It would've been better if it didn't end on the stereotypical "and then I got married and had a kid, now everything's so nice"

Fitting in to society is one of humanity’s most primal urges. In her memoir, Daniella Mestyanek Young tells the story of her attempt to fit into worlds that don’t make sense, and of her ultimate discovery that she is better than the organizations that abused and rejected her. Her story is also a warning to all of us - that there are evil and powerful people all around that will harm us and the people we love if we make mistakes in their presence that they can exploit. Simultaneously, it is also a story of hope - hope that there are good people that can and will help us break the bonds that evil people use to control others. Mestyanek Young has had an interesting, unusual, tragic, and amazing life so far. Born to a teen mother into the Children of God religious cult, her story begins in a compound in Brazil where she suffers abuses and mistreatment from the time she is a toddler. Although the adults she is supposed to trust tell her that what is happening to her is normal and right, she knows innately that what is happening is wrong as the cult “Aunties” and “Uncles” fail to inculcate their evil values into her. After suffering through physical beatings and sexual assaults, she manages to escape the religious cult at fifteen years old, and make her way to Houston, Texas. With the help of some friends, teachers, and a guidance counselor, she manages to graduate high school and get through college. All the while, she struggles to find her place in a world that she did not grow up in. Unsure of what future she seeks for herself, the struggle leads her into her first marriage, which presents a new set of abuses that she must endure. She ends up deciding to join the US Army and become a military intelligence officer. During her time in service and two tours in Afghanistan, she recognizes parallel structures and dynamics between the Children of God cult and the US Army. Unfortunately, recognition of these patterns and systems of abuse is not enough to help to her avoid becoming the victim of powerful, evil people once again. The most horrifying and chilling fact of this story is that it’s all true, that it happened, and that these men are still out there in the world. It is easy to use the information Mestyanek Young provides, and search the internet to see who these men are and what they’ve done. “Uncle Jerry,” “Major Poole,” “Captain Mike,” and “Colonel Maxwell” are all still out there and living comfortably among us, and the people we love. That thought scares me to no end. This is not simply a story of a woman suffering abuse. It is a story about how people will ignore evil to fit in. It is a story of how men and women who benefit from power given to them by evil and abusive institutions will not risk their power and status to make things better. It is a story about how many of us have accepted certain degrees of sexism, racism, and violence as innocuous or as “just be way the world is,” and how that attitude does incredible damage to people. Most of all, it’s a statement that good people - even if they make mistakes along the way - should not accept the abuses of these systems, institutions, and cults any longer. It is a call to action for the good people who do stand to lose their power to stand up and do something to recognize the evil, and eradicate it. It is not a story of survival, but of continued surviving. This story will make you reflect on yourself, and those you love, and strangers, and your interactions with all of them. It will make you examine all the institutions of which you are or have been a part of. You will either become a different and better person after reading this story, or you will have missed the point.