Shelly Snow Pordea grew up in a fundamentalist religious sect.

When she was a child, her parents moved from her birthplace of St. Louis to Hammond, Indiana, to be near the First Baptist Church, an Independent Fundamental Baptist (IFB) megachurch then run by Jack Hyles.

Pordea, now 48, remembers her early life tightly revolving around this church.

The outside world, she was taught, was a threatening and scary place. Her parents subscribed to Hyles’ child-rearing methods, which promoted hitting children into submission -- spanking babies as young as 6 months old. Pordea said her parents later told her that they kept rubber bands on her wrists when she was 2 years old, which they would snap against her skin to keep her in line. It wasn’t until Pordea was 14 and listening to a talk about promiscuous women during an IFB youth camp that she realized she had been sexually abused as a 4-year-old by a church member.

After the lecture, she confided the abuse to a camp counselor.

“I was told I was tainted and not clean anymore,” Pordea said. And she had been conditioned to believe it.

As a teenager, she tried to keep the peace in her family, especially after her brother ran away from home at 17. She attended the unaccredited Hyles-Anderson College, where she took classes that taught her it was a woman’s fault if a man strayed from his marriage.

Pordea got some physical distance from the church when she got married and moved overseas with her husband, although she was still deeply invested in it emotionally and mentally. Through the internet, Pordea discovered the accusations against Hyles of sexual scandals and financial misappropriation. She began connecting with former IFB members on social media, who shared their own stories of abuse.

Over time, the indoctrination began to unravel. By age 30, Pordea began to believe she had been raised in a cult. In 2013, the church leader Jack Schaap, Hyles’ son-in-law, was convicted of taking a 16-year-old across state lines to have sex with her. He was sent to federal prison.

“That was a point of no return,” Pordea said.

Pordea, who now lives in St. Peters, Missouri, joined forces with others in the cult survivor world to host a first-ever, live storytelling event last month in St. Louis. She wants to raise awareness of how some organizations use coercion, manipulation and undue influence in order to abuse and control people.

The movement began during the pandemic with the #IGotOut hashtag on social media, with people sharing their own experiences in cultic groups. A number of documentaries, podcasts and TV shows have brought awareness to the diverse range of such organizations. Some are political, religious or spiritual, while others revolve around doomsday prophesies, sex, self-help and even multilevel marketing.

Gerette Buglion, an author and executive director of IGotOut.org, was a teacher for 19 years before she became involved with a self-help group that eventually took over her life. She was introduced to the group leader by fellow teachers who were getting dream therapy sessions from him. Buglion began sessions as well, and the leader used the personal information she shared during therapy to slowly manipulate her and create dependence on him.

For 18 years, Buglion remained under the mind control of a charismatic fraud.

Almost 10 years ago, another woman in the organization described how the leader would yell at her for hours at a time for her perceived infractions. Because this information came from a person within the cult whom Buglion trusted and cared about, it created a big crack in her perception of the leader.

That was the opening she needed to get out.

Buglion, who has now heard hundreds of stories from survivors and their loved ones, said it is critical to try to maintain some kind of connection with a person you fear is being indoctrinated. She has since published the book “An Everyday Cult.” In it, she shows how anyone can be susceptible to narcissistic leaders and groups that claim to know the truth. They use natural human vulnerabilities and group dynamics to slowly take over a person’s critical thinking skills.

“The level of shame is very high for people coming out of cultic organizations,” she said. She was plagued with questions about how she, an educated person, could have let it get so bad and stayed for so long.

In recent years, many survivors have found connection through social media. Those connections, plus the pandemic lockdown and a boom in media programs about cults, have prompted many to reexamine their relationships with their tight-knit groups and leaders.

Pordea recalls watching Leah Remini’s documentary, “Scientology and the Aftermath,” with her husband, who hadn't fully accepted the truth about his and Pordea's upbringing.

Watching Remini's story, the parallels to his own life finally hit him.

He looked at Pordea, stunned.

“Oh my God, it was a cult,” he said.

A conversation about domestic violence unfolded at a public board meeting in St. Louis in a way that has never happened before in the city’s history.

At a meeting earlier this month, Megan Green, the first woman president of the city's Board of Aldermen, shared her personal experience as a survivor of abuse.

It wasn’t something she had planned to say. But while she listened to advocates talk about raising awareness of resources available to abuse victims, and the isolation victims can feel, she felt her breath get short. She was fighting back tears.

“A lot of things came back in that moment,” Green said. She felt compelled to share why she was struggling to keep her composure.

In her early to mid-20s, Green was in a relationship that was mentally, sexually and physically abusive at times. Her family and friends saw her change from an outgoing and driven young woman to withdrawn and reclusive. She became depressed and suicidal, eventually quitting her job.

Once, she tried to tell her partner she was leaving. He grabbed her by the neck and pushed her against the kitchen wall.

She said she felt like a failure, deeply ashamed and embarrassed by what was happening to her.

“Part of me was in disbelief that this was happening,” she said. Green would leave for a day or two, but her partner would find his way back into her life.

“I became a shell of myself,” she said. She finally worked up the courage to talk to a counselor, who encouraged her to confide in a friend. Green sat in her car in the parking lot after that session and called her best friend. She broke down and told her everything.

“I know,” were the first words her friend said. A burden lifted from Green.

She eventually got a restraining order against her partner. It took several more months, but she was able to leave for good.

Alderwoman Pam Boyd also shared a personal story. She had gotten married at 15, in part to escape a difficult situation at home after her mom died. She had been with her husband, also a teenager, for a year before the abuse started. She stayed until she was almost 20. She remembers her 3-year-old son picking up his Tonka truck during a fight and throwing it at her husband.

“Don’t hit my momma anymore,” the toddler said. At that moment, she decided she had to leave. She did not want her son to see this behavior as normal.

She put her son’s things in a brown paper bag and walked out of their home. She was pregnant with their second child, without any idea of where she would go. A cousin saw her walking on the road and took her to his house. Her family had never known about the abuse she had been dealing with at home.

“I was more embarrassed than anything,” she said. “It made me feel like I was weak.”

She said she had stayed in the relationship because of the low self-esteem she felt at the time: “You don’t think much of yourself, and think that this is the best you can get.”

More than 10 million people -- 1 in 3 women and 1 in 4 men -- have experienced some form of physical violence by an intimate partner.

Green and Boyd both talked about the importance of educating young people about healthy relationships and raising awareness about the resources that are available.

Heidi Suguitan, director of clinical services and education for Safe Connections, a nonprofit working to reduce the impact and incidence of relationship violence and sexual assault, said there are many benefits when people in public positions speak up about their experiences.

First of all, it lets others know that they are not alone. It also helps eliminate the stigma and shame people feel when they are trapped in an abusive relationship.

“Shame is a natural byproduct of abuse,” she explained. When control is taken from a person, there is a feeling of, ‘How did I let that happen?’”

In addition to educating young people, Safe Connections helps victims figure out safe ways to leave bad situations. Women may face barriers in finding and accessing shelter space or counseling services. With rent costs escalating, there is a desperate need for more affordable housing and access to jobs that pay a living wage. These are critical to addressing the problems of domestic and intimate partner violence.

Suguitan said the survivors she works with have often been convinced that they are somehow responsible for their partner’s abuse. She helps them recognize what they are actually in control of.

“They are not responsible for someone else’s actions, choices or emotions,” she said.

Once Green and Boyd had that realization in their own lives, they never looked back.

When a war unfolds on our screens, every single person, regardless how far removed from the physical conflict, becomes a potential recruit.

Armies of bots, trolls and paid propagandists take over social media, flooding it with disinformation designed to manipulate our emotions and shape public opinion.

The internet is also a battlefield.

Social media has become a barrage of violent, heart-wrenching, stomach-turning imagery and commentary since Oct. 7, when Hamas attacked Israel and the country began massive military retaliation in Gaza.

For people who have family and friends in the war zones of Israel and Gaza, social media is a critical tool to keep up with what may be happening to their loved ones. And most of us spend at least some time online, whether we have immediate personal connections to the region or not. So escaping the barrage is nearly impossible.

Equally difficult is determining how much of what we're seeing and hearing is real.

On Oct. 8, BBC journalist Shayan Sardarizadeh shared on X, the site formerly called Twitter: “I’ve been fact-checking on Twitter for years, and there’s always plenty of misinformation during major events. But the deluge of false posts in the last two days, many boosted via Twitter Blue, is something else. Neither fact checkers nor Community Notes can keep up with this.”

Disinformation -- false or misleading information that is intentionally spread with the purpose of deceiving or manipulating others -- affects all of us. It’s designed to provoke intense feelings of anger and disgust, hijacking our more rational brain.

When we are in this state, whether the information that provoked it is true or not, we are much more susceptible to dehumanizing those we believe are committing or supporting such acts. Also, seeing content that confirms our beliefs and validates our biases feels affirming. We all want to be on the side of righteousness, justice and good.

In the fog and chaos of war, discerning what has actually happened can take time. Misinformation -- the unintentional spread of false reports, as opposed to deliberate disinformation -- is common, and understandable. Even credible, legitimate news sources, which try to vet and verify information, can make mistakes.

Here are some of the confirmed facts: On Oct. 7, Hamas attacked Israel, killing more than 1,200 people in assaults on kibbutzim, border towns and a music festival. At least 199 civilians, including many children, and soldiers were taken hostage. Israel has declared war on Hamas, beginning a major military operation and complete siege of Gaza, where more than 3,000 people, including 1,000 children, have died so far. Israel has cut off all food, water, fuel and electricity to more than 2 million people in the Gaza Strip, large areas of which have been reduced to rubble. At least 1 million people have been displaced.

One of the most graphic and horrifying stories that has circulated widely is that Hamas fighters beheaded 40 babies in Israel. President Joe Biden referenced this while speaking to Jewish community leaders. A spokesman later clarified that neither U.S. officials nor the president have confirmed such reports independently, nor seen any photographic evidence of it. Biden’s comments were based on claims from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s spokesman and media reports in Israel. The reports are still unconfirmed, but the claims have had 44 million impressions on X/Twitter.

Murdering innocent children is an atrocity and a war crime, regardless of the horrific details. But verifying the accuracy is also critical.

If stories of brutal and barbaric acts, for which there is no independent verification, are propagated, they can be used as a tool to convince people that others are less than human and deserve to be treated as such.

Furthermore, if it turns out that stories about brutality are unfounded or untrue, it gives ammunition to those whose goal is to minimize or obscure war crimes. It leads well-intentioned people to wonder about the accuracy of other vetted reports.

This is one of dozens of examples of conflicting reports, some of which have been debunked and others that are true. NBC News reported that researchers uncovered a network of 67 accounts on X/Twitter that are coordinating a campaign of false, inflammatory content related to the ongoing war. Old videos, fake photos, even video game footage and fabricated documents have flooded our social media feeds. BOOM Fact Check, an independent fact-checking organization based in India, found that much of the hate and disinformation is coming from accounts in India that have purchased the blue verification check on X/Twitter. The symbol noting verification no longer means a source is verified or who they claim to be.

If billion-dollar social media companies refuse to invest in monitoring disinformation, how are ordinary news consumers supposed to do it?

I start by asking myself a series of questions: Am I checking in on the news with credible sources from a diversity of viewpoints, across the political spectrum? Who else has confirmed this information? What types of sources are sharing this information? Have I checked multiple places, through my own Google searches, to try to find evidence of this claim?

It takes some extra work, but I do not want to contribute to fanning the flames of a raging fire.

Seeking truth is a way of holding on to our own humanity during horrific times.