Stella McCormick
Author & Victim Advocate
Stella McCormick is the author of "Deliver Us From Mother: Faith, Fear, and the Family Cult That Broke Me", a memoir about growing up in an isolated, high-control Christian family and rebuilding a life after leaving. She is also a victim advocate, U.S. Navy Reservist, and criminal justice doctoral candidate whose work and writing explore coercive control, abuse, survival, and the lasting impact of harmful family systems.
138
Sept. 15, 2026
Growing Up in a Family Cult: Religious Trauma & Coercive Control with Stella McCormick I Ep. 138
The most chilling cult stories aren’t always about strangers. Sometimes the cult is your last name. Stella McCormick, author of Deliver Us from Mother: Faith, Fear, and the Family Cult That Broke Me, joins Ingrid to share what it was like growing up inside what she now recognizes as a single-family cult—an extreme fundamentalist Christian home shaped by isolation, fear, unquestioned authority, and punishment disguised as discipline. But Stella didn’t always recognize her childhood as abuse. Y...
Guest: Stella McCormick