Dinner for Vampires: Life on a Cult TV Show (While also in an Actual Cult!)

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of domestic abuse.

“I wanted to find a way to live separately for a few months, anyway. Go to counseling together and try to start over—just get away from his Family and their overbearingness for a little while. This thought tripped me up, thinking of them not just as overbearing but as his Family rather than our Family. That was a strange and surprising feeling. More surprising than the thought itself was how right it felt.”

In the Prologue, Joy describes a critical moment that ultimately leads to her decision to leave her husband and the cult and the extensive Psychological Mechanisms of Cult Influence employed to keep her from doing so. Because Joy had been conditioned to think of the Family as “our” Family, she is shocked when she mentally distances herself from them by calling them “his” Family. After a decade of involvement with the group, having new thoughts, sometimes called “illegal questions” in the cult’s jargon, feels “strange” but “right” to her. She identifies this shift as a moment of profound growth.

“After a week with those old friends and phone calls with my therapist and parents, I was reminded of that other girl I used to be before. I was reminded I still was her, and finally I reached a place where I could say it.

I was in a cult. And I had to get out.”

This quote underscores Joy’s personal growth during her time in the cult. It emphasizes the ways reconnecting with her old community reminded her of who she “used to be” and how critical those support networks are for someone leaving a cult. Her recognition that she was “in a cult” demonstrates profound growth because when she was more actively engaged in the Family, she denied that the group was a cult.

“My social life basically consisted of the singing Melody doll and our new cocker spaniel puppy, so I was extremely relieved to discover that Jesus would be my permanent friend.”

This quote illustrates The Role of Faith in Personal Development in Joy’s life. As a child, she took comfort in the notion that Jesus was her “permanent friend” because she was so lonely.