Transcript: Episode 339
339. Hallelujah
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[Short piano piece is played, lasting about 20 seconds]
While we understand the research for not giving specific trigger warnings anymore for the podcast, this particular podcast is heavy enough in content and the dynamics explores that you need full consent to listening. While this episode is not about specific details of abuse, we do go through the timeline in recognizing some patterns of abuse and that abuse happened. And this is referenced and discussed very directly, not in depth, but as a timeline in dynamics and in process. And it is named for what it is because that matters. So if you're not in a place to listen to it, wait and come back to this episode another time. Otherwise, you're welcome to listen to our experience of recognizing and understanding what's happened to us as a young adult. But please take care of yourself during and after listening to this podcast especially. And remember that you can take a break and come back to it later or change your mind at any time. Thank you for caring for you.
[Discussion begins]
[Note: The Husband’s voice is in italics]
You're back.
I am back. Today I'm just along for the ride. I'm so excited.
I have a story to tell you.
Please do.
It's not about how I was irritated with you after our conference. [Laughter] That's good. Yes. No, I wasn't really irritated. It was just very vulnerable. Was it?
Um, that's my understanding. [Laughter]
You felt great about it?
I would say I felt really great about it for the most part.
Aren’t they wonderful, those people?
Oh, yeah. It was a lovely crowd. It was so fun to talk with them. But yeah.
Okay. So you know how I got doxed?
That was the rumor.
That was the rumor. And it was true. I mean, that is true. I got doxed. That's a true story. But, having left my information up on their webpage, guess what's happened? What? A friend from college has found me.
Is that a good thing or a bad thing?
Oh… it's a heavy thing. It is a good thing. This was maybe the only experience I had, like as a young adult, is having a little best friend to run around with. She and her roommate and I, for whatever reason, were pretty tight. We were good friends. But all of this drama was going on in the background, and we were all very traumatized by it.
Were they traumatized because things were happening to them too? Or were they were traumatized by the things happening to you?
Well, I hope I didn't traumatize them.
No, I mean like if your best friend was having these awful things happening to them, that would be traumatizing.
No, they wre having other awful things happen to them. Okay. It was the school that was traumatizing. Right. But what's different is they both had really good parents who said, “whoa, this is not healthy. We're pulling you out.” Oh wow. Right? I had no one. Right. So there I was. But before I tell my story, I want you to tell your story. What were you doing when you were 17, 18, 19, 20?
Mine is not the most interesting story.
You went to Korea! You lived in Korea for two years. That's very interesting.
Oh, yeah, I forgot about that.
You played on the shopping network.
I did play drums for hula dancers on the Korean home shopping network. [Laughter] But you know, that's just an ordinary rite of passage. It’s one of those things you do.
Oh, my goodness. Okay. Tell your story. I'll stay out of it. Until you're 35. That's when I enter.
[Laughter] I graduated from high school. I went to my first semester of college. I, oh, I wrote a women's quartet that has gone on to be published and still makes us money every year.
It's all over YouTube. Yeah. High school choirs use it for competitions. Yep, it's true.
I went on a church mission to South Korea and was there for a couple years. And then I came back and went to college. So.
Hey, when you graduated high school, were your parents excited about that? Yeah. Huh. [Laughter] Must be nice. They weren't trying to kick me out of the house, if that's what you're implying.
Okay, so here's the problem with therapy. Okay. It's just one. So many things that are a problem with therapy. It makes you remember things. Ah. I do not mean it puts bad memories in your head or false memories in your head. No. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about it makes you put pieces together that you don't want to put together and have spent a lot of energy just putting far far away out of your head.
I mean, that's the function of dissociation, right, is to protect you from those things? Hush child. I'm just saying what I've heard. [Sigh. Laughter]
So here's part of the problem. That-. I don't know how other people do it. Let me tell you. I don't know how other people do therapy. Maybe stuff just randomly comes up for them. Maybe they just go in, they know what they're going to talk about and they do it. That never happens to me. I always think, “This is what's gonna happen in therapy.” And then it never happens in therapy. Right? Yeah. The other thing is, I feel like there's a general pattern, not a specific or an intentional pattern, but a general pattern of working your way backwards. Now, that's not going to be true for everybody. But I think it happens for us because in some ways, not every way, but in some ways, more recent trauma is easier to deal with than the early early stuff. That makes a lot of sense. Right? And so it's not that we have a plan to work our way backwards along the timeline. I don't mean that. But it's almost like building muscles. And so the more recent stuff-. Like we, you and I—we meaning ‘you and I,’ just want to be clear about this—both have some medical trauma from our daughter. Yes. This is not her fault. Nope. I don't mean that. I just mean, what we went through trying to keep her alive was extremely traumatic. And we both still have PTSD from that. Yes. When those pictures or videos pop up, like we are in full panic attack, having to excuse ourselves from the children to like go calm down. Right. Like, no one unless you've had a medical trauma child, like, it's one of those things just know you don't understand unless you've been through it. Right. So working through that I can talk to you about that. That was awful. But I still have these sensations. We're both in therapy. Wonderful that parenting traumatizes you. It's fantastic. [Laughter] No. So, right. So there's this going back in time a little bit. I can go a little bit further back in time even to my parents dying, because that's also when I got you. So it also it almost balances things out a little bit. So also you were a witness to that. So somehow-.
I know that we can't have a witness to all of our trauma. I know that. Part of our trauma often, especially in childhood, is that the people around us either don't recognize it or don't acknowledge it or don't stop it. All these layers of complicit that becomes part of the problem. Yeah. So when there are times that someone witnesses your trauma, it's kind of powerful because it helps contain it somehow because you're not carrying it all by yourself. Does that make sense? Absolutely. Even though I know it's not always possible. I get that. I am not seeking this out intentionally.
Plus, you've always talked about how subjective your recollections are and how you're not sure what is a fact memory or just what you were understanding, like, how you put the pieces together at the time. And so hearing something from an outside perspective can help give you perspective. Right?
Exactly, exactly. Oh, my goodness. This is why I love you. So you can stay. Thank you. I will keep you. Sorry, ladies. [Laughter] I'm just kidding. Okay, so-. Oh, my brain is just blown. Like, ah, okay. So I have that experience with you because you met my mother. Yes. Which we were actually just talking about before what happened today happened. So, for listeners, it's actually your third podcast in a row. Ooh. I know, right? They're gonna be spoiled. And then I’m going to be back crying and whining and “oh therapy, oh, therapy.” And they’re going to be like, “Please bring the husband back.”
I feel like I should have a punch card. If I get five times then I get a free sandwich. [Laughter] Like a loyalty card. Like, here I am again on the podcast. Ka-chunk.
Oh. We're gonna have to get creative to get you back on two more times. [Laughter] You can't pat my arm. That's the kind of stuff I have to edit out. Oh, I'm sorry. Are you though? I was working on healthy, consensual non-sexual touch.
Oh, my goodness. Okay, so anyway. Going back on the timeline, the other experience I have of this is with the English teacher, who was also on the podcast, right? Yes. So she witnessed that whole transition from high school to college, to that therapist that moved us in getting sued and losing her license, and all of that story. Yes, she's the one who said, “You cannot even talk to your previous therapist anymore. You can't. You have to stop.” The English teacher said that.
Let me just breathe for a minute.
Okay. So those are big moments, right? Like, breakthrough, life-changing, you get pieces moments. Yeah. Okay. So today, or sometime in the middle of conference-.
Why can I never just like have a normal experience? Like, normal people, where you just wake up and do the thing that you think you're doing that day? Hint, it's spelled DID. Shmack. Because this was not my fault. This was not my fault. Or because of DID. Well, technically it was. But so because of the podcast, which is about DID. So you win again. I'm not trying to win anything. You want punch cards, punch, punch, I'm gonna punch you. [Laughter] I'm not really. Nobody worry. There are no safety concerns.
Okay, so in the middle of the conference, or something, okay, I get a message. Where do I get a message? I get a message on the Emma Sunshaw Facebook Messenger thing. And it actually took me a long time to figure out where this message was, because I could see the alert but I couldn't find it. And it's because it was for that account, which I used to have for the podcast because I tried to have a Facebook page for the podcast, but it didn't work. Because all it did was make all the people who know me find that page and then yell at me and say mean things about mental health. So I do not have that Facebook page. I am not-. I mean, it's there, but I'm never on it. I don't check it. I don't message there unless I get those alerts and happen to pay attention. But this was from someone who was not my friend. So not only was it on the wrong account cuz I don't actually check that. So please, please don't try to find me. Like, I'm not there. But it was also in like message requests or something, so it took me ages to figure out where this was coming from. Anyway, this was from this girl from college. She lived on my floor, or the floor below me or something, in the dorms. So we were in the same dorm. That's how we became friends. We became friends because she knew sign language and she was in sign language class. Cool. Okay, so this is how we became friends. And her roommate was also really sweet and very nice, so the three of us became very close friends. We did not see other people. Like, we were not the cool girls. So we didn't run around doing the cool things. We just hung out at the dorm all the time. We were not dating boys. We were not, like, we were very, probably a little developmentally delayed. Let's just say it out loud. Okay.
So anyway, they were close to me when we got diagnosed with DID the first time. So we talked with them about DID and talked, like, processed with them, if I could use that word, as we were learning about DID. But they were also with me in that school-. Which the more I learned about it, and the more I realized about it, and the more therapy I have, the more I'm like, that was really a lot of religious trauma. When the English teacher was on the podcast, she called it a cult. Oh, wow. That was a very strong word. So I don't know. I don't know. It's so fuzzy in my head, and it's so hard to pull those pieces out. But I could not believe that she had found me. And she had found the podcast. So she listened to the podcast and was like, “Let me tell you, I remember all of these things.” She was like, “I remember JohnMark. This is what we used to do with JohnMark. I remember when you tutored me, and that was Kris, who's now Dr. E. And this was, um, I did this with this one. And I did this with this one. And you worked at Subway.” And I was like, “What?” Like, she remembers all of these pieces from that time that she was a witness to. Which is wonderful, except that she was also traumatized and it was awful, and I’m really sorry. Not, she was not traumatized by you. No, but I think it was made worse because she was in proximity to me and so they were really rough with her because of me.
Oh, so the school sort of acted out against her because she was one of your friends.
Well, she like helped try to report what was happening with the professor's wife. But basically, how they responded to her was that nothing was happening except that she was a bad influence on me and so should stay away from me. Like, that she was bad and not safe for me. Oh, wow.
And so what I remember about that is that the therapist-. Which I think we referenced this a little bit on the English teacher episode, but like I'm trying to get pieces back in my head and put the pieces together. The therapist that moved us in-. Okay, so let me back up. It's so confusing. Yeah. I'm sorry. It's in the book. This is part, like more pieces to what happened in the book. Absolutely, yeah. Okay. So it's so hard to do a timeline, because you're holding so many different pieces and there's gaps and you're trying to fill in pieces. But when yu try to fill in pieces, then like you can't stay present with it. And so it's so hard to put pieces together in order. Wow. Yeah. Okay, but just the Reader's Digest, not feelings right now, because you're not my therapist. But just trying to get that timeline down. Sure.
So my mother got that boyfriend and the suicide attempts and I was going to be raped and killed if I stayed at home. I had to run away from home. Like I was not safe. Right. I had nowhere to go. A family from the church was going to foster me. But they said I was old enough that if I could have a job and stay in school, I could be emancipated. I got a nanny job where I could live, and have room and board, in exchange for being a nanny to these three rowdy awful boys that prepared me for my own rowdy boys. Okay. So I lived there my senior year of high school. See, I can do this. I can do this. I live there my senior year of high school. But because I was at that church school, because I had been sent there, which is a whole different story and lots of trauma there. But that is where I met the English teacher, while she had been a teacher in junior high. But she was best friends with the lady I was living with. So that was our second encounter together. Okay. Okay? So then I lived with her, babysat those, or nannied, whatever, those boys the rest of that school year and through this summer.
And then in the fall, I wanted to go to a different school. I had several scholarships. But you can't, like, scholarships aren't enough even if you have a full ride. Like, you have to have clothes. You have to have tennis shoes. You have shampoo. You have to have blankets. Like, going to college is actually really, really hard when you have nothing. Yeah. So I really didn't have a lot of choices. And I'm trying hard to have compassion for myself with this. Because so much of me thinks if I would have just taken one of those scholarships and left on my own, I wouldn't have gone through any of this. But I don't think I actually had a choice because I couldn't provide for myself, and I was surrounded by all these adults saying this. Because everyone from that church school, or the church that sponsored it, they all went to this little tiny Christian School for college. Okay?
So when this lady that I was nannying for took me to that school, she told the Dean of Women—this is the story in the book—in the enrollment line in front of everybody that I had been molested. Yes. And that she knew this because I was having nightmares. This Dean of Women said that if I wanted to stay in school, I had to be in counseling. And she was the counselor. Except she was not licensed. Right. This is in the book, this story. So she gets me in counseling, teaches me how to do journaling, has me journaling for her and turning in my papers to her, and I'm doing all of this. And then whatever happened in psychology class that I don't remember, but is also referenced in the book. I don't really have all those pieces because it's really hard for me to talk about him and his wife. Yeah. And so it gets very fuzzy very fast. But for whatever reason, he diagnosed us with DID and said we need to go to this specialist in Tulsa. Right. And that's the therapist that ultimately-. Well, no, let me back up.
Sent me to the therapist in Tulsa. But I was completely on my own. I had no transportation, and so his wife would drive me. So that's how I started going to therapy with the specialist in DID in Tulsa. Who then said that the professor's wife was molesting my littles on those trips, and that the school was a cult. She said that. But it's a little Christian school. Right. But she said we were not safe there. And then it was not safe. Like a Christian sect cult, is what I mean. It's a big scary word. But that's what the English teacher said on the podcast, and this is what that therapist said. Right. So-.
I'm sorry. It's hard for me to breathe. You’re doing great. I'm just trying to talk through it really fast because I want to put the pieces in order. Yeah. Okay. So she said that the school was dangerous. So she cut off contact from the school, took us home to her house, and moved us in, and wouldn't tell her family where we were, and wouldn't tell the school where we were. Okay? Other things happen. She ended up basically-. Our family found us through a chance encounter. That's a whole different story. And so she sent us to a monastery in Arkansas. So we were at the monastery in Arkansas. And then knowing that we had been locked up at the therapist house. Like, she wouldn't let us leave. We had been locked up at the monastery. So when she came to pick us up to take us back to her house, we knew we were going to be locked up again. So basically we ran away, but we had nowhere to go. Right. So we went back to the college. Okay? And then they would not let us have any contact with our friends from before, the two girls, because they said-. Well, okay, the two girls were trying to get us connected to our therapist because they knew we needed help. And they were trying to help me.
None of this should have been like on any of us. No. Like, where were the grown ups and all this? Right? They were the ones causing the problem. Right?
But because they tried to contact that therapist, they said that those, they told those girls they cannot have contact with us anymore. And we were all locked in our dorm rooms. Wow. And there's a whole much more to that. Like, very Handmaid's Tale. Like, I just, that's what I told her on, when I talked to her. I was like, “Oh my goodness.” So, um, very, very just yech.
Ultimately, the professor and his wife adopted me as an adult. This is the psychology professor. Yes. And the wife who's molesting your littles? Oh, my goodness, I can't even think about it. I don't know. This is what the therapist said. Okay. I, it is very hard for me to remember any about that. And I don't want to like falsely accuse anyone. But I think it's part of why I'm very protective of that part of my system. Sure. The-.
Oh, my goodness.
Okay. So, in the end, to get away from them, I had to leave the school. Now, this is a very tragic part of my history, because in my nerd world part of my history. Because I was doing a double major five years study. It was my senior year, two weeks before graduation, and they asked me to bring in this stack of documentation about all these things, because my case—meaning my treatment case—that I could not discuss it directly because I was more intelligent than them. This is what they told me. And so this is not me saying that. This is what they told me. And so I had to spend the last week of my senior year scrambling to get all this documentation they wanted. And I did. I got the entire stack, everything that they wanted. And then basically, that's, I mean, things are still not quite in order. But basically, that's when they gave that whole stack of documentation to my parents, all my journaling from therapy to my parents. All my essays that I had written, which were very emotional, some of them are in the book, to my parents. And my parents I had not had contact with for six years. My father I had not seen since fifth grade. And they gave all this stuff to them.
So I basically ran away from there. Got another nannying job, nannying for this girl with autism, and which also prepared me for my children with autism. So it's not all bad. Like, I'm trying to recognize the good, right? Trying to put pieces together of how did I become capable of what I'm doing. It makes sense. But anyway, this family already knew that the school was creepy. Those are my words, not their words. I'm not trying to cause problems. They, they had already heard stories about the school. They already knew there were problems. I don't know what they knew. I just knew they already knew it was a problem. And so they hired a nun, which I know sounds ridiculous. But this nun was an attorney. And use that money to adopt me so that my name could be changed and legally no connection to the professor and his wife. Wow. Right?
So the, so were they, do you feel like they were really altruistic in doing that, that they were really trying to protect you?
At the time, yes. But they did not believe in DID. And we were not functioning well at the time. We were a mess. And so we could take care of the daughter, okay. But we were a mess and, um. Want to end, they were Catholics. And this is not about Catholicism at all, I’m just talking about patterns of our experience. They were Catholic. And because of the monastery that was a trigger. And because of the other therapist, and if I needed help they were like, “no, if you have a Catholic therapist, you need to go back to her.” So like, we got sent back to that therapist and then basically just had to run away. So for a long time, our name was their name even though we had no contact with them. But we were still worried about like, what if something legal happened and we were attached to them in some way. And so that's why, much later, when we found our mother we asked her to adopt us to get our name changed back to our regular name. Which is why we were actually, by the end of our story—not in the book, I mean, in our life, in my life—adopted by my biological mother. Oh, wow.
How bizarre is that? This is what I was going through while you were on your mission.
Yeah, that makes my head and my heart hurt.
It's bizarre. And so anyway, she was like, I know you had to change your name several times because of safety. There were other issues involved too. You had to testify in something. Anyway, there were other issues too. But our name got changed. And this is why like now even when people dox us and see our legal name, I'm like, “Haha, means nothing.” [Laughter] Except I was delighted to finally marry you so that my name could mean something. So I appreciate you in that very bizarrely patriarchal way, giving me a name that actually sent me free. Yeah. So I appreciate that. But when people are like, “oh, what name do you go by?” I'm like, “you don't even know my name, much less any DID names unless you really, really know me,” because of all these layers, right? Sure.
But anyway, she contacts me, this girl, who was my friend at the time of all this going on. And she is like, “I remember this happening. I remember them talking about us.” She said she remembers being concerned about me on those road trips because I came back like disturbed, and not just because of therapy. She's like, “we knew something was wrong, but we didn't know what was wrong.” And then she said there were other times that we got called to go to their house, the professor and his wife, and that they would wait in the car for hours outside while we were inside. And that the professor and his wife didn't invite them in, didn't tell them what they were doing. We weren't able to communicate. There weren't cell phones even back then, right? And so like, they're like, “we never knew what happened to you. We were just out waiting in the car in the driveway for hours. Lots of times.” Oh my goodness. And she remembers like the list of all of our alters and names and ages being passed around to all the faculty. Oh my goodness. She remembers when they tried to do an exorcism to get all my altars out of me, to cast all my demons out, which is I don't have. Oh my goodness. She remembers them saying that to stay in school I would have to go before the whole chapel, like the entire school, and confess my sins that opened me up to being possessed so that I needed an exorcism as part of my repentance. She remembers-. I don't know.
We talked for a long time. We talked for a long time. But then she also, she's like, “I want to be on the podcast.” Not like in a, you know, like, there have been creeps, who are just like, “hey, let me be on the podcast.” But this was in an authentic like, “I want to witness with you and for you our experience.” And it was hard for both of us. It was very intense. Because the content is difficult. And because we were both struggling. Like, we both have our own therapists. We both have some dissociation. We both are very traumatized by everything that happened there. So we really had to pace things. And there were a lot of things that we were able to talk about on our phone call that we could not talk about when we recorded the podcast. But still even then the things she was able to say, and the things that she was able to witness and help contain. And just, not even confirm, but just say, “I was there. I saw this.” Like there's something so powerful, and we so rarely get it. And this is the second time I've gotten it. Well, third time counting you. And so it was very powerful for me. It's very emotional for me. I don't even know why I'm telling you or recording it other than I'm afraid that if I don't, I won't be able to take it to therapy. Sure. Like, it will slip away before I get there. I won't see her until Wednesday. Yeah.
And all this time, all these years, like 20 years. We're old now, by the way. Yep. 20 years. She in her life, her roommate in her life, and me and my life, have carried this shame of “we are so bad even God didn't want us.” Oh my goodness. We are so bad we couldn't even go to college. We're such a failure that even though we did okay, academically, we're not acceptable enough for college. We are so socially messed up that not only do our peers not care about us or want to spend time with us or want us to do things with them, even the teachers are going to harm us and the administration wants us to go away. This was my developmental experience of young adulthood. Was shame and abuse and trauma that echoed what I had been through going up. And so at first I'm like, “Why does this always happen to me?” And at first I had these big feelings of, “Once again there I am vulnerable and people are hurting me. I've got to be the common denominator of this keeps happening to me and keeps happening to me.” But then I remember what I've learned about reenactments. And I'm like, “of course this was going on. It's the same church I grew up in.” Like, the same little sect, tiny rural country. This is the church school where my physics teacher had that game he made up to molest the girls in the class and have the boys help. This is the same church school where the youth minister was abusing the girls in youth group. This is the same town where the youth pastor got arrested for embezzling in Texas. Like, this is why I was saying about that Tammy Faye movie that you watch with your parents of like, you don't understand how that culture shaped my world. Wow. Even if you have to admit Tammy Faye had some tenacity. Like it's bizarre, right?
I feel so heartbroken just hearing it.
I feel crazy telling it. Like, crazy crazy. Like, intentionally using the word crazy. Like, I want to be sick. And that's not even the bad stuff. That's just like, this was the structure of authority. This is the timeline. This is the timeline, yes, of how it all interplayed.
And how, like, where were we supposed to get help? We literally, were talking to admin. We were talking to professors. We were talking to our families. We were talking to, even me talking to my family once they got sucked into it. We were talking to therapists. Like, who was it that was supposed to help us? How were we supposed to help ourselves?
And you were isolated there. Yeah.
I remember, well, we talked before. There was a time that my grandparents, my paternal grandparents, drove up to try to pick me up from that school. And I was locked in my room and they wouldn't let me come out. So my grandparents had to drive back in the night because I wasn't there. And so they canceled their hotel or whatever. And they hit a deer on the way back and it totaled their car. It could have killed them. I mean, that's not really the fault of the school or me or whatever. But that's how out of control it is. And one of the things I said to her, and you can listen to it later for the recording. But one of the things I said to her was we were being treated like children. Not just abused, but like abused as children. We were adults. Yeah. I mean, young adults. We were children in some ways. But 17, 18, 19, and 20, 21. Like being locked in your room literally. Yeah. Truly abusive, absolutely.
So when we talk about my family member who now has the book and is upset that I'm talking about any of it, like they're mad at the therapist because they think everything is that therapist fault. They're mad at the English teacher because they think that she was in cahoots with the therapist, not understanding that she's the one who tried to turn the therapist in. They think the school is good because it's Christian, but they're the ones who sent me to the therapist. Like, they don't understand at all what I was going through on my end, and no wonder it seemed crazy to them.
Yeah, they had no part in any of those events that you just described. So for them, what's triggering for them is that the feeling of shaking the foundation of their sense of self, of who they think they are and what their history is, right?
It's like, it's like that analogy. I mean, I know it was a joke earlier, but it's like that analogy about The Handmaid's Tale, about like we got sent to a different master and they fought over us. That's what it feels like. Yeah. Or different, whatever they're called. I don't know. It was too scary to watch.
I'm sorry that all happened to you.
I'm sorry I don't have a normal history timeline to tell you. Like, that's just messed up.
Well, I don't have any particular kind of timeline I need. But here's one thing that is reinforced for me again, is that the people who really know you, who really know you and can understand you, love you. The people who rail against you are the ones who have picked out one piece, or who have projected their own ideas onto you. Those are the ones who are being such monsters. But the people who really see your heart and know all the parts of you, really, they are the ones who love you.
When I think of those years and everything since, I just feel shame. Like, I can't tell you how much shame I feel. Because not only was I abused and had DID, but they were telling everybody about it and then like using my DID system against me. That's part of why it's so hard for me to talk about it, or so hard for me to be out and proud about it, or so hard of me to disclose who is doing what or talk about my inside stuff at all. Because they literally use that against me and made it all public. So everybody knew all of that going on. Which gives the same dynamic as childhood, right? Where everybody knows that this is going on, but we're complicit in making it happen or letting it keep happening. Yeah.
My aunt says that she tried to adopt us but that she couldn't get my mom to sign the papers. This is your maternal aunt. Anyway, I don't mean to go on that. And I certainly don't need to pick up more. Like, it's bedtime and all this is in my head. This is why I needed to talk about it. Yeah.
But what is that? Like, religious traumas is a thing? Yeah. Yes. But does it count if it's a college instead of a church? Yes. It was a college but they were positioning themselves as the mouthpiece of God.
It almost destroyed her. Like, when I think about it, I feel all this shame. But when I see her, I'm like, I can so clearly see the impact on it on her. And I'm so grateful that she's had family and good support, but she felt so fragile to me. And I was like, “Oh.” I told her, I said, “This is not your fault. What happened was not your fault.” Oh my goodness. It's hard to offer that same thing to myself. To myself I just feel like, well, if I would have prayed enough, or if I could have gotten enough self control or been disciplined enough, or-. Like, why wasn't I just normal enough to just-? How hard is it to go to college, to just attend your classes, mind your own business, marry a man like you're supposed to. Like, I didn't want to marry a man. It was hard to focus in classes. And I didn't have any friends at all except for these two girls. And we were not normal. Like, looking back I can see how delayed we were, which is probably why we were so ostracized by everybody else.
You were never given the chance to have a quote unquote, normal young adulthood. That was not your fault. You didn't have any support system that was actually supporting you. The only support systems you had were entirely self-serving and destructive in the way that they were interacting with you.
The impact like goes on in weird ways. So, I think we've talked about this before. Like, for example, I will never get to be a professor even though I love teaching and have done so much like substitute teaching for professors, or they've had me come in and guest lecture or things like that. I will never get to because when I lost those five years the last week before graduation, I had to transfer to another school that would accept some of those credits because I lost that. Which means it was another kind of the same kind of school. So not accredited the same way or whatever. Which meant to get into grad school I had to go to a similar kind school that was a question In the same way. Oh my goodness. I couldn't go to a state school. And which means to get my doctorate, I had to go to a similar-. So even though I could study and learn and make up my own education, which is why, like I did really hard things in supervision. Like go find that psychoanalyst and then Jungian guy, and did all these things to make up the difference. Because I knew my education was lacking. But I couldn't transfer it. And all of that goes back to because I was a foster kid, or because I was emancipated, or what do they call it? A ward of the court. Yeah. That's what I was. That's what it says on my financial aid paperwork. Wow. And so all because of that, like it holds me back. I mean, my life is fine. I don't mean any complaints. But I mean, that's just an example.
It certainly shaped the path your life has taken.
She was a year behind me. And so she didn't even get to finish school. And she told me that she finally finished college—like she was so traumatized by that—that she finally finished college in the Fall of 2019, and got her first teaching position for the second semester of 2020. And the pandemic happened. Oh, my goodness. And so she's spent her first two years of teaching during the pandemic, and that it's been awful. And she's like, “I can't keep going. I have to do something else.” Oh, my goodness. That's so sad.
So even fr her in a different way, even though there's like still not someone in front of our face pointing their fingers at us telling us how evil we are, like, it's impacted her literally all these 20 years. And I don't have family support like she has, but I have you, and she does not have you. And I could just see the difference. I thought, “Oh, this is the difference between having community or not, having a support person or not.” Because she's not in a good state. I could just see it and I could feel it. And I was like, “Oh, sweetie.” I don't mean that as condescending at all. I mean, like, empathetically, I feel, “Yeah, I've been there. I see in your face what I have felt. This is not on you. This is not you. Like, please stay alive. Don't let them win this one.”
Everybody else has these college stories. Like, I went off to college and I dated all these people. And I had all these drinking parties, or I did all this, or all my friends or my sorority or whatever. I'm like, “college was hell, I was imprisoned in college.” That's what it was like for me. I don't want to talk about it. Yeah.
It's, I think, I think-. My friend D, that's all I'm gonna say for her name, D, from the Community, asked me once on the podcast, like wrote in a letter asking about anger. And I was like, “I don't know because we're just not there yet.” Unless, you know, the kids have been really a lot and doing something dangerous or something, you know, and then I have to decide how I'm going to express that. But this is one of those times where I feel like I really maybe could get in touch with some anger. I think I did with the therapist letters, like I tore her letters up. Wow. I burned her stuff. I think I needed to get that out.
And I think, here is part of the problem, I think that's ultimately what it came down to in ways I didn't understand, because she's part of that whole circle. Oh, interesting. But I think that’s why it was so hard to get away, even from my therapist now. I mean, not my ‘now’ now therapist. Right. But that therapist, like, she’s not from there. She’s not in the circle in the same way. Like, she was the bridge. I think that’s why we ended up back with her. She was the bridge with the therapist who helped her start being a therapist. And this evangelical circle that is so tragically sad. Because I know, I’m not trying to trash talk. Like, I love me some Jesus. Yeah. But between what happened to me when I was little, in church settings, or with my parents, I think that’s why I was getting triggered and going in circles for so long, because it took me until like literally until this conversation for me to go, “Oh, bleepity bleep bleep.” It’s the same stuff. Like, I told you that my parents took those classes to learn how to spank their children, how to beat their children, spoil the rod and spare the child. [Laughter] Other way around. Spare the rod. To spare the rod is to spoil the child. Yeah. Those classes that they took, that even my mom talked about, that’s from the same-. She didn’t go to that college. But the classes that my parents took were from the same people that govern all of those churches and that college. And it’s that governing agency that the English Teacher said on the podcast was a cult. Oh, interesting. Okay. Wow.
And so here I am two years later, talking to my friend from college going, “Oh my goodness.” When she said cult, I think she meant cult. Yeah. And when people say religious trauma, they don’t just mean being abused by a priest. Right.
Like, there's so much, especially now that I know about relational trauma too? Yes. There's so much that was going on relationally that was not okay. Absolutely. Urgh. I want to throw a rock through our glass windows.
Please don't. [Laughter] But I'm glad that you can see that what was happening was not okay. And that it was not you that was not okay. It was things happening to you that were not okay. You were doing the absolute best you could under the circumstances.
But this is why to this day, I'm like, “oh, but it's my fault.” Or, “oh, I wasn't trying hard enough.” Or, “oh, I'm not good enough.” Or, “oh, I've got to be more truthful and more penitent and more repentant.” It’s because of this stuff. That's the stuff they told me. Yeah.
And thinking just again, trying to be in hindsight, trying to stay in Now Time, looking back at that context. Like if I think of our oldest daughter, who I don't think the podcast people even know. I was talking, I was doing a podcast with my friend, and I was like, actually, I don't think the listeners even know we have an older daughter, is we've never talked about it. But thinking about her at her age, and the hot mess she is when she's trying so hard, I can't imagine this being her environment while she's going through those developmental stages. Yeah.
Because really, it's a situation in which you do not have free choice, right? They were severely limiting your ability to make your own choices.
That's what I told my friend. I said, “I didn't have a choice. I couldn't consent to any of this. Whether to go to therapy or not. Whether to stay in school or not. Because it meant being homeless.”
It was a series of ultimatums.
It's all ultimatums.
Yeah. That's a total power trip, right? You will do my will or else you will suffer the worst consequences. You will be cast out.
And then you’re cast out anyway. Urgh. When the guy, the guy who did the keynote for Healing Together, he did the keynote and he also spoke later in a session. And his other session was all about this. It was called The F Word, but he met family. Oh, wow. And he talked about how-. His whole talk was about what it means to be the one in the family who steps away. Who speaks out. And how you're ostracized because of it. And then you realize you had already been ostracized all along anyway. And I was just weeping. Urgh. Like, I tried hard to be good. I tried hard to be silent. I tried hard to say, “okay, all of this was my fault.” I tried hard to say, “okay, it was me who failed the family. I was not strong enough as a second grader to hold my family together.” I was not strong enough to say “no” to people who were hurting me. I was not strong enough to be good enough. I was not good enough for my parents, or my college or my family. I am not enough. I get it. I will accept that. And I lived with that for 20 years. I'm just done. Yeah. Good. I'm just done. I'm putting that down. I'm just, I can't carry that around anymore. I can't. Good. So at risk of whatever those consequences come, I'm doing my best. I'm just tired. I think that's why I've been so weary. Because this has been culminating with all the safety issues we've had since they got the podcast and the books and just-. I'm not trying to cause harm. I'm not trying to come after them or bother them in any way.
I just want to live my life with my family. I think of that blessing you gave me and about how Heavenly Father said that I could have what I want. And how I joked about-. I mean, that's out of context. You know what I mean? And I joked about it was like the genie thing, right? Like you have to be careful what you want. And if God is wanting, saying you can have what you want, then I need to make sure I'm aligned so that wish can be granted. Even though God is not about granting wishes. I know that. But I was using the metaphor. And thinking about okay, so what is it that I want? What is my heart truly desire? And I think it's just peace. I don't even mean like world peace, like in a Miss Congeniality. I mean, like, I just want to live with my family and peace. I want to be able to provide for us enough that we're not hungry and trying to keep the heat on. I want my friends that I love in the Community or in groups. I want them to be safe and well and feel loved and seen and heard. I want us to have a circle of safety where we can have our voices, where we're not silenced, where we can say what we need to say, and feel what we need to feel, and know what we know, and still be safe. That's all. That's good.
I want to somehow help make a difference, offer something, use this hell that I have grown up in for good. Yes. Because that's the only way it doesn't have power over me anymore, is if I, myself, with a real God, not the God that someone said they represented—The God in their own image. Oh snap.—Use this to transform the world back into how it should be, how it was meant to be, where people were designed for people. Because we're brothers and sisters. Because we're the same, Because we're humans, Because we need each other. Because love. Like how hard is that? [Laughter] It's hard. Turns out.
It makes me thin of a CS Lewis thing. So you can cut this out in your podcast because I know that's not what everybody needs to hear. But in his book, The Great Divorce, he talks about the idea that, in my own way of saying it, that heaven and hell are retroactive. That ultimately to arrive in heaven is to look back on your life and see that all of the horrible things that happened have led you to that point, and how glory works backwards to make even those things holy. And how people who have chosen hell will look back on the indulgences and the things that they have done in their life, and those things will lose their sweetness to the point that they will feel like they were they were in hell the whole time.
It's hard to imagine such awful things as you have endured as ever having the capacity to become like pieces of light, of things that helped you to become the amazing person you are. But you are an amazing person. And when I look back on your story, I don't feel any condemnation towards you for any of those things. Like, what I am is incredibly impressed that you kept moving forward and you kept trying, and you kept finding ways to survive, and you kept finding ways to be yourself in all of those awful, awful circumstances. That's amazing. So while you may not be able to look back with appreciation on those things, I see them as being part of what has made you into the person I love. The person whose blessing the world with your talents.
Runnin’ in my mouth.
That too.
[Laughter] That’s my talent. Because I will not be silent.
Amen Sister!
Urgh. Religious trauma is messed up. Yeah. It is messed up. Like it's the greatest perversion, right? Absolutely. Like, no matter what your faith tradition is, whatever is the definition of good and holy and sacred to you, that thing being perverted to be used as a weapon. Yeah. It's like one of the deepest, most awful violations.
It's like a spiritual rape.
Yes. Oh, that hit me so deeply. I can't even. Yeah. It hurts me. It hurts me so much.
[Piano version of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah]
[Break]
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