I Grew up in Warren Jeffs' Polygamist FLDS Church

I was born into a polygamist family, part of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS). When I came into the world, my father had two wives. Both of them were nurses, and they alternated between working and taking care of us at home.

One of my earliest memories is of my second mother—who wasn't my birth mother—caring for me as if I were her own child. There was no distinction between how my two mothers treated me. I knew who my birth mother was, but they both loved me equally.

From a young age, I realized that my family was different from those in the outside world. We were taught that we were superior to others, which made me aware of our uniqueness.

When it came to my education, the FLDS had its own private schools, so I wasn't exposed to any children who weren't part of our community. There was no separation between church and school. Everything revolved around the church.

Instead of learning about American history, we studied priesthood history, learning about the prophets and the tenets of Mormonism. The teachings of Uncle Warren—Warren Steed Jeffs—were played throughout the day, and we had prayers at specific times.

One of the things I enjoyed most about growing up in this environment was having a lot of siblings. It was wonderful to have friends to play with every day. We ate healthy, good food because we grew our own crops and even ground our own flour from wheat.

In total, I have 27 siblings. Some of them are my half-siblings, but we don't refer to each other as such because we all grew up together. There are a few with whom I share no biological relation at all because my third mother had three small boys when she married into our family.

Family gatherings were a unique aspect of my upbringing. We didn't celebrate Christmas or New Year's Eve in the traditional sense. However, my family would sometimes have a small gathering on New Year's Eve, and I remember receiving presents a few times.

Reflecting on my childhood, I realize there were aspects I didn't enjoy as much. With so many siblings, it was challenging to have a one-on-one relationship with an adult or a parent. There were times when we found ourselves competing for our parents' attention due to the size of our family.

When I was around 9 or 10 years old, Warren Jeffs became the prophet of our church after his father's death. He began a practice of expelling men from the church, keeping their families within the community, and assigning their wives to other men.

When I was 13, my father was expelled from the church. Warren Jeffs gave no reason for this action. It was only years later that we discovered, through one of Jeffs' journal entries, that he had had a dream in which my father betrayed him to the FBI.

Jeffs interpreted this dream as a divine revelation, and on this basis, he expelled my father, causing him to lose his entire family.

The men who were expelled were instructed to move far away, sometimes specified as being at least 500 miles away. They were left with the vague hope that they could repent and possibly return, but it was unclear what they were supposed to repent for.

We found out about our father being expelled when my mothers went for a drive and left us, the older children, to take care of the younger ones.

Initially, we thought that perhaps our father was taking a fourth wife, which was an exciting prospect. But when our mothers returned without him, they took each of their biological children into their bedrooms and explained that our father was no longer our father.

Warren Jeffs was now our father, and we were to write a letter to him expressing our loyalty.

I was reunited with my father in 2008, two years after he was expelled from the church. His return was prompted by the death of his own father, and he came back to attend the funeral. He wasn't allowed to interact much with my mothers, but he did get to say hello to his children.

The reunion was a strange experience. He didn't recognize me at first. I tried to hug him, and he looked at me, puzzled, until he realized who I was. Two of my mothers had been pregnant when he was expelled, and they gave birth after he left. So, his two youngest children, whom he had never met, were introduced to him for the first time during this reunion.

The atmosphere in the room was different. We used to see our father as a powerful man who held a near-magical aura due to his priesthood. But when we saw him that time, he seemed to have been degraded to a mere human. This was because of what we had been told about him; that he had lost his priesthood and was now nothing.

I can't say that I missed him. I didn't have much of a relationship with him, given the size of our family. The only one-on-one interactions I had with him were usually when I was being punished for something. So, in a sense, his absence didn't create a void in my life.

The decision to leave the church was a gradual process that began when I wasn't allowed to attend high school. I had a keen interest in education, and Warren Jeffs had chosen a few girls to go to nursing school. I questioned why I couldn't do the same.

After discussing it with my elder brother and others in the church hierarchy, I was allowed to get my GED, but I was told that I wouldn't graduate from nursing school.

At the age of 16, after obtaining my GED, I enrolled in college. It was there that I took a chemistry class that profoundly changed my perspective. It wasn't the subject matter of the class itself, but rather the instructor who made the difference. He took the opportunity to open our minds by initiating a discussion about the nature of truth.

Around the same time, I got a boyfriend, which was not allowed as all marriages were arranged. I wanted to leave the church to be with him, but I was warned by the adults in my life that it would be the worst decision I could make and that I would never be able to return.

I reached out to a brother who had left the church in the past, and he told me that leaving was the best decision he had ever made and recommended it to everyone.

This advice was like a light bulb moment for me, probably the biggest epiphany of my life. That's when I decided to leave. Interestingly, I didn't deconstruct my faith until after I physically left the church. I still believed Warren Jeffs was the prophet when I left.

Leaving the church was a daunting process. I was terrified, particularly because of an incident that had occurred a few months prior. I had snuck out of the house to see my boyfriend, and when my older brothers found out, they chased us down. It was intense and frightening. One of my brothers threatened to break my boyfriend's neck.

When I decided to leave, I was afraid that a similar incident would occur. So, I chose to leave after dark when my older brother was not at home. My boyfriend picked me up, parked outside our brick wall, and turned off his headlights to avoid drawing attention. I carried some of my belongings out to the car, and we drove off. That was in 2011.

Since then, multiple siblings of mine have also left the church. At the time I left, I only had one older brother who had left. Shortly after my departure, three of my brothers were expelled from the church, just like my father had been.

They were still trying to repent, so they didn't reach out to me right away.

However, one of them did about a year after I left, and we reconnected. Slowly, one by one, more of my brothers left the church, and we reconnected. But for an entire decade, I was the only girl in my family who had left.

In the months following my departure, I missed my family a lot. It didn't hit me until about a month after I left, that this was a permanent decision. Having my boyfriend there was a great help, as he was going through something similar.

It took some time and conversations with people around me about Warren Jeffs and his actions before I gathered the strength to look into it myself. Gradually, I came to realize that Warren Jeffs was not a prophet, and neither was his father.

I questioned the legitimacy of Joseph Smith and ultimately became an atheist. It was in 2012, a year after I left the church, that I gathered the courage to look up Warren Jeffs and his convictions. What shocked me was a recording where he admitted that he was not the prophet and that he was the most evil person on Earth.

I wondered why they had kept this from us. We had been told that people who wanted to destroy us could manipulate the media to make it sound however they wanted, but they wouldn't show us the recording.

This revelation was the beginning of a snowball effect that led to me deconstructing my faith. It was a significant turning point in my journey towards freedom.

Today, I am extremely independent. I didn't realize that I could have a life until I left the church. This realization was another epiphany for me, and it's something I've clung to. It's addicting. I am now a nurse with a career, and I recently bought a house.

I've come a long way from where I started, and I'm proud of the life I've built for myself.

Faith Bistline was born and raised in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, a strict patriarchal polygamous culture where children are instructed to do what they are told, "keep sweet" and obey the prophet, Warren Jeffs.

She left the group at 19 years old. Determined to make it on her own, Faith became an ER Nurse knowing she would one day not only have to support herself but her extended family as well. Faith's story is included in Secrets of Polygamy, premiering on Monday 8 January 2024 on A&E.

All views expressed in this article are the author's own.

As told to Newsweek's associate editor, Carine Harb.

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