Rosanna Overcomer spent 27 years wearing blue dresses and doing what she was told inside Gloriavale. Now, 13 years after leaving the West Coast Christian community, she says she sometimes wishes someone still would.
Overcomer, her husband Elijah and their three children left the secretive religious sect more than a decade ago, and like many leavers, settled on the other side of the Southern Alps in Canterbury.
Inside Gloriavale, every hour of her day had been set for her. Overcomer told Seven Sharp the sudden freedom of having no schedule had been one of the hardest things to get used to.
"It's so odd, sometimes I wish someone would tell me what to do ... I don't like this feeling of not knowing what to do, it's just so bizarre to me."
After 27 years inside the isolated community, Rosanna Overcomer is learning to navigate freedom, motherhood and life beyond the blue dresses. (Source: Seven Sharp)
Her memoir, Beyond the Gates of Gloriavale, published this week, follows her path from a girl she said nobody protected to a mother of six determined her children would grow up differently.
She said she left Gloriavale with three children she loved but no idea how to raise them.
"When I left and I had three children, I loved them, but I had no idea how to be a mum ... I remember being quite upset for a long time that I had no examples."
Hugs and affection were rare in her family growing up, she said.
"We didn't have beatings either, but not a lot of love."
Overcomer was born into the community when it was based at Cust in North Canterbury. She said life became stricter and more dangerous for children after the late founder Neville Cooper, known as Hopeful Christian, moved the group to the West Coast.
Overcomer has spoken about abuse she experienced as a child, which began before she was seven. She first went to police in 2015.
She said there were details of her experience she would keep private.
"Sometimes people don't need to know the detail, you can read between the lines to get the same story across ... maybe there is a little bit of shame, even though I shouldn't, and I know I shouldn't."
Learning to live without the rules
Overcomer said the first years outside Gloriavale were "pretty grim" as she rebuilt her sense of who she was.
"It literally felt like my whole world was demolished."
For years she also had dreams that she was back in Gloriavale, though they came less often over time.
"Sometimes I'd actually wake up with a fright."
Even everyday tasks took some getting used to. After years of helping feed hundreds of people, she found herself cooking far too much for her young family. She also still catches herself slipping into the flat, monotone voice she used inside the community.
Finding her own sense of style also took time, but it was a freedom she came to enjoy, she said.
"I am very glad that I don't just open the cupboard and choose one of five blue dresses."
She also struggles with social norms her children take for granted. When her eldest went to her first school formal, Overcomer said the other parents could draw on their own teenage years, and she could not.
"I don't know what's normal ... Anyway, that's fun, I get to learn alongside them."
Overcomer said one of her children thanked her as the family drove away after their last visit to Gloriavale together several years ago.
She and Elijah, who have been married 17 years, now contract milk 1100 cows near the Rangitata River. They also sharemilk on the West Coast and are equity partners in a farm.
'The path doesn't even exist'
Her mother, who is in her 70s, and four of her siblings remain in the community. Overcomer said Gloriavale had loosened its grip since she left, and her mother now had her own car and mobile phone.
"Now I text her and she picks up the phone. It's not me ringing the office and saying can I talk to my mum ... sometimes I'm like, how have we got to here?"
She said members were now able to maintain relationships with children and grandchildren who had left, without being told they would go to hell for doing so. But on a recent visit, she sensed many people were unsettled.
"When I grew up, as soon as you were stepping slightly off the path you were pulled back into line, and now the path doesn't even exist."
Overcomer said her message to anyone still inside was to think for themselves.
"Don't be afraid to ask questions and think outside the box you've been put in."
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