[SPEAKER_00]: Therapy Chat Podcasts Episode 498 This is the Therapy Chat Podcast with Laura Regan, LCSWC.
[SPEAKER_00]: The information shared in this podcast is not a substitute for seeking help from a licensed mental health professional.
[SPEAKER_00]: And now, here's your host, Laura Regan, LCSWC.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hi, welcome back to Therapy Chat.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm your host Laura Reagan and this week, my guest is a leader in the DC area in counseling who is speaking about religious trauma today.
[SPEAKER_01]: My guest is a senior.
[SPEAKER_01]: We had an amazing conversation and
[SPEAKER_01]: it was fascinating the parallels between how religious trauma as SE explained it develops and how our cultures die along about what's okay and what's not parallel each other.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was struck by it was impossible to ignore that.
[SPEAKER_01]: So
[SPEAKER_01]: This is a very thought-provoking article, and whether you are someone who's experience religious trauma, whether you are someone who's trying to understand religious trauma or a therapist who may have clients on your case load who have experienced religious trauma, and it's one of those things that's kind of insidious, and I think that more of our clients and ourselves may have experienced it
[SPEAKER_01]: this conversation, whichever of those groups you fall into, maybe very eye-opening for you like it was for me.
[SPEAKER_01]: So let's dive right into my conversation with Essineeli.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hi, welcome back to Therapy Chat.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm your host Laura Reagan and today I'm so happy to be here with Essineeli.
[SPEAKER_01]: And see, thank you so much for coming back to Therapy Chat today.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you for having me again.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're welcome.
[SPEAKER_01]: And everyone's what I remember I see nearly being on therapy chat.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's because we had a glitch in the recording.
[SPEAKER_01]: And
[SPEAKER_01]: We had to scrap it and couldn't use it so we're starting over and I'm really grateful to you for sharing your time with me that day and for coming back again because we've got an important topic to talk about something that a lot of people deal with and don't always recognize in themselves which is religious trauma so before we get into talking about it though let's start off by you just letting everybody know a little bit more about who you are and what you do please.
[SPEAKER_03]: Sure, yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I'm S.C.
[SPEAKER_03]: Naley.
[SPEAKER_03]: They she pronouns.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I am the clinical director and owner of LGBT plus counseling collaborative in the DMV area.
[SPEAKER_03]: My practice that I own is all trans and gay identifying therapists.
[SPEAKER_03]: And we work on bringing both lived experience with clinical experience to the therapy space for clients who identify somewhere on the LGBT plus spectrum or their family
[SPEAKER_03]: I also specialize a lot in religious trauma work, both within the queer community and without.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I have a book coming out on religious trauma next year, spring 2026 with Bloom's fairy publishing and some just really excited to be talking more about that topic with people this year.
[SPEAKER_01]: Wonderful.
[SPEAKER_01]: Congratulations on your upcoming book.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm really excited for you.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm really excited to.
[SPEAKER_03]: This is actually took me three years of pitching it to publishers and a lot of rejections where publishers were telling me where was just trauma isn't a thing.
[SPEAKER_03]: I was like, yes, it is.
[SPEAKER_03]: Finally, blooms vary.
[SPEAKER_03]: They took me up on it and they purchased it and it's called right now the working title is healing sacred wounds and it'll be out next year.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that title is really nice.
[SPEAKER_01]: I hope they keep that or something close.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, we're still in the editing process, so I have no idea what it'll look like when it's done.
[SPEAKER_01]: Kudos to you for writing a book.
[SPEAKER_01]: You said three years of pitching.
[SPEAKER_01]: Does that include the writing process or how long should it take you to write?
[SPEAKER_03]: It took me about a year to write.
[SPEAKER_03]: I was pitching it before it was done and then I finished finally finished the last bits of it April 30th of this year.
[SPEAKER_03]: So about five minutes before the deadline.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, I like to wait until the end.
[SPEAKER_01]: Me too.
[SPEAKER_01]: My deadline is the when it's due not like you're supposed to turn it in early.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't I don't know how to work that way.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, no, I waited until right
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, writing a book is a huge thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know, your passion for what you do comes through and everything you do.
[SPEAKER_01]: I see you out in the community like everywhere in our DC area, you know, you're in a big way so that people can find you.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's so beneficial.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm glad to help you amplify
[SPEAKER_01]: the part of your passion that is about religious trauma so that more people can find that care and help as well.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_03]: I appreciate it.
[SPEAKER_03]: It means a lot to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: What we said we were going to talk about today is
[SPEAKER_01]: kind of a specific aspect of religious trauma regarding how people's identities of self develop within that background.
[SPEAKER_01]: So before we get into that topic, though, can we start with, here's my little way of saying things all the time.
[SPEAKER_01]: Before we do that, can we start with you just kind of identifying
[SPEAKER_01]: How someone would know if they had experienced religious trauma or been part of a group that could have been traumatic?
[SPEAKER_03]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, it certainly is difficult.
[SPEAKER_03]: There isn't like a very clear, like this happened and now you have religious trauma, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Two people can go through the same thing and it can be traumatic for one and not for the other, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Which we know in all kinds of other settings too, so that absolutely applies to religion as well.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I also preface before talking about religious trauma that isn't the same thing at all about being anti religious or anti spirituality talking about religious trauma is being anti traumatic religion, not necessarily anti religion.
[SPEAKER_03]: I work with people all the time who are working on unpacking religious trauma, but they are still within a religion and want to stay in a religion or spirituality or they have their own beliefs in no way doesn't mean you have to choose one of the other you don't have to be atheist in order to unpack religious trauma or anything like that those journeys are very separate.
[SPEAKER_03]: I often tell people, though, like, in order to figure out what you believe religiously spiritually, whatever, you often have to unpack the trauma piece because the trauma piece is caused by humans, it's caused by people who have either oppressed people or her people within the name of religion.
[SPEAKER_03]: And specifically, the most common places that those can happen, religious trauma can happen, or spiritual trauma can happen, is in, like, high demand, high control religious settings
[SPEAKER_03]: It doesn't necessarily mean it's all religion, but it can happen within any of them.
[SPEAKER_03]: And it's basically the definition of that revolves around like any sort of faith community that requires like obedience doesn't allow questioning or discourages questionings whether it's up their rules or systems or leadership.
[SPEAKER_03]: expects loyalty without that questioning discourages relationships outside of that group or outside of people who hold that shared identity and also continues to perpetuate a notion of like superiority in some way or othering in some way.
[SPEAKER_03]: Those are generally kind of some of the hallmark characteristics of a high demand high control religion and sometimes I can get really extreme in severe and sometimes it can be a little less it can be a little more difficult to tease out where it is, but those tend to be the biggest hallmarks.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so in any religion, say a certain pastor could kind of create the environment that is traumatic, even if the faith group doesn't typically practice that way.
[SPEAKER_03]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just like a family, I guess.
[SPEAKER_03]: I just just would like within a family within a workplace within any setting, really.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it's often like that power, hierarchical structure that is the issue.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and so what would be the types of feelings that someone would have if they've experienced religious trauma or, you know, because I feel like it's really subtle and it's not just people who belong to this religion or people who go to that place to worship, how would someone know.
[SPEAKER_03]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_03]: There, I often look at religious trauma through a complex PTSD lens.
[SPEAKER_03]: I find that there's a lot of overlap there, but in general, religious trauma, you know, can look like anything that is, you know, overwhelming or disruptive and has lasting adverse effects on somebody, whether it's physical, mental, social, emotional.
[SPEAKER_03]: or spiritual well-being.
[SPEAKER_03]: So any sort of adverse experience, relationship, setting event that causes that lasting harm in some functioning in that person's life that usually is what would look like religious trauma.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is bringing something up for me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm wondering, you know, if you don't want to go this direction, we don't have to, but how does the development of self within the traumatic religious environment play out?
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, that is, I know we wanted to talk about that.
[SPEAKER_01]: There was something else that came up all, I'll sprinkle it in if it fits.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, like I said, in a high demand high control religion, there is a lot of othering, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: There is a lot of sectioning off that group or community from outside community.
[SPEAKER_03]: And what that can look like is the concept of denying your individuality, your autonomy, your identity at all to take on the identity of the larger group or the mission or the cause or the religion.
[SPEAKER_03]: you know, a lot of clients with like evangelical backgrounds have heard the concept of, you know, deny oneself, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: deny yourself and take up his cross and follow me, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: And those concepts of like who you are just not matter, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: The bigger picture matters, the person higher power, the figure, head, whatever of the religion is what matters and that's where your focus is, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: It's not about what you do on earth, it's about what you're doing and have an after, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: And all of those concepts while can have positive benefits for some people in some ways also can tell people like that who you are as an individual is not only irrelevant, but it is selfish or sinful or hurtful to the mission and to the religion and to your spirituality to focus on yourself, to figure out who you are on your own, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: that the more you focus on yourself, the further you get away from God, and those messages really make people put that individuation journey that most people have to go on at some point to the side, either forever, or until it comes, like, seeps out in unhealthy ways, and that can be really, really difficult for people to do with.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so here when you say, you know, the hierarchy with obedience is expected obedience and loyalty, and then abandon who you are or don't pay any attention to who you are or anything within yourself that comes up that feels outside of what you've been told you're supposed to be
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, the whole hierarchy of how it's often preached is God comes first, others come second, you come last, always, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: God comes first, then you're service to others, how you take care of people around you, it comes second, you and your needs are last, always.
[SPEAKER_03]: Or if you think of like the umbrella of authority or protection, right, the concept of God has been
[SPEAKER_03]: It doesn't promote individuation.
[SPEAKER_03]: It doesn't promote that search for identity and who you are, whether within a church or without a church or just doesn't allow for you to have any sort of separation between who you are and what the mission is or the setting is that you grew up around.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so, and forgive my questions, but I just don't have a lot of experience inside of this environment.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, with
[SPEAKER_01]: What you just shared about that patriarchal heteronormative God first husband then wife is it also for the male partner in that construct?
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it God wife husband?
[SPEAKER_03]: No, definitely not.
[SPEAKER_03]: No, has always comes before life for sure, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: And it's then the husband's job to protect the wife and then the children, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: It's his like a spiritual duty.
[SPEAKER_03]: So it's not, it's often not seen as a hierarchy, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Because each one is considered to serve the one above, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: So the children serve to the parents, the mother, serves the father, the father serves the God, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: So it's seen in that type of hierarchy, whereas it often plays out
[SPEAKER_03]: opposite where it's things are being pushed downhill versus up.
[SPEAKER_01]: Can you say more about that?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's how it's actually in practice.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's really not the way that it's stopped.
[SPEAKER_03]: So like, it's been taught through the lens of service, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, you serve that figurehead above you, kind of thing.
[SPEAKER_03]: Whereas it actually in practice, in high-to-man high-control settings, can instead look like oppression from the level down, right, and continuing down.
[SPEAKER_03]: And each level getting a further and further pressed the more down that hierarchy you go.
[SPEAKER_03]: So that is where it can often then get skewed.
[SPEAKER_03]: Because the idea of serving others is wonderful, but like when you add in the oppressive element, that is no longer wonderful.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's weird in my brain.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't know if people who are listening will have the same experience, but there's so much systems thinking that I'm having here because this is also sort of need, I say, the way that certain things are being portrayed out in the world as how we should do things, for example, in a country.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then the way it's actually being implemented
[SPEAKER_01]: The press of Rome that you just shared, but I think that happens in families any system, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Any group, it can be people abuse the power when they're at the top.
[SPEAKER_03]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it's incredibly easy for humans to get into that, to do that.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think that that's also where people don't relate to it as much because it's harder to put names on that or it sounds more extreme like when we were talking earlier you mentioned like when people hear of a cult they think of something really extreme they think of something out in the middle of nowhere and it's not often like that like occasionally you do get things like that which are the more extreme but you know my personal story which I'm pretty open about is that I was raised in a cult here in Virginia like southern Virginia outside of the Blacksburg area
[SPEAKER_03]: Most people would not have expected that, you know, my father at the time worked at Virginia Tech, like it's there was a lot of we were out in the community in other ways, but you know, he was out in the community, he was allowed to do that my mother was not allowed to be outside of the home right I was in a lot to where.
[SPEAKER_03]: pants as a female identifying child at the time.
[SPEAKER_03]: I was not to cut my hair.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, we were homeschooled.
[SPEAKER_03]: All of the media and that we, you know, we don't have TV or access to outside media.
[SPEAKER_03]: We had worship music.
[SPEAKER_03]: We had bibles.
[SPEAKER_03]: We had Christian-based books.
[SPEAKER_03]: We were allowed to read Christian-based curriculums.
[SPEAKER_03]: We didn't have any exposure to any other resources or media outside of our specific church, which was a cult.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's what I call it now.
[SPEAKER_03]: as I look back on it and just that like tight knit we couldn't get any information outside of there so we didn't even know what was happening was not okay and the pieces that were happening to myself and other people within that community and it took a very long time for me to come out of that the only reason my family left that church is that there was you know as what always happens is narcissistic leadership there's infighting and the whole thing broke up.
[SPEAKER_03]: So if that hadn't happened, who knows, I could have still been in it and it took a very long time to figure out, okay, what is what did that look like?
[SPEAKER_03]: What are those systems of being in such an isolated, in such an isolated place for so long with such limited access to widespread information and resources versus a very narrow definition of what I was told the world was.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that took a ton of work for self identity and figure out who I am outside of that.
[SPEAKER_03]: And really it's only you know I'm 35 now, but it's really been in my 30s that I feel like I know who I am now, but it it took me for all of my teens to mess everything up and then all of my 20s to put it all back together again.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, wow, thank you for sharing that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I wasn't aware of that part of your story, so that's really, and I'm from Virginia, I mean, I live in Maryland now, so it's not like Virginia's that far away, but Blacksburg, Virginia Tech, that's all like familiar stuff to me, so.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have a friend growing up who was in a cult too, and one of her parents was the leader, and it was just their family, but everything was focused on serving this group, I guess.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it's not even clear what there were teachings, and it was like biblical, but anywhere home school too.
[SPEAKER_01]: So this is fun.
[SPEAKER_01]: Wait a second, and though the girls all had certain roles within the family that the boys didn't, the girls did all the cleaning and all the taking care of the younger kids.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's almost like the Dougherst type.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that was right in.
[SPEAKER_01]: where I lived right on a normal street in the neighborhood, not in a secluded place or anything, but they all lived in two houses right next to each other and it was all kind of, it was secretive, but it was also right there in the open.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it's definitely very secret of your taught very early on, not to share what's going on, and you're not taught through the lens of, oh, something is bad.
[SPEAKER_03]: We need to keep it to ourselves.
[SPEAKER_03]: You're not taught through that lens.
[SPEAKER_03]: Your taught through the lens of everyone else is bad.
[SPEAKER_03]: We need to protect ourselves from them, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: I was taught like,
[SPEAKER_03]: secular is evil, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Like secular means you're going to hell.
[SPEAKER_03]: And if you hang out with secular people, if your friends with secular people, you are going to hell too, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: So it wasn't like I was keeping secrets from the outside world.
[SPEAKER_03]: I thought I was protecting myself from the evils of the secular world.
[SPEAKER_03]: That is how that happens, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: And then you also have such limited access to widespread knowledge.
[SPEAKER_03]: that you're able to, that people are in those settings are able to continue that belief system because you know, I didn't have internet.
[SPEAKER_03]: I didn't have TV.
[SPEAKER_03]: I didn't, I remember one time someone, another young kid, shared a Britney Spears song with me, the punishment I received.
[SPEAKER_03]: I literally thought listening to this Britney Spears song one time, I was like, I don't know, 10 or 11.
[SPEAKER_03]: I was like, oh, that's it.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm going to hell.
[SPEAKER_03]: This is all done.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's all done here from here.
[SPEAKER_03]: So you're really taught not that you're keeping a secret, you're taught that you are protecting yourself and your family from eternal damnation.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's absurd and a way we can laugh about, you know, one listening to a Britney Spears song, come on, that's innocent.
[SPEAKER_01]: But at the same time,
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, right, innocent, but, you know, Britney Spears wasn't exactly being treated as she should have as a child either, but, but the fear of hell that you had been indoctrinated with, I'm sure, not to mention the, we said punishment, I'm sure that was pretty severe as well, so,
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, yeah, fear is a big way to teach obedience, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: And like obedience, often when I'm like helping people work through religious trauma, there's also like a parent child element to it, whether it's with in your actual family or the concept of God as a parent and what that looks like and now is a parent myself and I think about
[SPEAKER_03]: trying to, if I were to try to raise my children to be obedient to me based on fear, if they feared me, I mean, it's the one of the least effective ways for like actually raising like a healthy normal human, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Like even me when I was taught obedience, I learned how to hide things better, I learned how to lie better, like I learned how to not open up more, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Like I didn't learn how to actually just do things the way they wanted because I believed it.
[SPEAKER_03]: I just learned how to get along to cause the least conflict possible.
[SPEAKER_03]: Or I was just like, you know, effort and through dynamite into the situation.
[SPEAKER_03]: So what have you got there?
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you're saying that you really learned to suppress aspects of yourself, not to function the way that you were being taught because it's not realistic.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I mean, you are discouraged from questioning of any kind, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: That's what obedience is.
[SPEAKER_03]: If you're asking a question, oh, you must not really believe.
[SPEAKER_03]: You must not really have a strong faith.
[SPEAKER_03]: Why are you questioning?
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, what is happening is the devil telling you to question, is that the devil in your ear?
[SPEAKER_03]: So nobody wants to do that.
[SPEAKER_01]: You'd be afraid if you hear that could be the devil, because you know it would be afraid of the devil.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's like learning to be afraid of your natural self, the, the you that's really right.
[SPEAKER_03]: Whereas I, I saw a, I saw a comparison the other day to current like current state of affairs or things that that loose for was the first example of an oppressed population fighting the oppressor.
[SPEAKER_03]: I was like, oh, that's a very interesting way to look at the fight between heaven and hell.
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel like we're not doing this, but I feel like we could, it almost could be like we're having a conversation up here and under here, there's this whole like parallel happening.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's, it's because everything you're saying is just making me think of so many of the ways that this is playing out in our current time, you know, everything from like the book
[SPEAKER_01]: all of those ideas and book burning and all of that is about keep people ignorant of information that doesn't fit the narrative that we are trying to push and they will begin to just believe the narrative that we are trying to push and if you eventually
[SPEAKER_01]: As we know over history, like the Crusades, if we just wipe out everyone who has a different narrative, the genocide of the Native Americans, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, all the ways that we keep trying to do this as a dominant culture.
[SPEAKER_01]: But people still keep rising because humanity is irrepressible and irre, you know, we, it's just we want to be in the light and the real light.
[SPEAKER_03]: I tell people all the time like it doesn't matter like how difficult things are right now like history has always leaned towards the side of justice eventually is just we're not there today and that's hard, but it does lean that way and historically if you look back at the world it always has I agree Martin Luther King said that too.
[SPEAKER_01]: the arc of the moral universe is long.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, long.
[SPEAKER_01]: People, it's long, absolutely.
[SPEAKER_01]: But it does lean towards justice.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it's really important to think about.
[SPEAKER_03]: I, you know, as at my practice, I work a lot with the queer community and trans community.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so there is a lot of overlap with trauma in religious settings, particularly around identity of self because there is nothing more
[SPEAKER_03]: alienating and shame-creating to know who you are usually at a young age that you maybe know your gay or maybe know you're not supposed to be in the body that you were given for whatever reason.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then be told that those things are evil, that those identities that you know you hold or you fear you might hold are evil and you have to deny that, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: And then you're also taught
[SPEAKER_03]: denial as a positive thing going forward, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: You're taught to fast, you're taught to go through, went through, taught to go through these actionable experiences in which you deny your body something.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then you try to maybe experiment or say maybe I am attracted to the same sex maybe I wasn't meant to be the gender.
[SPEAKER_03]: I was assigned at birth.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then your told like that is wrong or evil that identity that you hold is you're not allowed to it's a shameful thing and in the same message your told god doesn't make mistakes you're supposed to be exactly who you are and so you're like I know so I am and you're telling me who I am is evil and god doesn't make mistakes so god made me evil what does that mean like how do you unpack that in terms of your identity and figuring out how to then love yourself when you're told who you were created to be.
[SPEAKER_03]: is evil or sinful or you have to deny those parts of yourself to move forward or to be closer to Christ or your community or whatever, fill in the blank.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's a very impossible narrative to untangle or figure out how to live within.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I'm just thinking about what you see about Jesus, what Jesus did, isn't the same as those messages of exclusion.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, this exact opposite actually, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: If Jesus made no mistakes and I'm a non-binary person, then I'm a non-binary person, then you just have to accept that.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is the way I am because that's the way I was made and it's right.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, the first time I was told that I was lesbian I was six and it was in the cult and it was the leader screaming at my father that if my father wasn't a stronger
[SPEAKER_03]: I was going to become a lesbian because I was somehow at six.
[SPEAKER_03]: I was already showing lesbian tendencies.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think it just meant I was a tomboy.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I just remember being who you were just following my film right for you.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I just remember being terrified.
[SPEAKER_03]: I was like, oh my gosh, what does that mean?
[SPEAKER_03]: That sounds like a terrible thing.
[SPEAKER_03]: Now it's a great thing.
[SPEAKER_03]: I love it.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's really wonderful.
[SPEAKER_03]: But at the time it was sounded terrible and it meant that I was also then in the closet for the next 20 years after that it took me I came in now the closet in high school again in college again after my first marriage like it It was very very difficult to like fully embrace and accept myself and I've only been really living as my very true self for the last two years
[SPEAKER_01]: That is an experience that I've heard from many other people as well, that it's a process of really discovering who one is, especially when there are so many powerful forces trying to prevent you from accepting that about yourself.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm sure people can relate to that now with all the fear that's out there about LGBTQ plus identities.
[SPEAKER_01]: And as we're speaking about identity and you're bringing in gender and sexual identity, but really we are also talking beyond that about just development of your identity of self who you are.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, I wanted to pinpoint when you said the emphasis on obedience, and then you talked about, or you mentioned the importance of individuation, which is a normal developmental process, but can you talk about that for those who are listening might not be familiar with that phrase or that concept?
[SPEAKER_03]: Sure, the concept of individuation is when any person usually like it starts in auto lessons and then hopefully you've figured it out kind of by your 20s but everyone is continuing to then figure it out still for the rest of their life at some point.
[SPEAKER_03]: But it's a concept of who am I separate to my family or who I grew around or the setting I grew up in, like who am I actually?
[SPEAKER_03]: we often see that with like adolescence we're billing because right there like I want to do something different.
[SPEAKER_03]: I want to figure out who I am.
[SPEAKER_03]: I want to try on all these different hats and see what fits for me specifically.
[SPEAKER_03]: Or we see it where, you know, kids go to college and they aren't as communicative with their parents or their siblings.
[SPEAKER_03]: And everyone kind of gets a little distance for a few years and then mid-20s they come back and they figured it out.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then they can hopefully re-establish those relationships a little bit stronger.
[SPEAKER_03]: But we often need that moment and separation to be able to figure out.
[SPEAKER_03]: where do I end and other people begin and you are not only not encouraged to do that in high-to-man high-control religions, but you're actively told that it's wrong, that it's sinful, that it's selfish, that it is leading you away from Christ, that that separation is bringing you further away from heaven, from Christ, from that relationship.
[SPEAKER_03]: and that makes the concept of individuation terrifying versus how it's supposed to be, which is exciting, right, and exploratory.
[SPEAKER_03]: And oh, guess what?
[SPEAKER_03]: There's so many possibilities out there.
[SPEAKER_03]: Who do I get to be?
[SPEAKER_03]: How do I figure that out?
[SPEAKER_03]: Right?
[SPEAKER_03]: It's supposed to be, you know, it's always a bit of a nervous and anxiety experience for anybody, but it's supposed to have an exciting element to it.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's not supposed to be terrifying.
[SPEAKER_01]: It sounds supposed to equal hell or death.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's supposed to equal new opportunities.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: And unlocking new parts of yourself and figuring out who you are and how that shows up in the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mentioned to you before we started recording on the show The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, not to specifically focus on Mormonism in particular, but in there's two characters and it's Heather and Whitney, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: That's who grew up in very adherent, strict Mormon families that were apparently part of the early Mormon people who founded the church and they're related to each other.
[SPEAKER_01]: And both of them come onto the show divorced and having been excommunicated from the church involuntarily.
[SPEAKER_01]: They didn't want to leave, and you sort of see the way, and it's two different tracks.
[SPEAKER_01]: But you see the way they both begin to discover more about who they are outside of that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And all of the ways that the way they were brought up told them they were supposed to be
[SPEAKER_01]: them.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think one thing you can notice in the, especially in the earlier seasons is both of them come into the show in the group behaving in ways that are very kind of like young team like.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they're like telling on each other and exposing, you know, you said this about them and stuff like that.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's it's very much like middle school kind of well there is like an auto essence or puberty that kind of has to happen again anytime you would.
[SPEAKER_03]: come out of something like that, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: That individuation piece is meant to happen, like in adolescence and early or young adulthood.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so to go through that in any setting is really difficult.
[SPEAKER_03]: Right?
[SPEAKER_03]: A lot of people go through it for some coming out of the closet, for some coming out of a religion, for some transitioning genders.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's a very just normal process of re-discovering yourself and re-identifying in certain ways and figuring out,
[SPEAKER_03]: how to do so in a healthy way.
[SPEAKER_03]: The difficulty with it like on shows like that or in a lot of places where they're eyes on you, which certainly in a religious community or any small town or small gathering everyone's eyes are on you.
[SPEAKER_03]: It also including America watching you on a show.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's guilty as people don't forgive that.
[SPEAKER_03]: They don't see it as part of your growth arc.
[SPEAKER_03]: They just see, oh, season one version of you is who you are.
[SPEAKER_03]: So now we're at season, I don't know what season we're at.
[SPEAKER_03]: And you've grown and you're this more mature person.
[SPEAKER_03]: He's more grounded in your identity and who you are.
[SPEAKER_03]: And people are like, that's fake.
[SPEAKER_03]: I remember when you were acting like this.
[SPEAKER_03]: And it's like, who wants to be held, have their teenage version of themselves held over them all this time?
[SPEAKER_03]: And that's something like just we as a human population do a lot of we hold people's paths against them or their worst moments against them for so, so long.
[SPEAKER_03]: That is so true.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and there's just no like opportunity for redemption or for meeting a person where they're at in a new place, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: My entire family, you know, when I left when we left the religion and, you know, the things that happened to me in that religion made me a very angry child,
[SPEAKER_03]: and teenager and worse versions of myself.
[SPEAKER_03]: I didn't have a therapist, I didn't have anyone helping me, and I had family actively doing the opposite.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so that 13-ish year-old version of me, who is angry and a bully to my siblings, that's how my family views me to this day.
[SPEAKER_03]: They haven't known me for 20 years, but if I were to call one of them up today, I mean, not only would they not answer my call,
[SPEAKER_03]: but they would just picture me as at 13-year-old version, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: None of them have ever done any therapy or work on themselves since, and they have never allowed themselves to get to know who I am today, or to even consider that maybe I'm not 13 years old anymore.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm so sorry that you've had that experience.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I mean, it's definitely not great.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's still like a pain point for me for sure.
[SPEAKER_03]: But it's also, I think a bit more as a pain point for them, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: I feel so blessed that I've given myself the space and time and freedom.
[SPEAKER_03]: autonomy to pursue healing and to then put myself in a place where I can provide better others.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think of what life would be like if I had, if I continued to live in that shut down place of like my identity of self wasn't allowed to be explored, would be just incredibly difficult.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, like when I did eventually come out really publicly to my family as a lesbian,
[SPEAKER_03]: that was, you know, at the end, like there are no longer, you know, no longer welcome around.
[SPEAKER_03]: They're praying for me though, they're praying for my soul, so that's great.
[SPEAKER_03]: But yeah, no longer welcome around.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think to like the difference of what would I rather still be in those systems pushing down my identity and who I am and not living my life the way I want to be, or
[SPEAKER_03]: Would I be okay with I had to give up a lot right and had to decide that that was worth it to be where I am at now and without a doubt looking back it's absolutely worth it and was so worth it to me to be where I am now where I'm I feel so lucky and happy and fulfilled but it was not without loss.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the nuance of that is what's lost in those environments where black and white thinking dogmatic views and labels and judgment are how the lens through which everyone is perceived.
[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't, it doesn't even create any space for just making mistakes.
[SPEAKER_03]: Even if you're not challenging, but just, oh, I didn't read the Bible today because I was sick or something, you know, it's yeah it's so difficult because like in order to get out of that system any sort of traumatic religious system or just a process system at all.
[SPEAKER_03]: you have to fight really, really hard.
[SPEAKER_03]: And some people just don't have the energy for that.
[SPEAKER_03]: Don't have the resources for that.
[SPEAKER_03]: Don't have the ability to do so.
[SPEAKER_03]: Or for some, it's just it's the idea of is to overwhelming.
[SPEAKER_03]: My favorite quote that I personally live by for my life is that it took me so much violence to become this gentle.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think that is
[SPEAKER_03]: kind of the umbrella concept of therapy, right, that it involves so much heavy work and so much hard stuff in order to find peace.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that is just a really difficult thing to do within a oppressive system ever.
[SPEAKER_01]: So true, and especially when there's no one you can connect with who's giving you another a lifeline,
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, another way to look at it or helping you understand what you're going through.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think a really important point that you brought up, I just want to say out loud because maybe everybody else already knows all of this about religious trauma, but I'm learning a lot all the time whenever I'm thinking about it, whenever I'm talking to people about it, I'm just learning so much more and one idea is I made an assumption that you left voluntarily, but really
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, in a way by coming out, you made a choice that you knew to tell that that you knew that wouldn't be popular, but it wasn't like you didn't want to still be connected.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's that you were shunned.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I think that happens more than most people.
[SPEAKER_03]: In fact, I was speaking with a client today who's family when they came out as trans to their family their family did the same thing and the client said Just to be clear you're cutting me out.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm not cutting you out and that I think happens a lot more than people think but they point to the one who is ostracized as the problem because you're no longer part of a system so there must be something wrong with you you're the outlier and it's rarely the case.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, because biologically, we all want to be connected with our families, and especially our primary caregivers and siblings.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's important to name for people who are listening that don't realize this.
[SPEAKER_01]: How many homeless youth are LGBTQ+.
[SPEAKER_01]: youth who were forced away from their families in just this manner and then end up on the street homeless and end up in sex work and things, you know, where it's obviously not really voluntary when they're children.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's, you know, this has a tremendous social impact even beyond the families who are directly impacted.
[SPEAKER_03]: I've actually, you know, that reminds me, I had a huge experience in this area and the DMV area with theirs, an organization that specifically caters to helping homeless youth in the area.
[SPEAKER_03]: And they pair like mentors, adult mentors with the kids to help them kind of get back on their feet.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I went through their mentor program and I got to the end and I mentioned, oh, yeah, I'm a lesbian.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I was denied, like, I wasn't allowed to then be a mentor to these kids here in
[SPEAKER_03]: And I didn't realize it was a Christian-based organization and that a lot of the resources that homeless youth have are either nothing, each other or some sort of Christian-based or some sort of religious-based group.
[SPEAKER_03]: And while sometimes I can be helpful, it also usually means that child that youth has to decide between shelter, food, resources and being themselves and who they are.
[SPEAKER_03]: And it just continues the cycle of so much difficulty of being able to accept your identity and self.
[SPEAKER_03]: If you don't have the resources to take care of yourself, then you don't have the privilege of getting to discover yourself.
[SPEAKER_03]: Somebody else is to that privilege over you.
[SPEAKER_01]: has just like really sad and I'm sorry that again for that for those youth who could have used your support I'm really sorry that you didn't get to be part of it but on the other hand why would you want to be part of an organization that would be like that but you know that's that's the whole tension of everything we're talking about it's like you wouldn't want to be part of something that's so oppressive and abusive and traumatizing.
[SPEAKER_03]: And yet those kids need those resources.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_03]: Herches are wealthy.
[SPEAKER_03]: Churches are wealthy.
[SPEAKER_03]: They have the ability to help.
[SPEAKER_03]: If only they would do so without strings attached.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: And some do.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: So for a last point, I think, for our conversation, this is something that you brought up to me before that you've already mentioned, you're not anti-religion.
[SPEAKER_01]: But what are some ways that people who have
[SPEAKER_01]: had religious trauma experiences like you and the people that you're serving and you're writing too in your book.
[SPEAKER_01]: How can they find healthy relationship with religion or and or spirituality?
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, that's a hard one that I don't know if I've even fully answered for myself.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think I'm still on that journey myself of what do I believe and how do I implement that into my life?
[SPEAKER_03]: Obviously, I'd say go to therapy, start there and check with your therapist ahead of time that they're able to hold that space for you in a neutral way as you figure that out.
[SPEAKER_03]: Outside of that, it's really focusing on what do you believe versus what have you been told?
[SPEAKER_03]: Who's messages it in your head?
[SPEAKER_03]: Who's narrative?
[SPEAKER_03]: Is it in your head right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Who's voice?
[SPEAKER_03]: Are you hearing when you're thinking?
[SPEAKER_03]: Is it actually yours?
[SPEAKER_03]: And that I think takes a lot of untangling.
[SPEAKER_03]: I encourage people to do just more research, right, explore more, visit other types of religious settings and religions and spiritualities and explore all the different things, explore nothing, whatever you want to do, right, but really learn how to listen to your gut of learning how to build that muscle of being able to tell the difference between what's uncomfortable versus what's unsafe.
[SPEAKER_03]: And allowing yourself to be uncomfortable a lot, but not allowing yourself to be unsafe, and that is just a really difficult muscle to build when you are told from like birth it anything outside of that particular belief system is unsafe, whereas it's it's not it might be uncomfortable, but it's not unsafe.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that the challenge as someone with complex PTSD of learning to listen to the voice inside or the sense in your body that tells you when you feel unsafe and separate it from, you know, we have this fear reaction that's like danger, life threat, get out.
[SPEAKER_01]: But we also have, ooh, I don't like this.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is reminding me of something that's feels uncomfortable.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not
[SPEAKER_01]: the same feeling, but when we're kind of disconnected from our bodies, oh my gut's telling me something, it means danger.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's really hard to tease that out.
[SPEAKER_01]: Incredibly hard.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and it involves like some of that individuation period where you usually mess it up for a while, and that's okay, because it takes practice.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's the mostly you have to build.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I love to what you said about the individuation and the the teen behavior when someone is going through that that new rebirth experience that's so compassionate and and really important because it is about allowing people to be in their humanity as they are humans are messy.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: We absolutely are.
[SPEAKER_03]: But I think that's like the beauty of it, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Like art is messy and creating is messy.
[SPEAKER_03]: And we love those things.
[SPEAKER_03]: And they're really meaningful.
[SPEAKER_03]: We wouldn't be here without it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like it's beautiful.
[SPEAKER_01]: So true.
[SPEAKER_01]: And change is challenging.
[SPEAKER_01]: Change is difficult.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we don't always have to fear change.
[SPEAKER_01]: But maybe just give ourselves time to regroup as we're going
[SPEAKER_01]: maybe not try to rush through and force things, but well another point about religion before we wrap up that just came to my mind is here where I live in Maryland.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a it's progressive state, but I live in a very conservative, traditional place and I see oftentimes in Facebook groups where people are saying oh we're looking for a new church.
[SPEAKER_01]: we're new to the area where's a church that will be welcoming and accepting to me and my partner were were lesbians or whatever their identity might be and people will say oh go to this church go to that church go to this church go to that church go to this church then other people will say I left that church because they require me to sign something saying that I would not associate with anyone who was LGBTQ plus and it's again for people like me who didn't grow up like this
[SPEAKER_03]: So yeah, it happens a lot, like even, you know, I spent most of my 20s up into a few years ago at a church here in the DC area that I thought was very compassionate and very open and I would have said was
[SPEAKER_03]: open to the queer community, even though they never said it, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: But them never saying it should have been the sign to me.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so they were fine with me identifying, like, as by bisexual, while I was in a street passing marriage with a man, because they didn't have to confront it.
[SPEAKER_03]: They didn't have to see it.
[SPEAKER_03]: The moment that I was like, no, I'm actually not by, like, I'm a lesbian.
[SPEAKER_03]: They had to confront it.
[SPEAKER_03]: They had to see it.
[SPEAKER_03]: And the moment I held them accountable in that way, they shut me out, and I was no longer welcome.
[SPEAKER_03]: At that church and it's a very progressive church in the area where gay people still go to that church and have no idea that they're not welcome and it just took me about 10 years in that church to get up to the leadership level to be like, oh wait yeah, okay, it is all white men up here 10 years yeah yeah so, you know, I just want to point out like that's deceptive yep.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm going to say this because I'm mad now, but it's, your money was fine, but you, you know, being who you really are wasn't.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's F, up.
[SPEAKER_01]: And also, you know, I think that when people have been really surrounded by these ways of thinking and they don't know that there are more ways, yep.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're like, oh yeah, we accept everyone.
[SPEAKER_01]: How can you think that you accept everyone when your members are signing things saying that they won't talk to or whatever, except people who are different?
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't care what the difference is.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why would the church ask you to do that?
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, why would a church in any ways be like, oh, everyone is welcome here, but yeah, you can't be on leadership or your woman's.
[SPEAKER_03]: So you can't be a leader or you're a guy.
[SPEAKER_03]: So you can't be a leader or we just don't need to talk about it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Or can't you just not do that here kind of thing.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, and that's actually not what acceptance is at all.
[SPEAKER_01]: no, not at all.
[SPEAKER_01]: And therapists who are listening to this, if you think that you are, oh, I can work with anyone.
[SPEAKER_01]: I can work with LGBTQ people.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I don't approve of it, but, you know, that they can do whatever they want.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's, no, that ain't it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Absolutely not.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I say like I it is not enough to be queer affirming, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: That should be a baseline.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like we're straight affirming every day queer affirming should be a baseline.
[SPEAKER_03]: We need to be more than that.
[SPEAKER_03]: We need to be queer celebratory.
[SPEAKER_03]: We need to be celebrating people's identities in those ways and how it impacts them and helping them to celebrate it as well.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's not something we should ever tolerate.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, yes, exactly.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, well, this is a lot of good information for people who are listening who have someone in their family that this would impact, you know, someone who's LGBTQ plus or any other identity that you're saying, well, they're by racial, but we just act like they're white.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, like all the ways that we try to promote heteronormative patriarchal whiteness and everything else is less.
[SPEAKER_01]: We all need to be examining that at all times.
[SPEAKER_01]: And because we need a more loving diverse world that's our way forward.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, biology is diverse.
[SPEAKER_03]: Nature is diverse, it's happening.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, word, if it wasn't, everything would end.
[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_01]: The whole ecosystem is diverse and that's it's survival.
[SPEAKER_01]: And without it, yeah, there isn't survival.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll see.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is a really great conversation.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm so grateful that you came and spent some time with me again today and tell everyone where they can find your book when it comes out, all the amazing stuff that you're doing.
[SPEAKER_03]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_03]: The best way would be to check our website where we'll certainly post when it goes live, or you can subscribe to our email list, LGBT CounselingDMV.com, or you can follow me on Instagram at S.C.
[SPEAKER_03]: Neely, S.C.
[SPEAKER_03]: and E.A.L.Y.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I'll definitely be posting about it there, too.
[SPEAKER_01]: great.
[SPEAKER_01]: I will link to both of those in the show notes and ask you again.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you so much for being my guest today.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks for having me.