Former Westboro Baptist church member life changes for the better after escaping cult.

Libby Phelps Alvarez, 29 has gone on to reveal how her life has positively changed since leaving ‘hate cult’ group Westboro Baptist Church over 4 years ago. A change that was inspired after church members confronted her about wearing a bikini when she chose to flee rather than apologize.

Alvarez tells how she used to take part in anti gays, semitic protests even President Obama’s inauguration back in 2009. Until her departure from the group she tells how she also never had a haircut, was unable to travel, and how she was confined to the borders of the U.S.

What perhaps makes Alvarez’s departure even more even revealing is that she is the granddaughter of Fred Waldron Phelps, Sr., the founder and pastor of the Westboro Baptist Church – an American independent Baptist church known for its extreme ideologies, especially those against gay individuals.

Reflects Alavarez: “That first year, there would be days it would hit me really hard.” 

When she left opposingviews notes that Alvarez only had a car and a little bit of money when she left. Thanks to her boss, she was able to save up money to get her own apartment as she stayed in her house for four months.

Though she lives a completely different life now, she is only 30 minutes away from where she was raised in Kansas. She lives with her husband, Logan, in Lawrence.

She has traveled the world with him and done all of the things she’s always wanted to do but couldn’t because of the strict church.

Also notes the UK’s dailymail: After she escaped, she accepted an interview request by 96.5 The Buzz in Kansas. The radio host delicately asked her what the craziest thing that church members had ever made her do. She replied: ‘To pray for people to die.’

The church is actively involved in actions against gay people, and in addition to conducting anti-gay protests at military funerals, the organization pickets other celebrity funerals and public events that are likely to get it media attention.

Protests against Judaism are also prevalent, and the church’s website states: ‘The only true Jews are Christians. The rest of the people who claim to be Jews aren’t, and they are nothing more than typical, impenitent sinners… the vast majority of Jews support fags.’

Mrs Phelps Alvarez has also gone on to tell kansascity.com that she often thinks about her cousin Megan, who was her best friend and confidante, who she knows she will never see again unless she also leaves the church.

‘I would take her to Covent Garden in England and for ice cream and tea in London.’

And then there was this reflection on the web that caught my eye as well:

This girl was born in to this cult, she knew how to act and think only by the way she was taught, she would have known no different during her earlier years and by the time she got older the physiological side of things along with constantly being told how to think will have brain washed her. Remember, the other members of the cult are her family, she will have had no reason not believe what they were telling her was true, she will have never mixed with “normal” thinking people to know what she was fighting for was wrong. The reason the bikini incident will have changed things is that she didn’t accept wearing it as a sin, at this point she may have still believed homosexuality, etc was a sin. It takes a brave and courageous person to step away from the life you know, to mentally start from scratch, to learn to trust and adjust to a new way of life, think of those that lose their memories and have to rebuild everything. Its not too dissimilar. Hopefully others will now follow her lead.