Religious Trauma Syndrome: Surviving the Daybell Case | Lori Vallow's Son Speaks

In October 2024, Colby Ryan posted a recording of a prison call with his mother.

She told him she'd be exonerated. That Jesus showed her. That everything was according to Chad Daybell's plan.

His siblings are dead. His mother killed them. And she still believes she was right.

This is Part 5 of "The Chosen Ones," our final episode examining the psychology of spiritual abuse and religious trauma through the Vallow-Daybell case. Today we focus on what happens after — the long, painful work of rebuilding identity when everything you believed has collapsed.

For Colby Ryan, it means loving a mother he can no longer reach.

For Melanie Gibb, it means living with the question of why she didn't see sooner.

For everyone who has left a high control religion, it means carrying a question that never fully goes away: How did I believe this?

This episode is for survivors. The answer isn't that you're stupid. The answer is that you're human. Someone exploited your best impulses — your desire for meaning, belonging, purpose.

Religious Trauma Syndrome is real. Dr. Marlene Winell coined the term to describe the complex PTSD that results from authoritarian religious environments.

The apocalypse Chad Daybell promised never came. But you're still here. And that matters.

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This publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.

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