Some books help readers understand how cults work, how they manipulate, deceive, and exploit people who mistakenly believe they have found something uncommonly "good."  Kristen Skedgel's book tells a story.  It helps the reader feel what a cult does to the people stuck in it.  A child not that much different from many other children happens to encounter enthusiastic youth "selling" something they say is wonderful.  Conversations lead to connections that lead to commitments.  There is excitement; there is pain; there is betrayal.  But most of all there is confusion.  How did I get here?  What is happening to me?  Why can't I be happy? What is wrong with me?  Being in a cult isn't the experience of "brainwashing."  "Brainwashing" is an explanation, an attempt to make sense of the bewilderment and the hurt.  Ms. Skedgell's book doesn't lecture.  It shares.  It brings the reader into the world of a girl caught up in something she doesn't understand and, as the years pass, into the world of a woman who somehow stumbles out of a life that she wanted to want but could not bear.  Enter her world and share her soul.     

Michael Langone,. PhD

Executive Director

International Cultic Studies Association 
 
 

How is it that a woman determined to be good -- virtuous -- can make such an unholy mess of her life?  In pursuit of grace, Kristen Skedgell gave herself to one devil after another.  She lost her way in life, but not on the page, and her account of finding her way back home, back to the self she denied and betrayed, has something to teach all of us.

Kathryn Harrison

Author of “The Kiss” 
 
 

No one plans to get lost or be deceived on their path to living a meaningful life. What is it like to have participated in your own self-deception? What do we do after we realize deep down inside that we have been seduced by others to embrace a personal identity that is bogus but serves their needs?  Our way to an authentic self after this experience can be painful and difficult and many do not make it. Kristen Skedgell in Losing The Way takes us on her spiritual and emotional journey of  betrayal and self-deception to self-fulfillment as a person, wife, mother and professional. Her story is about restoration, forgiveness, hope and transformation at the risk of losing her mind and even her life. She helps us to see the true power of love and faith. She reminds us of what it means to be genuinely connected to one another and our capacity to thrive after being lost .

Rev. Dr. Frederick J. Streets, Chaplain Emeritus of Yale University,

Professor in Pastoral Counseling, Wurzweiler School of Social Work, Yeshiva University, NYC.,

Associate Professor Pastoral Theology, Yale Divinity School.

In a deeply personal account of her experience with a religious cult, Kristen Skedgell skillfully interweaves the facts of her experiences with the poignant perspectives of a naïve, neglected, and psychologically deprived girl and then young woman. Narrated in the first person, present tense, her story reveals appalling psychological, sexual, financial, and spiritual exploitation by predators hiding behind the veil of Christian fundamentalism. Her clear voice illuminates the longing for connection and self-worth that laid the groundwork for her seduction and manipulation. Skedgell generously reaches out to others who may need assistance in leaving cults and making the transition to civilization. A moving and compelling narrative.

Laurie Anne Pearlman, LAP, PhD

Co-author “Trauma and the Therapist” and “Risking Connection” 
 

Deeply moving, interesting and informative, real and beautifully written, definitely needs to be read by many. 

Kathy Rees, LCSW

Associate Professor Social Work UCONN School of Social Work 
 
 

Kristen Skedgell illuminates the concept of religious cult as a communal form of Domestic Violence. A memoir chronicling her vicerally compelling journey through a double-bind hell of abuse, where her husband's bone-breaking physical beatings become merely intimate partner abuse classics. Indeed, more criminal is the psychological violence perpetrated on her by a gender-biased charismatic religious cult leader and his collusive followers. Triumphant in her escape but emotionally crippled by her own coerced belief in "The Way", she slowly reveals her healing process as if delicately unwinding protective cloth bandages wrapped around her mind. Physical wounds heal while the psychological scars can torture a survivor's soul for a life-time.

Gay French-Ottaviani, LCSW, CP

Senior Domestic Violence Counselor

Professor, Graduate Counseling Program.

Pace University, Pleasantville NY

Domestic Violence/Intimate Partner Abuse 
 
 
 

Losing the Way is a memoir about a young woman who becomes ensnared in a religious cult. It is a story about innocence, corruption, and the quest for meaning. Ultimately Kristen will forge her own path. This true story reminds us all that sometimes it is necessary to lose our way in order to find the path that leads home. Powerful!

Sherry Reiter, PhD, 

Director The Creative "Righting" Center, New York