Elle Benet

They Made Me Do It Elle Benet

Elle Benet's compelling and inspirational memoir, THEY MADE ME DO IT: A Cult Survivor's Memoir of Life After The Cult, chronicles her childhood growing up in a very restrictive cult, her escape from the cult as a teenager, and her life afterwards in the outside world.
 
In her late teens, Elle Benet made the difficult and daring decision to leave the security of her family life inside a cult for an independent but unknown life outside the cult. "The fear of the unknown and the outside world was a strong temptation to stay," says Elle, "but the fear of what might happen if I left the cult started to be taken over by the pain of staying, and the balance started to tip," she adds.
 
Elle Benet describes a harrowing childhood where she witnessed her father constantly beating her brothers and was a victim of her father's constant verbal abuse. Elle was not allowed to associate with children outside the cult. Stylish clothing was prohibited. Even wearing pants or a bathing suit for swimming was banned. Higher education was frowned upon and medical intervention, even when a child's life was at the point of death was strictly forbidden.
 
Yet, despite her restrictive and often abusive childhood, Elle holds no anger towards her parents or about her life in the cult. "The purpose of my book isn't to evoke sympathy or horror at the things that have happened in my life," says Elle. "It isn't a tract designed to rail against events that have already happened or a vessel in which to hold an outpouring of grief. I wrote this book as a testament to the resilience of human nature and to show what can be achieved, despite the fact that even trying can sometimes seem so hopeless.