[SPEAKER_01]: Hey everybody, welcome back to the Prejuice Podcast.
[SPEAKER_01]: Today's episode is a really special one.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is a collaboration between myself and my friend Sadie and Gavi over at the leaving Eden podcast.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sadie reached out a couple of days ago and said, Hey, there's like this really unique grief surrounding growing up in an independent fundamental about the circles and then starting to see more and more headlines with faces that you recognize.
[SPEAKER_01]: involved in sexual abuse scandals or just major moral feelings or fallouts and it's just like how do you grapple with that stuff?
[SPEAKER_01]: There's like this again unidentifiable type of grief that is really difficult to process or explain to people who aren't around it and that was really the premise of the episode and of course my response was you don't have to pitch me on topics like anytime you guys want to sit down I'm happy to do it and I'm so glad we did this was a really great conversation
[SPEAKER_01]: very relaxed but also when we could just talk as friends as fellow you know former fundees and also people who are creating content were were diving into the muck in the mud of some of these stories it was a great time to kind of just debrief talk about the big emotions that were feeling
[SPEAKER_01]: And really extend an imitation to listeners like yourself who may have been feeling some of this as well, but haven't heard it verbalized that haven't heard these things talked about in this type of way.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I really hope you guys appreciate today's conversation.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want you to make two favors.
[SPEAKER_01]: One, we should head over to the audio podcast for the leaving Eden episode that features all of this conversation and a little bit extra over on their feed.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I also want you to go and subscribe to the leaving Eden YouTube channel.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've linked to it in the show notes of this episode.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're trying to get their subscribers up over there.
[SPEAKER_01]: They've been podcasting about as long as I have here on the previous podcast and now they're trying to kind of expand into YouTube and I know what a grime that could be.
[SPEAKER_01]: So please, if you're listening to show
[SPEAKER_01]: If you're kind of subscribed to one new podcast this year, besides mine, of course, be sure to head over to the leaving eating podcast and click subscribe.
[SPEAKER_01]: Go check out some of their content there and let Sadie and Gabi know that I sent you.
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, for now, let's go ahead and jump into my conversation with Sadie and Gabi over on the leaving eating podcast.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to start that conversation right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: maybe six to eight months ago, a friend of mine found out that their childhood friend is being prosecuted for child sexual abuse materials.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it was, it was such a weird experience because I felt like, oh, this is something that I've kind of been through.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I've, the experience of someone that I used to know and care about is now
[SPEAKER_00]: has now done this horrible crime and is being prosecuted and all of those emotions and feelings that come up around that.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was weird watching it from the outside.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then just a couple months after that, there was one of the big, big, big, recent, funny scandals regarding child sexual assault was not a person that I knew closely, but I knew a ton of people connected to them.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am personal friends with, they're family members, multiple other close friends of the family churches that that person had worked in or churches that I had visited extensively.
[SPEAKER_00]: So there's a ton of very deep connection to this person and this particular case was one of the really big ones that has popped off this year.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that hit me so weird and it's something that I've really been processing and
[SPEAKER_00]: I have, I think I feel like I've heard Eric talk about this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Are you familiar with this like the grief that you feel when somebody that you used to know, you, you find out that they were a predator all along.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, this was kind of the catalyst for my whole, like, my whole saga.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, right.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's why I associate this with you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And to give like a ten thousand vote view recap, like, I mean, we had literally
[SPEAKER_01]: gone to basketball camp with this guy at his church.
[SPEAKER_01]: We had gone and done, you know, outings and stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, and he was in Northern California and then moved to our church and I googled why I googled his name to see if the church had like announced why he left.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just to see if there's like a sendoff or like anything like that and the first like or second article on Google was weren't issued for Chico youth pastures arrest and you know that was like the thing that kind of burst my bubble of like wait this isn't supposed to happen in our churches and sent me down the rabbit hole and during that journey
[SPEAKER_01]: It was a experience of, you know, you'd go on stuff funny's like, and you're like, oh, I know this person or I know I know that this person is someone my pastor loves or I know this is someone I've heard as a guest speaker at a conference like, oh, there's a lot here that I did not realize was happening and I think there is
[SPEAKER_01]: a very unique grief to realizing that like the what you thought was reality wasn't and that the people around you aren't who they say they are whether that someone who is a predator or someone who is protecting predators that you never would have assumed.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so yeah, this this hits home for me in a big way.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was even just jotting down my little prompts to remember what stories to share.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like man this like it feels like it hits every time starting to talk about this stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and you know, honestly as you were talking, it occurred to me that it was a huge catalyst for my deconstruction, too, because Jock's got going to prison was a huge, huge moment for me and for my whole family.
[SPEAKER_00]: And like that, the grief of that, like you would think it's one time.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think when I experienced it, like when I was,
[SPEAKER_00]: When I was nineteen, and the Jack Scott scandal broke and we all found out that he had assaulted a minor and he was going to go to prison.
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought this would be the only time it ever happened to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was that how you felt when you found out about the person that was in your church group.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, I think my, I think my feeling, because I was, I was like, sixteen, I think what happened.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think the way that I interpreted it at the time was it, it just made me go like, oh, this can happen here.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so for me, it was like a disillusionment of like, the thing I kept saying to leaders at that time was like, I don't feel safe.
[SPEAKER_01]: or you guys were supposed to protect us.
[SPEAKER_01]: I remember a lot of conversations that cycled around that, and so I think for me it was almost a all bets are off.
[SPEAKER_01]: I did have a feeling like, I did have a feeling like, oh, maybe I won't know somebody, but like there's, yeah, for me it was like all bets are off.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was like, okay, if this could happen and it could happen in our church, which is like the kind of church that you should be in.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's really nowhere that safe.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so like that was maybe that's my naturally kind of like nihilistic and, you know, cynical side that pops in sometimes, but like that was how I felt and processed it.
[SPEAKER_01]: But even that is interesting, like the way everybody processes the first time they experience one of these cases, like I've heard people that say, oh, well, this is the one time that will happen, I can't believe that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And there's other people that go like, oh, now all bets are off or other people go like, you know, whatever, however you process it is very
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think like how I felt at the time the dark scops scandal was this is the danger that I've been hearing about my whole life.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've been hearing about this horrible danger that is in other churches and other places and out in the middle.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, this secular world, the Catholics did it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But this is the danger, the big danger that I've been warned about.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I never thought that danger would be here.
[SPEAKER_00]: And now that danger is here, but this is the only time that this extremely rare thing is ever going to happen.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I've had the experience of like, you know, I spoke about this last week when we were talking about this topic and this was sort of one of the things that had us decide that we wanted to talk about this topic was like when I was in college, you know, there would be a, you meet a person you'd make friends with a person and then you would find out that they sexually assaulted someone because that's a thing that happens on, you know, in colleges and then you're like, oh damn, that's crazy.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I'm not going to hang out with a student anymore.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, and that would kind of be the response to it.
[SPEAKER_02]: There was a teacher at my school who taught health class and P.E.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think I've told this story before.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you told this like really early on the show.
[SPEAKER_02]: But there was this, I went to Grand High School in Portland, Oregon.
[SPEAKER_02]: There was this teacher that went, that was the teacher at my high school.
[SPEAKER_02]: He was the health class and the health teacher and the PE teacher.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it was like a running joke for everybody who went to the school that he was a creep and he was like a peto.
[SPEAKER_02]: like that it was like a running, this was in like two thousand seven two thousand eight two thousand nine two thousand ten two thousand eleven that era and then he ended up going to a different district where he was teaching middle school and for some reason he ended up getting you know sending I think provocative text messages to us one of the middle school students or something like that and ended up going to jail or something I can't remember exactly what the
[SPEAKER_02]: what the details of that were.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I remember one of my friends telling me about this, who was somebody who I went to high school, and he was like, oh, you hear about Mr. Scott.
[SPEAKER_02]: He got in trouble for, you know, being a pattern.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, really, it took this long.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it was like almost like a joke to us because we're just like, yeah, we all knew.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's kind of like a like, I mean, I don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that's like one kind of grief because you can recognize that like all the kids knew and why didn't the adults listen or protect you.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right and I'm and granted this is a public school but this is like a nice public school or relatively nice public school.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know that there's rules about you know whether you can and can't hire or fire someone but this dude was just like known to be a weirdo.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I, but like we all kind of, I don't know, I'm trying to wonder how it would be if there was somebody who was like a teacher who I really liked and really respected and then it turned out to be.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, yes, imagine how that would be, but also if I can take your mind to step further, imagine if it happened to two or three of the teachers that you really liked.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it happened frequently enough throughout your whole life that there was a point where all teachers just felt suspect.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it just felt like a doom or an eventuality,
[SPEAKER_00]: that most teachers you had in high school are eventually going to get busted for this and go to prison.
[SPEAKER_00]: That would be just like, it's psychological warfare and that's like what do you instructors are going through right now, I think.
[SPEAKER_02]: The way that we kind of reacted to it at the time when we found this out was like kind of a little bit callous because we were children.
[SPEAKER_00]: We were immature.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, you know, we were, I mean, I was probably like maybe twenty twenty one or something when I actually found out about this and you know, much less mature than I am now and now if I find find out about something like holy crap that's like disturbing.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's like really disturbing, but you know, when you're, you know, when you don't have that level of maturity, you treated as a joke, but also it is a joke and then I'm like, what took them so long?
[SPEAKER_00]: I think what, like what I'm starting to feel like as
[SPEAKER_00]: As these times go on, like the particular scandal that really rocked me, and I'm choosing not to say which one it was, Eric does know who this was, because it was actually through Eric that I'd found out about this particular one.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm choosing not to name this particular scandal out of respect for families involved, who are not guilty in this.
[SPEAKER_00]: I saw this thing that had happened.
[SPEAKER_00]: I saw this person that had been caught in accused of doing something absolutely horrible.
[SPEAKER_00]: And all I could think was, well, it happened again.
[SPEAKER_00]: And like that feeling so jaded and feeling so numb to it.
[SPEAKER_00]: was kind of what precipitated me having a really tough time emotionally.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was like, this should not be normal.
[SPEAKER_00]: This should not just be like, oh yeah, it's another one of my friends, dads.
[SPEAKER_00]: It just shouldn't be that way.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is a horrifying way to live.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think it really does a number on your trust as a person.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because it feels like you're standing on unstable ground.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like this could be anybody at any time.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, it's the expectation.
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel like there's two things.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's no surprise anymore, like for me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Especially doing the show.
[SPEAKER_01]: I literally will stop writing my updates for the week.
[SPEAKER_01]: because now I'm like recapping like certain headlines and like literally the last few times I've done it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I click end and save and then I open up Facebook or I go to my search engine and there's another story and it's like okay well I guess I'll go add that in.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's happened twice in the last like two weeks.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know and then I have people sending me stuff that doesn't get picked up or like here's a police report and like here's all this information and I think like for me
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm never surprised because I know what's going to keep happening, but I also feel like the weight of, like, I just feel like it's stacking.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, and that's the best way to explain is like, I feel like I still feel the blow of it where it's like, I'm taking a short story and a little bit about it, but it's like,
[SPEAKER_01]: it just feels like another one and it's like the weight of it keeps growing and it doesn't feel like it it doesn't feel like surprising but it doesn't feel old hat like it just feels like this sucks and it keeps getting the picture of how big and bad it is keeps growing and I think for me that's like that's the tough part to grapple with is like oh god another one another one added to the list to where now
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it bothers me that people will mention somebody that I've covered on the show and I'm like, oh, I don't remember that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I've covered so many stories where it's like, oh, yeah, I don't remember that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then they tell me details, I go, I still don't remember that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And like, oh, it's episode twenty four and it's like, I totally forgot that I talked about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think there's just so many just like this story.
[SPEAKER_01]: I got to even know what to do with that information.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was just looking and like, as I remembered, as we were talking about, and then I wrote, um, I just kind of had like a journal entry on my phone about I'm going to read all of it, but I want to read a couple paragraphs from this, um, and my, the title on this is it happened again.
[SPEAKER_00]: Someone has been in pain for fifteen years, for half of her life, over and over and over again, they are exposed, they deny or fight or die.
[SPEAKER_00]: or rarest of all, they go to prison.
[SPEAKER_00]: Those who survive come back like weeds, always reappearing, spying me in tough and deep, deep rooted.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're welcomed back and if not, they grow back anyway.
[SPEAKER_00]: They die or they come back, one or the other, what never changes as the wound that they leave behind and all those who feel the pain, all we can say is it happened again?
[SPEAKER_00]: Mm-hmm.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was kind of just me venting, like, fuck.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, it's like, I mean, it's like, it happened again.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, when we find out about this stuff, it's usually because we get an email blast from Eric.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're going to be that.
[SPEAKER_00]: It could be opposed to our Facebook group.
[SPEAKER_00]: It could be on the rare occasion that either one of us opens Twitter.
[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, it's just, it's never ending.
[SPEAKER_00]: And like, there's a, there's a rage and there's a grief.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm, I'm interested in,
[SPEAKER_00]: Like how do people out in the secular world do people who have never been touched by this particular type of religious abuse have that foreboding sense of it is going to happen again.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't I don't think I think
[SPEAKER_00]: when people who have not experienced what we've experienced with religious abuse and deconstruction, if they find out that they're from their high school classmate, their next or neighbor, has committed a crime of this type, it's shocking and then that maybe the only time it ever happens to them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Or if it happened to them twice in a lifetime, it would be like, oh, that's weird.
[SPEAKER_00]: My neighbor just got busted for this crime, that's such a weird callback because my kindergarten teacher also got busted for the same crime, isn't that weird that it happened twice?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, that's the perception that I get, I don't know how accurate that is, or if that's just my own, like, my own trauma, my own fear talking, but that's what I feel like it's like for people who are in that outside world.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, well, I also think that that's got something to do with, I mean, I don't want to act like the accountability is fantastic in the outside world for crimes of this nature.
[SPEAKER_02]: But it is without a doubt quite a bit better than it would be within the IFB movement or within any very conservative strict religious movement with like purity culture and with
[SPEAKER_02]: that where people are trusted without question as long as they say the right words.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think that if you're like a thought that I had was that the bad people are always going to figure out the right thing to say.
[SPEAKER_02]: And if not all the bad people, but enough of them are going to figure out what right words they can say in order to get you to trust them enough to give you what they want.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the more of a culture that there is of, well, this person says the thing that we want him to say, therefore, this is somebody that we can trust exists somewhere, then the more access and the less accountability, like Sadie was saying the other week with her access and accountability,
[SPEAKER_02]: discussion when we were talking about the two by two's.
[SPEAKER_02]: So if I was somebody who had those proclivities, then I would be drawn to a movement like the IFB because that would be somewhere that I could hide out and somewhere that I could, like I would seek that out, I think.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because there's all of these stories that come out about somebody getting caught after years and years and years and years of abuse.
[SPEAKER_00]: but that it won't come out until like twenty years after and if I was an abuser I would say well I'm gonna go there because they won't find me out for twenty years and if they find me out then like I will not say that the IFB attracts people who are predators and are aware that they are predators and purposely research a group to join and then they can be predators with impunity
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think that's quite right.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think what happens is people who are predators, people who are cruel, people who are power hungry, seek out any kind of movement or space that will give them the freedom to behave the way that they want, and the lack of accountability to behave the way that they want.
[SPEAKER_00]: So when those people encounter the IFB, it tends to stick to them.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's in my opinion, it's just negating its own tail thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: IFB creates predators, the IFB attracts predators, and then it creates more predators, and attracts more predators.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and I think certain ministries attract.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a reason you see the IFB churches that have never had an issue where they, and this is the ones where you do have the past, that's like a lot more
[SPEAKER_01]: on top of these things are more aggressively preaches about these things, which is a very small net within that world.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I mean, the bar is low, like someone that just has called the police in the past.
[SPEAKER_01]: But then you have ministries that you see this happen over and over again, like a faith Baptist to Wildemar, or to use an example, you have the church that I grew up in, where
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, you had, because it's a perfect, I was going to wait for the story, but this is good at time as any, but like this is a perfect example of a predator seeing an opportunity to like, go, okay, they do not take this that seriously.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he has a blueprint of how they've handled them the past.
[SPEAKER_01]: That ministry layer that moved to our church and started going there.
[SPEAKER_01]: I spoke out about I started speaking out about it in like tenth grade going to eleven grade spent my last two years of high school talking about it lost pretty much all of my close relationships because of that left kept talking about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: He remained at the school and at the church he was there for well over a decade or just about a decade up until I was starting the podcast and I think for the first two years of doing the podcast was still there leading music and that stuff which is a whole lot of
[SPEAKER_01]: mental horrible stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I consistently said over and over and over and over again.
[SPEAKER_01]: The fact that you guys are letting them on a platform that you're not taking this seriously like you're going to have somebody who's thinking about doing something that knows you guys don't take it seriously and they're going to prey on that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And what do you know?
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think it was twenty twenty three.
[SPEAKER_01]: The staff member at the school prayed on a teenage girl in the in the school and got busted and you know, it was one of those things where
[SPEAKER_01]: When I found out about it, it was this feeling of like, I knew this was going to happen.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've been saying this for like ten years and nobody listened, but they had established himself as a ministry that doesn't take these things seriously.
[SPEAKER_01]: and they had opened the door for not just for this person to see like some weaknesses, but the person who literally, this is how twisted that whole world is.
[SPEAKER_01]: So this original youth pastor that had come to our church who was a predator had been at the church long enough, he had built trust with different people in the congregation.
[SPEAKER_01]: And his victim was a teenage girl who was a babysitter for their family.
[SPEAKER_01]: and he had been there so long had become so trust in the church that there were families whose daughters were getting close to babysitting for him and his family that had no clue what he had done because nobody had been talking about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And had gotten to the point where someone that I know very closely had called me out on one of my posts and we started going back and forth.
[SPEAKER_01]: Someone who I was in there wedding to be very clear when I was younger.
[SPEAKER_01]: And she told me that she had allowed him to babysit her kids.
[SPEAKER_01]: So like the level of delusion and the level of protection and affinity for these guys does not make sense to me, because I look back and go, I have no relationship with any of you now, although I tried four years.
[SPEAKER_01]: But this guy's been there so long, it's got no point where he has access to pretty much anything he wants.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I think you just see systems really built around catering to these individuals.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's really hard to grapple.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the stuff for me that this whole conversation, and even today, I think, I just feel the sickness on my stomach of like,
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't even know how to make sense of the mentality of that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, of like, how do people keep letting the environment be ripe for this to happen?
[SPEAKER_01]: But anyway, that's too much of a long rant.
[SPEAKER_00]: But like, this is the feeling's podcast, Eric.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know it's so weird because I and this is why I always feel so weird when we record because I'm always like I hope this isn't rambly or weird or this and I'm always in like the reporting mode of like this happened and then this happened and this happened and there's the episode and then like
[SPEAKER_01]: But when people really start asking about it, I'm just like, I literally am five years in and want to just fucking puke.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just want to, I just literally want to fucking puke because it truly
[SPEAKER_01]: I think doing the show, and sorry, I'll stop ranting.
[SPEAKER_01]: I swear to God, but like I think doing that's what I'm feeling right now because this is making me feel a certain type of way.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think with my show, it has been such a great machine for me to be able to
[SPEAKER_01]: Talk through these topics, address them in a way that is contained, that allows me to have a life that exists outside of the IFB.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it allows me to process these stories in a, as much as possible, yes, an opinion commentary side, but also on a journalistic way, where like, here's the facts.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is crystal clear.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you're going to be smart and take this information to the right thing, please do it.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you're not, this is not for you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, that's been the approach.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think what I struggle with having conversations like this is like, as much as I can say, like, here's what you should do.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's how to make your ministry safer.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's like the house.
[SPEAKER_01]: And here's the way to get your, you know, background checks done.
[SPEAKER_01]: And here's what to look out for.
[SPEAKER_01]: And here's ten red flags for this.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like at the end of the day.
[SPEAKER_01]: the question that I've come to know close to answering, and that bothers me right now, as we're talking through it, is like, all these people have access to this information, and they still, even though they know about recidivism rates, even though they know about how weak their productions are, even though these people know people in their immediate circle, including family that have been fucking raped by these guys, they will not sit there and go, let's change something.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's literally just
[SPEAKER_01]: okay and forgive and okay and Eric is bitter because he does a podcast about this topic where I quite literally could say a lot more about how I feel but I just go here's the headline like here's just the raw information of what happened and somehow like that is more of a sin or violation then these dudes literally raping kids in their own churches that's the stuff that doesn't make sense to me and it's why it's why I do
[SPEAKER_01]: tend to stir away from getting into like the like more of the emotion on some of the stuff because it's just that's the part that doesn't make sense is like you mentioned you have friends where it's like another friend of mine's dad did this and it's like what is it am I the only one this is landing this way for like why's it not landing this way for the the pastors that invite this guy to their conferences
[SPEAKER_00]: Right, and from my perspective, talking about my friend's father, or my friend's relatives, my friend's pastors, it doesn't nobody care about.
[SPEAKER_00]: twenty-five to thirty-five-year-old women in the church who are being like repeatedly heart repeatedly guts pulled out pain.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just remembering the pain that I felt when when the jock's situation happened.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was not as victim.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was fortunate to have a layer of insulation and protection from him as a predator.
[SPEAKER_00]: And still that hurt when he went down that broke my heart.
[SPEAKER_01]: No.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm thinking of other women in the IFB who maybe still there or maybe still IFB adjacent who are feeling that pain recurring over and over and over again.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now I'm like, I'm on the outside and it still hurts me and it still fucks me up sometimes.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I also have all these resources for healing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've all this opportunity that women who are still in the church don't have.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it feels so cruel to watch these people just in the secular kind of social justice language be retraumatized, but over and over and over and over and over.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it was just so cruel.
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it the biggest pain for you?
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it the facade shattering of like this was my place of that I called home for so long?
[SPEAKER_01]: Or is it like you mentioned the demographics that you're talking about the women who are so vulnerable?
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it that feeling of like, okay, this happened to someone not to me, but it it shows me how all these people in my life would respond if it were like, is that more of the, the pain?
[SPEAKER_01]: I think like the source.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think for me, it is for like specifically, that's a word I can't say.
[SPEAKER_00]: Specifically speaking about the Jack Stop scandal, it was I did not know the person who was his victim.
[SPEAKER_00]: I did know a lot of people who knew her through because I was at the college at the time.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I was seeing all these ripples of pain like
[SPEAKER_00]: You destroyed her life temporarily.
[SPEAKER_00]: That person is going to be in therapy forever because of you.
[SPEAKER_00]: You hurt her in a way that is that only a few people have the capability to hurt another person.
[SPEAKER_00]: Fuck you for that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm seeing the ripple effect of her family.
[SPEAKER_00]: And knowing, even being really sheltered from the situation because of being a house Anderson student, knowing when her family walked into the church because everybody went, hearing the sound of what it sounded like when they came back to the church once after that happened, feeling their pain.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then feeling the pain of all of my college friends who knew this girl and were
[SPEAKER_00]: up where we're heartbroken on her behalf.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then feeling all the pain of the Hammond Baptist students who had grown up with jock scop is their pastor and the outrage and the pain and the how could you do this to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then seeing the pain in my own personal life as a child's Anderson college student and how completely affected every aspect of my life that entire year that I was on high was Anderson.
[SPEAKER_00]: Seeing my professors cry, seeing people in the church cry, seeing other students cry, seeing like my boyfriend at the time, who I call Noah on the podcast, seeing him cry over, hearing him cry over it, and seeing him be heartbroken.
[SPEAKER_00]: and then the further ripple of seeing my family get hurt, my parents, my brothers, the people in my church be heartbroken over what Jack Scott did his crime.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's how dare you hurt her that girl at the center of it for one, how dare you and how dare you hurt her family and how dare you hurt my professors and how dare you hurt all my classmates and how dare you hurt my friends and how dare you hurt me and how dare you hurt my family.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's you
[SPEAKER_00]: You, it's how dare you do a thing that has such gross repercussions.
[SPEAKER_00]: Bad enough to do that to one person whose life you absolutely change forever.
[SPEAKER_00]: No.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that in addition to that, which is already a crime, which is already where it's going to present for, which is already a stain on your name until the day you die and hopefully many years after.
[SPEAKER_00]: In addition, that horrible crime wasn't enough.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you also caused all of this damage to everyone I know.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's like, that was the pain that was hitting me when the more recent scandal that I've been alluding to happened.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like that was what got me because it was seeing those ripples again and knowing that
[SPEAKER_00]: This person's family members are like knowing the family, knowing that his family is suffering, knowing there are a couple very close direct relatives around my age who I am acquainted with have been friends with for years and seeing
[SPEAKER_00]: them suffer, see like knowing how they are suffering, knowing how their best friends who are supporting them through this are suffering, knowing how their husbands and children are suffering as they are grieving this loss in their family, knowing that there are at least three churches that were seriously affected by this particular minister.
[SPEAKER_00]: that everybody in the church is suffering, seeing people that I know from one of those churches, post about him and I just don't understand how this could happen.
[SPEAKER_00]: And just seeing that ripple effect spread again, I think is what makes me so angry.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, we are back from our break.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're talking to Eric Schwarzinski about
[SPEAKER_02]: just the weirdness, the grief, the anger that you feel when you find out that somebody that you know or that somebody that you know is an abuser.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, Eric, you like, I don't know how many months ago or whether it was like a year ago or something, you didn't have a server, you had Chris Hansen from Dayline.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it struck me that
[SPEAKER_02]: What earlier when you were talking about people calling you bitter for even just like posting these headlines and for, you know, setting out a newsletter or recapping this for your podcast.
[SPEAKER_02]: But then you have somebody like Chris Hanson who has to catch a predator and he goes and he catches these people and everyone says is a hero.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, if any of those people who showed up to a house to try to be to thirteen year old or something had this kind of, I don't know, army defending them or people coming out and attacking, like it seems just that would be really weird.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: If this happened in the real world, that would be really weird.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think I think putting in that context, like if you look at like, you know, some of the bus he's done, if like, there was that outcry of like, oh, but he was such a great teacher, you know, like, and that does happen.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, there's certainly public school teachers who are venerated or coaches where people turn a blind eye or rally behind them, you know, is like, it's a false accusation or something.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, again, it's like one of those things like the more I think about the crazier I feel where it's like I don't understand like I like if I'm posting a mugshot with like here's the thing that they're dealing with here's the thing that they are charged with like That is nothing to do with me like like that's literally
[SPEAKER_01]: They committed this crime and did this.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I would say the same thing like, you know, I had some people that were upset when the David Baker story happened where it was like,
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, he committed suicide and you're being insensitive to this.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, it's like, this is what he did.
[SPEAKER_01]: These are the charges he had.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is what he was, and this is how we chose to handle it.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is how he actually relations like the result is that he diaper.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is a side.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's a tragic thing that it happened and that is the news that is what happened.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and this is also a guy who spent the latter half of his career trying to rehab the image of Dave Hiles.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: So so like for that as an example, it's just it's.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is the story like and that is what he chose to do and and so like I'm going to cover that and and I think that's that's what's really interesting to me is like I don't think I'm.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't it's hard to gauge when you're in it because I'm sure people are going to disagree.
[SPEAKER_01]: I already know people are going to be angry in my comments about a lot of things, but specifically for my stuff is like, I don't feel like I'm particularly
[SPEAKER_01]: publicly super opinionated on many things.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I think most of my coverage is pretty neutral.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's either from a survivor's POV, which I don't need to add much to, because it's their POV, whether they feel pissed or happy or restored or they feel like it's hard to go one more day.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I wanna know what they feel.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if I'm covering a story, like there's not much to do.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, with the reasons for I had just covered today about Bob Jones University.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like,
[SPEAKER_01]: my only opinion is I would hope that a college would care about this and they clearly don't you know and it's like that's my opinion like I don't know how much more to add to this like because there's not
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, it's just so clear.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, the wrongdoing is so clear that like, I don't need to get up in grandstand for forty five minutes on each episode to go like, this is why this camp director should not have molested a camper.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, it's like, right, it's pretty obvious.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not a political disagreement.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, if you don't agree with this and you need some persuasion, like, maybe find a different show.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I'm sure there's a great podcast on first Baptist Church of Hammond's network.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, if that you can take a listen to,
[SPEAKER_01]: All in great ministries, baby.
[SPEAKER_01]: Followed by this ministry's baby all the way.
[SPEAKER_00]: Isn't it literally Galatians six nine ministries now?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a literally classy and not self.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he's if fundraising for me to keep his lights on literally right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, but but did he not change the name to Galatians six nine?
[SPEAKER_02]: I thought it was six one.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, is it six one?
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what I thought it was.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, why is nobody covering this?
[SPEAKER_00]: So that explains why nobody's covering this.
[SPEAKER_00]: He used cursive and this one looks like a nine to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is, that is leaving like one of the things I wanted to talk about before we maybe ended on a little more of a positive like healing and happiness note.
[SPEAKER_00]: Another thing that I'm starting to, I started to experience a few years ago, about three years ago, is that it's not always my friend's dad's anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now I'm starting to see stories specifically out of the highest interest in college circles about people I went to school with.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's, yeah, it's happened a couple times.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's one of the Eric's cover, Eric, you've covered Jordan Webb where, like, publicly, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm pretty sure I went to school with them.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if not, I have a lot of mutuals.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there have been quite a few.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was a couple, and I cannot remember their names.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was a couple out of Hiles Anderson.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe in the last year, they're whole thing with a fundraised for a van, like a van to travel with their family on deputation to be missionaries.
[SPEAKER_00]: I went to Highlands Anderson with those two, and then there have been quite a few that were a little less publicized out of the Highlands Anderson world, where I was pretty deeply connected.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's also a, there was a pastor
[SPEAKER_00]: There was some guy who is still speaking at Hiles Anderson Chapel.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, we've both, I think we both covered this earlier, at least you have.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a guy who is still speaking at Hiles Anderson Chapel that has serious, serious allegations out against him.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that is the the dab of one of my close friends from college.
[SPEAKER_00]: So like, I feel like it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It keeps on touching people who are close to me and the seeing all that pain gives me a lot of anger.
[SPEAKER_00]: But also now it's sometimes it's people in my generation.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a guy from the church that I grew up in, the literal church that I grew up in, kid I spent every day in my life with who's in prison now for similar crimes.
[SPEAKER_00]: And like as it gets into my generation, it just feels like all these emotions are even more intense.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just so crazy to me that you're, you know, I remember one of the other times we had Eric on this show.
[SPEAKER_02]: He, it was right after, like, let us break him out and then we were talking about how they did the probe test at first Baptist.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then he went and you went and you talked to Wilkerson.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Wilkerson's like, that's all behind us.
[SPEAKER_02]: But now he's like, okay, the heat style down, we can bring the pedos back.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, they've never left.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it's literally, I mean, I posted two or in, but were they on the stage, you know, in the same dreamer, Treber, one of the main things that I talked to Wilkesson about in our conversation was like, Treber is literally in a lawsuit right now because his brother-in-law, who was his youth pastor, or who was the youth pastor working for Treber for many years, raped and impregnated a teenage girl at the school and had another victim as well, who I had on my show.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he was scheduled at that time to come speak at a conference for Wilkerson.
[SPEAKER_01]: Wilkerson played that he didn't know anything about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: He needed to look into it and was the only time he got a little snarky was like, I'm sure you know lots more than I do about some of the stuff going on because you're looking into it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then a couple months later, Treber was on the platform, a first batch search of Hammond.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the predator that I mentioned from my childhood church, his dad, who
[SPEAKER_01]: allegedly covered up for it.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I'll throw that in there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, you know, he was the featured speaker at their youth conference just two days ago.
[SPEAKER_01]: So like, yeah, it just a while if you're still running youth conference on nothing changes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, anyway, segue to the happy positive advice.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, so that's the thing, like, nothing changes.
[SPEAKER_00]: I haven't our like, in our little like, um,
[SPEAKER_00]: in our little Google Doc that we've been working off of.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have what has helped you cope with this.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it appears that Eric has written in all caps.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nothing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I live in a world of pain.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm it's half true.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it is half true.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's kind of what I wanted to get to because I think one reason I wanted to talk about this super publicly on the podcast is I think this is something a lot of people are experiencing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I really do.
[SPEAKER_00]: I happen to be at work at my day job when the particular scandal that really really got to me broke and was just kind of sitting at my desk staring at a wall of just like I can't.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it felt like a really isolating experience because the people that I work with have their own stories, their own trauma.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, did not come from where I come from and it felt so isolating and so embarrassing to try to explain.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I'm sitting here crying because some guy that I used to know who's related to a bunch of friends of mine committed a crime and now he's gotten caught and this is what's happened and
[SPEAKER_00]: everybody that all these people that I care about are super sad, but I don't really talk to all these people that I care about anymore, because I left the church.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's overwhelming.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's embarrassing.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's either, it puts you in a position where either you have to be cagey and say, yeah, I just have some personal stuff going on.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want to talk about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then
[SPEAKER_00]: Or you have to spell this weird twisted story.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, if you pull them in on the lower behind it and the right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's how I grew up just to make for context and yeah, it's a lot.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's difficult and it's also difficult like survivors and deconstructors deserve to have emotional support from people around them.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is possible to go ahead and tell the story and explain what's happened and ask for emotional support.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is possible to do that in an appropriate way that's not just trauma dumping.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a skill that it's kind of hard to learn, but it is possible.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we deserve support just like if a similar tragedy happened to another one of our co-workers that came into our day job.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the co-worker came in crying, they deserve support.
[SPEAKER_00]: They deserve to tell us about a crime or something difficult that happened in their life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Without trauma dumping without unnecessarily details, without unnecessarily triggering people and receives support.
[SPEAKER_00]: Indeed, instructors deserve that same support when something fucked up happens in our personal life that we carry with us as a grief into our work life, into our friendships, into our communities, into our hobby groups, and whatever group is important to us.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's maybe another part of like the deep, the deep rooted anger for me because these criminals, these pedophiles, these rapists, they take so much, they take and take and take and take, they take someone's
[SPEAKER_00]: sense of innocence.
[SPEAKER_00]: They take someone's sense of safety.
[SPEAKER_00]: They take someone's ability to live the rest of their life without a traumatic memory.
[SPEAKER_00]: They take someone's.
[SPEAKER_00]: They may take that person's relationship with their family.
[SPEAKER_00]: That person's relationship with their church.
[SPEAKER_00]: That person's choice of whether to become pregnant or not.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe take in away from them.
[SPEAKER_00]: They take and take and take and take and take from the victim.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then they continue to take from the family.
[SPEAKER_00]: The family loses their church or the family loses their pastor.
[SPEAKER_00]: or the family loses all their friends.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the church loses.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the people around the church lose.
[SPEAKER_00]: And all of that that they've taken and the black hole of this taking is still enough to take away me having a good day for the first hour that I'm at work.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's fucked up, man.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that
[SPEAKER_00]: The reason I wanted to talk about it is because I think this is something a lot of us are experiencing right now as we are in this continued explosion of church too.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think it's just people like me and Eric who are deconstructors who are talking about this constantly that are experiencing this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like the reason I really, really wanted to have you on to talk about this is because my gut feeling is that there are hundreds, if not thousands of other people out there who are experiencing this thing and don't know how to put it into words or feel like they might be the only one.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they're listening going, hey Eric, does it not put in the words either?
[SPEAKER_01]: Great.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I have to I said half joking like when I write nothing, you know, there's no way to cope with it.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a world of pain.
[SPEAKER_01]: But the reality is like, I think this is something we're grappling with as a society at large.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like we were never meant to know as much as we know.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think information overload is a big thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, we're not supposed to have this much ram in our brains.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, and it's great.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like on the one hand, I wish that preacher boys existed when I was a teenager and I could have looked up these things and put pieces together quicker.
[SPEAKER_01]: I wish that leaving you didn't exist when I was a teenager.
[SPEAKER_01]: I wish that like the only resources for like fundamental forums and stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he's like, which were also helpful, but I wish there would have been more resources on glad they're there.
[SPEAKER_01]: but it's also one of those things like where we see everything and there is nothing that we don't know about and especially for you guys and myself like we're looking at these stories and putting together episodes on them so we're like deep down the rabbit holes and so like for me
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, someone asked me on a podcast recently like how do you healthfully do this like how do you I was like I don't think you can I think it's like yes, it's healing but also like There's parts of me that are just fucked up now that are just going to be that way as long as I do the show and I know like my friend who's a trauma therapist is gonna listen and go no don't say that But it is true.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think I'm just except for those friends
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, but I just accepted that's part of it, and this is not natural, so I'm not going to have any kind of natural reaction to it.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a mix.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not going to stop doing it, but also the side effect of doing the show is that
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel a lot more cynical now than I did five years ago.
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel a lot more jaded than I felt a lot, you know, five years ago.
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel a lot less trusting.
[SPEAKER_01]: The only thing that's really changed is I trust my gut a lot more.
[SPEAKER_01]: But the motion I don't know how to deal with that was like.
[SPEAKER_01]: is like, when my gut is proven right, like, what am I supposed to feel aside from just going, well, fuck, I knew it.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was just a matter of time.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, and that's why the one, the one coping piece that has helped me is just, I try to reframe whenever I find something out, especially when it hits close to home is, I'm glad it came out now and didn't wait another three decades to come out.
[SPEAKER_01]: you know like I'd rather just no sooner rather than later I'd rather rip the band aid the relationship with this person that is now ruined because they are going to reveal that they feel this way are they're going to do these things like I'd rather know now than when I'm sixty and I built a deeper relationship but again it's like
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a slightly better version of a really shitty situation.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, that's, again, I know we're pushing toward optimism, but like, you don't have, you don't have to.
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't, like, you don't owe anybody optimism because we're not fundies anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you don't have to jail why?
[SPEAKER_01]: I, I think, if I can't say it in a, in a way, because it, it does help me truly on some level is,
[SPEAKER_01]: It is the sooner that you can recognize like like and for me it's a lot of people where when I've talked about these issues they've decided to stop having a relationship with me because I won't stop talking about some of these things like
[SPEAKER_01]: My only sense of comfort is knowing that the relationship was real to me, not to them, and it's better for me to know that it wasn't.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I can focus on building meaningful relationships with people rooted in reality.
[SPEAKER_01]: for me that's been helpful.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's actually like an incredible perspective.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, that's an incredible lead-in into the thing that makes that like I find helpful.
[SPEAKER_00]: The thing that helps me I think the most is remembering that I have agency and in all of this I have agency.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was talking a minute ago about where this anger is coming from, for me, is like, I feel like these people who are predators, these people who abuse take so much.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're just a black hole of taking and stealing from.
[SPEAKER_00]: They've stolen this person's life temporarily and hopefully not permanently.
[SPEAKER_00]: They've stolen this family's happiness.
[SPEAKER_00]: They've stolen from this church.
[SPEAKER_00]: They've stolen from me and my family.
[SPEAKER_00]: They've stolen, they've taken.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what has helped me is it is refocusing on my agency because I have to accept that this person who's a predator has the capability to hurt hundreds and thousands of people.
[SPEAKER_00]: with their crimes, with their actions.
[SPEAKER_00]: This person does have it feels so unfair that they have the ability to hurt others like that and that and insult to injuries injury.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm one of the people that they can hurt with that.
[SPEAKER_00]: That sucks.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm able to accept it when I can remember that
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, they have the ability to hurt me and other people like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But there are so many other places where I have agency.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can, you were talking about choosing to do the podcast and you feel like something's going to be broken as long as you choose to do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's fucking relatable.
[SPEAKER_00]: But you do, you do choose to do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you're in charge of your own destiny.
[SPEAKER_00]: You've built something incredible for yourself, if I may say so.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that that still can be framed as a choice that you're making.
[SPEAKER_00]: It can be framed as
[SPEAKER_00]: I choose how I engage with these things.
[SPEAKER_00]: I choose how I think.
[SPEAKER_00]: No one is telling me what to think anymore or how to perceive these things.
[SPEAKER_00]: I choose how I engage in self-care.
[SPEAKER_00]: I choose who does get to be a close part of my life and who does get to be part of the healing process.
[SPEAKER_00]: I choose how I heal and I choose to heal by doing the things that I need to do to heal.
[SPEAKER_00]: like going to therapy and stay in the hell on a Baptist Churches.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I think reframing on my own choices in this situation, help me feel able to accept the fallout of other people's choices.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that to me is the ultimate anti-fundamentalism because all of us were so robbed of our agency, our choice, our brains, our desires, all of that with in fundamentalism.
[SPEAKER_00]: And to me, that's the thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's I can accept that I don't choose this thing happening to me because I can accept that I choose so much of how I respond to it and how I'm going to get through it and what I'm going to get what I'm going to do next.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what helps.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's trying to find the healing side, you know.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, again, like doing the show, it's like, it's, there are certain things that it does.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, we're mentioning, I don't remember for his dinner break or during that episode, but it's like, there's cases that we know more about behind the scenes or like you're reading the police.
[SPEAKER_01]: But, you know, I've read seventy eight pages lawsuits where like I keep certain pieces information out because it's just not necessary to include, but it's like, it doesn't leave, you know, but on the flip side too,
[SPEAKER_01]: I've built most of my friendships now, come from the show, you know, like I happen to be sitting on a podcast with two people that I would not have met if I didn't do a podcast, you know, so it's like, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: There are a lot of really good beneficial things, but it is, there is something nice about it being your choice and not being either a direct result of someone telling you what to do and also as a result of you just being reactive and saying like, I'll do this because I really piss them off and it's like, it's just your life and it gets to be your life and like trying to figure out how to take as much that control as possible is so great.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and I think the nice thing about being funny is that you don't have to go to that toxic positivity of, oh, it's all okay because the real fundamentalism was the friends we made along the way.
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't have to lean into that toxic positivity.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can really find that appropriate middle ground of
[SPEAKER_00]: Wow, I'm so glad you're in my life now.
[SPEAKER_00]: Wow, I'm so glad that the people that doing this has given me are one of the greatest gifts of my life.
[SPEAKER_00]: The community that I found here is one of the greatest gifts of my life.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm so thankful.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's still absolutely true that I should never have gone through any of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: The rest of y'all should never have gone through any of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And learning to hold both of those things, I think, is a
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I would have liked to have that personal growth an easier way.
[SPEAKER_00]: Perhaps.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I'm still thankful for it.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, absolutely.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think that's about it.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's about what we've got to talk about today.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I want to thank Eric for coming on the show.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was fantastic to have you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks, Eric.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're doing X on the therapy with us again today.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks so much.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hopefully, if any of that made sense, drop a comment.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let me know.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'd love to know that something landed.
[SPEAKER_01]: That would be great.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am putting, I'm putting a lot of emotional energy and and like belief into the idea that a bunch of people are also experiencing this thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: If it's just the two of us, that's going to be really embarrassing.
[SPEAKER_02]: The comment section on this one is going to go crazy people are going to say, dude, you have to go.