within her faith community. To hear the full harrowing story of her childhood,

tune in to that first episode. Today's episode is going to pick up where we left off,

with Hannah preparing to be married to her now husband Carl and beginning to notice the more

sinister secrets that Bible Baptist Church held for decades. So on our last episode, we talked about, you know, we kind of ended with you

meeting your husband and him kind of just entering your life and how that started kind of

shifting some of your perspectives. But talk to me a little bit about that kind of engagement period

and what kind of messaging you were getting about being an adult, being married, like, what were you

kind of being programmed with during that time? Well, first of all, I had it in my mind that

marriage was the way out. So when I met him, I was only 16, and I knew that was the way out of our

house, like getting a job, going, like, moving away and having an apartment across town. Like knew that was the way out of our house, like getting a job, going, like moving away and having an apartment across town.

Like that wasn't an option.

Going to college wasn't an option.

There were a lot of careers I had talked about.

...