Not in My House

I grew up in a big polygamist family, the 23rd of 46 children. My father had six wives and our very existence was a secret. We lived in the middle of Salt Lake City in a big white house on Fifth East, with neighbors to the north and south of us and yet we remained utterly hidden. Homeschooled and cut off rom the world, that secrecy was a breeding ground for abuse. While my father was gone to work during the day, his third wife, Mother Kay, sat at the head of the family, controlling the other mothers and abusing the children. I was one of the bad kids, deemed "willfully disobedient" and I ended up right in her crosshairs. How can one woman take command of an entire family? Was my father turning a blind eye or was he behind it? And why did my mother take direction from a woman half her age—choosing to look the other way?

I carried these unanswered questions into my own marriage and my own family, hoping I could myself off from the religion of my upbringing and the shame of the abuse. I put my face to the future, hoping I could outrun what was hunting me down. I thought having my own family would free me. But the past clung to me like a shadow and I couldn't deny the darkness that lived in me. When the past finally caught up to me, I knew I had to face that darkness—and what I found was nothing like I figured.

Not in My House is more than a story of trauma and abuse. It is more than a story of polygamy and the struggle to free oneself from a religious cult. It is the story of how evil is perpetuated, how shame becomes seared into the next generation like a family crest and how one's own past can never, ever be escaped.