I was born into a cult... priests banned us from getting a haircut or going to the cinema - they even controlled how we SAT

A woman born into a religious cult has revealed how priests kept an iron grip on her life - telling her how to dress, think and even how to sit.

Amber Powers, 47, was born into a cult based in Indiana in 1976.

It was so strict, that members weren't allowed to have televisions, go to the cinema, have boyfriends or girlfriends, or marry outside of the church.

Young girls bore the brunt of this authoritarian control — they couldn't cut their hair, get their ears pierced; they had to wear long skirts and long-sleeve tops so men wouldn't ogle them.

They were even told how to sit as to not attract a man's attention.

Amber said: 'We were taught not to smooth the dress out from under us as we sat down because that would draw attention to our rear end.'

At one point there were close to 70 people from Amber's family involved in the cult, with the total number of people estimated to be between 150,000 to 200,000 worldwide.

For legal reasons Amber cannot give the name of the sect, but it followed a similar belief system to Jehovah's Witnesses.

She also lost two of her relatives in the horrific Jonestown Massacre of 1978 - a mass murder-suicide of the Peoples Temple cult which shocked the globe and claimed the lives of over 900 people.

It wasn't until her mid-20s that she broke free of the oppressive regime and started to deconstruct the lies she had been taught to be true.

Since coming out and sharing her story, she has lost two-thirds of her relatives, but has gained family too in the form of her husband Darren Hartley.

Now, she works with women to empower them, to help them find their voice and have the courage to use it.

Speaking to MailOnline, Amber said: 'Growing up in a cult you're told who you are.

'I was also raised with a very strong mother. If we went against her - me personally, I can't speak for my brother - she would withhold what I felt was her love. She would not speak to me or have any communication with me.

'It was her form of manipulation to get me to conform and so I would.

'I lost my mum to pancreatic cancer when she was 50-years-old and all of a sudden I was given this window of 'Oh I don't have to be anything except for who I want to be'.

'It has been a journey and it's still unfolding for me because I'm still undoing that trauma.

'I was born into it (the cult) and so I didn't really know anything other than that and I didn't really have any experience outside of that until I started going to school.

'I was surrounded by church family, friends all the way through pre-school age and then once I got into First grade I noticed I was a bit different.'

Amber admitted it felt like a 'normal' upbringing to her - and one she didn't feel was different to other children.

It wasn't until she was 11 or 12 years old that she started to realise how much she stood out from her peers.

'There were girls around me who were able to get cute little haircuts and I could not, I had to have long hair. They were getting their ears pierced and I could not - that was one of the rules we had in our particular church,' Amber said.

'A woman's hair was her crown and her glory - that was from a verse. We had to wear long skirts, long-sleeved shirts, high necks. We couldn't have any plunging necklines.

'We weren't allowed to go to the movies. We weren't supposed to have televisions - although some people did.

'We had to have our bridal gowns approved by ministers to make sure they met all the standards and we could not go on vacation without running it by them to make sure where we were going was approved.

'We weren't under the thumb, however, the people who were more under the thumb of leadership were treated better.'

Women were not allowed to have any roles of authority in the church and they were told how to sit in the congregation so that men would not lust after them. Girls were entirely responsible for how men perceived them.  

Amber said: 'We were taught not to smooth the dress out from under us as we sat down because that would draw attention to our rear end.

'That was just one of the grooming rules that we had to go through as teenagers and preteens. They groomed us into the women that they wanted us to be.'

Attending a high school which was separate to her church left Amber feeling very out of place.

Anything that she did made her stand out in one way or another.

'I had to wear so many masks depending on where I was,' she admitted.

As a teenager she rebelled against some of the rules of the church, attending dances - her junior and senior proms - when she wasn't supposed to.

She even decided to go on a double date, but when her parents found out they were 'irate' and kept it a secret from the church because they were so 'appalled' by it.

Amber went on: 'We could not marry from outside our core group of people and it was a smaller group so I only had maybe 7 local boys to choose from.

'I ended up marrying someone simply because he was attractive. He met all of the societal 'norms' that you would want in a husband. He could provide, he was a good worker, he came from a good family and that was about it.'

Amber was with her first husband for five years before they got divorced in 2005.

'It was essentially a progressive understanding that I married the wrong person,' she said.

Amber was just two-years-old when the Jonestown Massacre took place.

Reverend Jim Jones, who orchestrated the mass murder-suicide, was known to frequent churches local to Amber and her family, to recruit new members to his church.

Amber's great-grandmother started attending his church but left after she felt something 'wasn't quite right'.

On the other side of her family, two cousins did go to Guyana with their spouses. Two made it out alive, the other two did not.

After cult members attacked a congressman who was investigating the cult in 1978, Jones enacted a suicide plan at the compound which involved giving children and adults a fruit drink laced with cyanide.

Before the atrocities of 9/11, it was the largest single incident of intentional civilian death in American history.

One of the core beliefs of the sect Amber was involved in, is there are 'seven levels to heaven', with the seventh heaven being the 'ultimate heaven' that members strive for.

But, in order to make it to seventh heaven, Amber said you had to be completely perfect.

'You had no spot, no blemish on your soul, you had to live a totally perfect life and that has turned into some obvious perfectionism issues as a result that I'm still working to overcome,' she said.

Another core belief is that only 144,000 people would make it in to seventh heaven,  taken from the Book of Revelations.

Jehovah's Witnesses believe this is the exact number of Christians who will be resurrected to heaven to spend their eternity with God and Christ.

The first turning point for Amber in escaping the cult happened when she was 16-years-old - and it came as a total shock.

She said: 'We had gone to church earlier that Sunday morning and we came home in between services and I found it strange that we weren't getting ready to go back to church.

'It was around that same time we got a phone call from a cousin of mine and she said to my mum over the phone: 'Hey, I noticed you guys aren't here. Are you coming back tonight?' and I heard my mum say back to her 'We won't ever be returning to that church.

'I freaked out. I literally screamed at the top of my lungs 'I will never leave that church' because I was so petrified. It was as if she was ripping salvation out from under me.'

Following the family's separation from the sect, Amber's mother and brother floated from church to church, but she was not comfortable leaving behind everything she knew.

'I went back a few times, but it never felt the same. It felt like I was an outsider,' Amber said.

Instead, she found a breakaway church which shared the same theology as the one she was born into.

It was only then that Amber discovered the reason for her family's sudden departure from the cult.

'The reason we left was the head minister of all the churches was found guilty of child molestation and sodomy' Amber claimed, 'so it makes sense that my parents would pull their children out of something like that.'

The social media marketer finally said goodbye to her old life in her mid-20s when she moved to a non-denominational church.

She had the opportunity to study 'World Religions' as part of her degree at Indiana Wesleyan University, where she started to find similarities between religions.

'I started to see that we have more in common than we have different and that really started the beginning of a spiritual evolution for me,' Amber said.

Nowadays, Amber works in digital and social media marketing, working with ethical influencers to help them find their voice.

Her latest venture 'Shop From Her', is an online platform designed to connect consumers to products and services they are looking to purchase, with a focus on promoting women-owned businesses.

'I love my work. I work with women to help them find their voice and find the courage to use it,' Amber explained.

Amber said she holds no resentment towards her family for the childhood she had.

'They were born into it or raised in it from very early childhood as well,' she explained, 'and so, I have an understanding of what that feels like - and more empathy than blame.'

When asked why people join cults, or why it's often so hard to leave, Amber said it was all about 'influence'.

'There are tons of scientific studies surrounding the succeptability of humans to be influenced - even those of us who think we're firmly planted in our beliefs,' she explained.

'Once there's an 'in' and we feel safe, we're showered with love and acceptance to draw us even closer. That's generally when the manipulation and mind control begins.

'Most cults centre around belief sets with which we centre our lives around.

'Fears develop, fear of missing out (in all of the biggest ways).

'And the heartbeat of ego is fear. Ego's role is also to protect us (fight or flight) so when others outside of that cult try to 'protect' us by sharing a different truth, our response is to lash out. It's ego protecting us from a perceived external threat.'