Aged just three years old, I didn’t understand what was going on when my mother lifted me onto the lap of the grey-haired man. “You’re going to be mine forever,” he said. “We’re having a union.” The man I knew as “Grandpa” then gave me a ring to symbolise our “marriage”, but it was so big, it had to be wrapped with tape. “As you grow up, you can take the tape off, so it still fits,” he told me.

I had been born into the Children of God cult and Grandpa was its leader, David Berg, who was in his late sixties at that time. Founded in 1968, the cult had 13,000 members in communities across the world, and one of the key foundations of the “family” was sex. Berg brainwashed thousands of his followers into believing the end of the world was approaching and the only way they could be spared was through orgasms. One of his doctrines, which he called the “Law of Love”, stated anyone within the cult could sleep with anyone else, including children. And under his rules, females had to make themselves available to any man who wanted them.

My mother was an important member of the family, and her pregnancy and my early life had been documented for cult publications. “You’re the chosen ones,” one member told me and an older boy named Ricky Rodriguez. “Everyone will look to you for leadership.” As members of the cult’s inner circle, we lived in the lap of luxury. We were in the Philippines, where child sex laws were less strict, and we stayed in mansions with pools, tennis courts and koi fish ponds. But behind all the luxury, I was living a very dark and traumatic life. Often, I’d wake in the night to loud music and toddle downstairs into the communal rooms where I’d stumble on drunken orgies. I was too young to understand what was going on, but I saw things that deeply disturbed me. On other occasions, I’d be made to undress and dance in front of the camera. Berg was a paedophile and encouraged members to film children for him. I quickly learned that if I cried, I’d be taken off camera, and although I was punished, it was worth it to avoid being filmed. Gradually, I became withdrawn, desperate not to be noticed.

When I was five years old, I was woken up in the middle of the night. “Come on, we’re leaving,” my mother told me in a whisper. Under cover of darkness, we took a car to the airport, followed by a flight to Japan. There, I was handed over to the care of Dora and Jeremy, who were also in the family. After that, I barely saw my mother for a while. A year later, Dora and Jeremy moved us to the Brazil compound. “No one can know who you are here,” Dora told me when we arrived. My birth name, Mary Dear, was in all the publications, so I was renamed Serena. One day in class, we were going through a cult publication featuring drawings of me as a toddler. “How old would Mary Dear be now?” a classmate asked. “She’d be about seven,” said the teacher. “Just like you, Serena,” he said, looking at me. “Wow,” I said, trying to sound impressed. It was so confusing for my sense of identity.

When we weren’t in lessons, the cult put the kids to work. Often, we’d be set gruelling manual tasks, such as cleaning the bathroom with toothbrushes. At other times, we’d be sent out to beg, or sing songs for money from the locals. If any of the children misbehaved, they’d be sent to receive a beating from a group of members referred to as “the uncles”. When I was 12, David Berg died. Watching the adults weeping uncontrollably, I couldn’t help but think, “What are you crying about? You never even met him.” After Berg’s death, his widow Karen took control and she relaxed some of the rules about us interacting with outsiders. Our neighbour’s children used to watch us over the compound wall, and one day, they invited us to join them for a game of football. Growing up, I’d been told that outsiders were all devil-worshippers, but as I spent more time with the neighbours, I realised that wasn’t true.

By then, my mother was the head of the South American division of the cult, and on one occasion, she gave the congregation a sermon on Abraham and Isaac. “Would you kill me if God asked you to?” I asked her. Silence fell among the 200-person audience. “Yes,” said my mother a moment later. “I would.” That was when I realised I wasn’t safe with my own mother, and I made a vow to leave the cult as soon as I was 18. My childhood friend Ricky had already fled. “He’s fallen prey to a demon,” leaders said, before telling us to pray that bad things would happen to him. I only pretended to obey.

During my final years in the cult, I was sent to Mexico to live with my mother. I’d gotten a reputation as a troublemaker and the stricter rules there were designed to keep me in line. But, just as I had promised myself, I packed a bag the moment I turned 18. “If you go, you’re never coming back,” my mother warned me. “That’s fine with me,” I replied. With only £120 to my name, I headed to the USA, where one former cult member offered me their sofa and another ex-member gave me a job. She’d started a massage parlour, and I worked there illegally while I tried to find my feet. Life outside the cult was a massive culture shock. I didn’t have a bank account, a driving licence, or any form of American ID, but my new independence felt like an incredible luxury. For the first time, I had my own clothes, my own dishes and my own space.

When I was 22, horrifying news spread around the ex-members. “It’s Ricky,” my friend said. “He’s killed himself.” Before ending his life, Ricky had stabbed his former nanny to death, a woman who had sexually abused him as a child. His other nanny had been my mother. The story thrust the Children of God onto the front page of newspapers all across the country. By then, I’d made plenty of friends who had no idea about my background – I’d told them my parents were in the military – but now my secret was out, and I ended up with the paparazzi tailing me around Ricky’s funeral, shouting out questions about the cult.

Despite everything, though, I managed to pay my way through a university course in corporate communications, and after that, I landed several high-paying jobs in the corporate world. But no matter how successful I became, I couldn’t ignore my need to heal. In my early thirties, I began trauma counselling specifically for ex cult-members. And the more work I did on my own healing, the more passionate I became about helping other people. “I want to be the person I needed when I first left the cult,” I told a friend. So, I started work as a trauma-recovery specialist, and for the first time in my life, I publicly opened up about my own story.

Today, the Children of God are still operational under the name The Family International. My mother is no longer 
a member, and she lives in hiding. She was only 19 when she joined the cult, and I know that, in some ways, she was a victim herself, but I don’t have much interest in building a relationship with her. Whether you are a victim or not, you have to take responsibility for your actions, and my mother has not. Berg was a victim of childhood sexual abuse and he argued that, since he’d enjoyed it, other children would, too. Berg projected the unhealed trauma of his own life onto others. He was responsible for the abuse of thousands of children, many of whom still suffer the consequences to this day.

As told to Olivia Dunnett.

Serena now helps others heal past traumas using methods to connect the mind, body, and soul to find peace and purpose in life. For more on her work, visit Serenakelley.com