27: The Queen of Deconstruction with Dr. Laura Anderson

[00:00:01] Hello Deconstructionists, welcome to this week's episode with the Queen of Deconstruction herself, Dr. Laura Anderson.

[00:00:08] If you've been in this space for any amount of time, you have probably come across her work. She has done some foundational work in the field of deconstruction and religious trauma and it is such an honor to have her here on the podcast.

[00:00:19] In this episode, in addition to sharing a little about her own story, she also explains what religious trauma is, which spoiler alert it is Traba.

[00:00:29] She also explains the difference between deconstruction and healing from religious trauma, as well as the difference between single incident trauma and complex trauma or CPTSD. I am honored to have her share her expertise on this episode and in all the work that she does in helping this community.

[00:00:46] If you're new to the podcast, welcome. If you like what you hear, be sure to follow or subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen so you don't miss new episodes each week.

[00:00:55] And to all our listeners, please don't forget to rate and review the podcast. If you send me a screenshot of your review or your five star rating, I'll send you some homemade Hello Deconstructionists art.

[00:01:05] And you can check out my Instagram for more details if you're curious about that. And finally, one of the most helpful things you can do is to share the podcast with a friend who might enjoy it.

[00:01:14] And if that would out you too much in this space, then please know that we are just happy to have you here. All right, let's get into it. Here's our episode with Dr. Laura Anderson. We see O-N-S-D-R-U-C-T. Got it, they construct.

[00:01:47] Hello Deconstructionists. This is Maggie, the host of our podcast, where we'll collectively share our stories and experiences of leaving high control religion along with what it's been like for us to find new practices that help us feel good and confident in ourselves.

[00:02:10] I hope that hearing these stories reminds you that your deconstructionists valid and most of all that you are not alone on this journey. You are good, you are loved and you are ready just as you are. Hello Deconstructionists!

[00:02:25] My guest today is Dr. Laura Anderson, a licensed psychotherapist trauma resolution coach, religious trauma consultant, speaker, author and educator.

[00:02:35] She is on a mission to provide religious trauma informed support and resources to survivors of and those helping survivors of religious trauma, adverse religious experiences, faith deconstruction, cults, spiritual abuse and leaving high demand and high control systems.

[00:02:51] I often refer to Laura Anderson as the queen of deconstruction. She just wrote an incredible book called When Religion To Hert's You and even before that, she's been such a powerful and supportive voice in this deconstruction community.

[00:03:04] So thank you Laura for being here in the deconstruction space and also here on the podcast. This is so exciting for me, so thank you. Well, thank you for having me and I accept it. She's the queen.

[00:03:20] And not because she tells us what to do but because she helps us all find our own voice which is amazing. So thank you for that. I appreciate that because that is very important to me to really guide people back to themselves. That's very important.

[00:03:36] Yes, and I feel that you were one of the first people that I followed on my personal accounts before I had the Hello Deconstructionist account.

[00:03:44] Yeah, you were somebody that helped me start to put words to what I had experienced and that is just such an important first step. At least in my experience was starting to understand what it was and that it was something.

[00:03:58] Yes, yeah, I think I think that is so important because so many people walk out almost like in a days of like what was it that just happened to me.

[00:04:08] And I know for myself, I deconstructed came out of this such a long time ago before social media was a thing.

[00:04:15] And so I didn't have words like deconstruction or diversion or things like that and so even when I came into this space and people were using language like that. I was like that even was so helpful to me.

[00:04:28] It's like, oh there's words, there's concepts to explain this thing that I've gone through it really helped organize this experience and give it a little bit more, I don't know, direction or Yeah, just help me figure out what it was that had gone on.

[00:04:44] Yeah, it gave it some kind of grounding and also for me it showed me that there were other people going through it too

[00:04:51] And that it wasn't just this like weird thing that happened to me and I'm kind of lost, it's like oh this is a this is a thing and we're okay. So yes absolutely, you're okay.

[00:05:01] Yes, all right well can we start with a little bit about your church experience and then of course we'll get into all of your experience in your you know in your work and your research about religious trauma but before we do, can we hear a little bit about your own experience in the church and what that was like for you.

[00:05:20] Yeah, well I am one of those people who grew up never having memories of not going to church. I mean, I think I remember a story of something like I was maybe born on a Tuesday and I was in church the next Sunday.

[00:05:37] You know, like that's I was not even a week old and and I was there with my parents so yeah, I think that's that's probably like a good way to look at.

[00:05:48] That was just the rest of my life so I'll always had those memories always was in church whenever the doors were open pretty much very heavily involved when I was quite young kind of well.

[00:06:00] In later elementary years my family became like full time ministry people we moved to a camp that we had previously attended as campers and my dad became a director there so we moved there full time we lived on site.

[00:06:15] And it was one of the camps where it's you know there's tons of kids in the summer but then on the weekends there was retreats and whatnot and we had a house there and so as you can imagine there there was an isolating effect to it.

[00:06:27] And then there was also fun stuff you know we we had the horse car all in the climbing wall and a lake and things like that so it was it was not bad it was quite fun but it was also quite isolating you know camps aren't in the center of everything they're in the woods they're quite a distance from everybody.

[00:06:45] So we were a few hours away from our family we were a significant distance away from the church we attended and from our schools and so you know that usually meant you know we would go to school.

[00:06:57] That was the one nice thing is my mother is an educator she was you know she went to school she got a degree in education we very much valued that I grew up in a blue state I should say that so there was.

[00:07:09] A different value of education which was really nice and I think that saved me in a lot of ways. And and so we did go to public school which was like a 30 40 minute drive or several hours on the bus every day.

[00:07:23] And that was great but then we would not see anybody for like four months during the summer there was this whole other world that we would have it was kind of transitioning between these worlds.

[00:07:33] Which was now looking back I'm like wow that was a lot to you know there's a lot that I would miss out on from school and have to transition back into in the fall.

[00:07:43] And and there was a lot of feelings of isolation that I had these two worlds that never crossed over there was nobody from my school that ever went to camp.

[00:07:53] And nobody from school that really ever cared about camp either they're like what we don't really care about what you're doing.

[00:08:00] Which in its life such a different world like I was somebody that worked at camp in the summers and like you go there and it's like that's your whole life when you're there.

[00:08:09] They promote the bubble. Yes, and it's so fun it's fun to be there but yeah, but it's just it's a different world. Yeah they really they really promote that this is a bubble nobody quite understands it and we like it that way.

[00:08:23] Mm-hmm. Yeah so so that was that we you know and I have we had a church too, but I didn't really particularly care for it and I got away with that because of the camp piece of it.

[00:08:35] So I was still involved in the youth group and things like that, but I didn't really get involved in the in the church like heavily until after I graduated from high school.

[00:08:45] And I went to the local community college because you know you don't really need to spend money and get a degree since you're a woman and all you're really going to do is you know get married and have babies.

[00:08:56] Right. Yeah, and so I should say to I grew up in the thick of purity culture. I was in middle school when true love weights, you know came on the scene in 1993. I signed my virginity pledge card. I had my virginity. My abstinence rang or whatever purity rang.

[00:09:15] I made the commitment to not kiss until I got married. When I graduated from high school, I really felt this weight that like every decision I made from that point forward was going to impact the rest of my life, which is true to some extent for all adults.

[00:09:31] But there was this spiritual pressure too. It was like, well if I wear this shirt and my future husband sees me and is not attracted because like the v-neck is too low.

[00:09:43] And then he's like, oh that's not a godly woman. And then you know that's just going to ruin my chances of getting married. It was just like this constant anxiety.

[00:09:54] And so I opted to not go to, I always say I opted to not go to a four-year college. I really wasn't given the opportunity to do so that was not something I could do despite having many scholarships.

[00:10:09] I was not able to do that. So I went to a community college in the meantime. I started working with the church youth group.

[00:10:17] I noticed as like an up and coming leader and the youth pastor kind of singled me out and really really pursued me to kind of join some of the innermost leaders and eventually hired me on as paid staff.

[00:10:30] I worked there for a while. I was still volunteering because I kind of had to even if you're working on paid staff, you're still expected to volunteer.

[00:10:40] Because I caught your tie thing, your time also. It's just it's so bizarre. But yeah and that's where I really got deeper into it.

[00:10:49] You know it's kind of that idea of like making your faith your own and that transition from like your parents' faith into your own faith.

[00:10:57] And I took it seriously. I dug in. I really believed that I had to do this. I had to dig in. I had to give everything in order to have that reward of a husband and then eventually a family.

[00:11:11] And I was all in with my reform to theology, with purity culture, with modesty, with teaching it to young women, with really kind of policing everybody else and and being the one to call other people out.

[00:11:27] I was great with the politics and debates and you did not want to cross me and go against me and yeah, I was the poster child for everything I despise now.

[00:11:42] I'm on the other side. Yeah, but you know, I always had this little part of me that would wonder like what is all of this for like is this really that important.

[00:11:55] I remember like I had this one vivid memory of I was preparing some lesson to teach for our student leadership team and I want to say it was unlike evolution or something like that.

[00:12:11] I was teaching out of and I was like why am I teaching this? Like this seems so unimportant and like if there's really this all power for God, like why do I need to convince anybody of any of this.

[00:12:27] I myself go down this road just for like I don't know not even like a full minute and I knew so clearly that if I let myself keep going there.

[00:12:37] I didn't unravel so much that they didn't know if I could come back and it was far too scary to continue going down that road and I just like backtracked as quickly as I could zip it back at and just went with what I was supposed to teach.

[00:12:54] And I had several other moments like that over my, you know, adolescence and young adulthood. And I can see that I was asking those questions, but it was never safe to actually let myself go down that road

[00:13:06] because I knew that if I asked questions, I would lose everything. My job, my community, my family, my housing, my livelihood, everything about me because it was all wrapped up into this church community. And I knew I wouldn't have anything outside of that.

[00:13:24] And so I just continued in that. And it wasn't until a situation where I was working at the church, I started dating somebody and the church leadership did not approve of this person. And it wasn't because he wasn't a believer. It wasn't because we were doing anything.

[00:13:40] I mean, we didn't even kiss. Like, we were above reproach. We had told the elders. We had told like, everybody knew about this and we were doing everything. It was because the church leaders didn't like that I had a more dominant personality and he was more soft spoken.

[00:13:58] And their theory was that I would bulldoze over him. The first opportunity I got because I, like that's just, like he wouldn't be able to handle me. I would just take over. I would take over the man's role. I wouldn't submit to him.

[00:14:16] And he wouldn't demand that I would submit to him. And that was their theory, which is pretty shameful. I think. Yeah, I'm like the underlying message there is that you're too much. Yes, absolutely, absolutely. And also then to him to be like your week,

[00:14:35] you know, like your not at your too much. Yeah, yeah. And so I'm just like now I can see all of it. Like that was just so terrible to tell us. But because I made the choice. I'm like, I'm not gonna listen.

[00:14:46] Like I'm gonna listen to myself for once. And what I realized now that I didn't back then is that it really wasn't that they had a problem necessarily with him or even us dating. It was that the person that I was a direct report

[00:15:00] to, the pastor that I worked directly under, was very narcissistic. He very much engaged in dynamics of power and control. And it was that he was losing power. He was losing control in my life. And because I was choosing to listen to myself

[00:15:17] and even at the time like that guy over him because he didn't have the ultimate say and authority and control in my life, he decided to start punishing me. And it started off first with like really terrible comments like you know, like what I just said.

[00:15:35] And then it turned into more and more of accusations and threats and intimidation, making up stories, asking people to like surveil you know and report back and them making up stories and being punished for that. And it made it to be a very, very volatile place to work.

[00:15:54] I was losing friends. I was constantly on edge in hyper-vigilant. I was always worried that I was going to lose my job. And it got so bad that I finally was like, it's just not worth it. And I ended up quitting my job.

[00:16:08] And my pastor told me later he was like, you know, I'm so glad you quit because otherwise I would have had to fire you for failing to like adhere to spiritual leadership. And I was like, but you did that. Like you did that. You created that entire situation.

[00:16:27] There was nothing I was doing that I shouldn't have been doing. You created a such way, but anyways, neither here nor there anymore. But it was just one of those things where I was like, it was so intolerable that I couldn't stay there anymore.

[00:16:39] And I was able to see and it had the language of spiritual abuse at the time. But I could feel it in my body. And it eventually just became so much that I couldn't take it anymore. And that got me out of the church enough.

[00:16:52] I was able to start a job at a community college, which I did not like, but it was the first time that I was in a job that wasn't connected to a ministry. And I was able to see enough of the difference

[00:17:04] of being in this job where like I was valued and respected for my performance and what I was contributing. They didn't care what I did on the weekends. I wasn't like punished for that. You know, like I could have a life outside of this

[00:17:17] and it literally didn't matter so long as I was getting done what I was supposed to get done. Like they didn't care what I wore. So long as it was like, you know, business professional, like I wasn't getting reprimanded. I could be friends with men, you know,

[00:17:34] and have conversations. I could go out with my male coworkers if I wanted to for lunch or coffee or whatever and it was not a big deal. I could have closed door meetings if I needed to. You know, like things like that just things that now

[00:17:48] it's like not a big deal, but they weren't like big deals back then. And it gave me just enough room to see while there was something different. That's when I started applying to go back to school for my master's degree in marriage and family therapy

[00:18:01] which I did start doing. I ended up, I wasn't strong enough yet to leave the church community. I ended up trying to kind of go back through their process of repentance which lasted about two and a half years. Okay, at the same church, at the same church

[00:18:17] and it just I ended up burning out. It was so much. I was having to do so much on paid labor. I was in charge of this huge college young adult ministry, giving so much time and energy and resources.

[00:18:31] And eventually I just, I burned out and I moved. And that got me to Nashville and I was in charge for a little bit and finally one day about a year and a half into it I was like, I'm done. I'm just, I'm done.

[00:18:48] And I actually was about this time 13 years ago, 14 years ago, 13. Yeah, I left. I said I was done. It's nice that it's been so long that you look back, you know? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha And that was it and I never,

[00:19:04] I never looked back. So what was the process coming out for you? Like you stopped going and then did you realize what a long journey that would be or I don't know what did that feel like at the time? Yeah, so I had, I would say it already

[00:19:19] been deconstructing. Like my first day of my master's degree program. One of my professors made some statements that just really kind of rocked me to my core about just people in general and how we see them. And I remember thinking if this is true

[00:19:37] and I'm pretty sure that it is, then there's a lot that I need to start rethinking. And as I got further into my practice of therapy and learning and even into then my internship, I just started to see like,

[00:19:53] I don't think that this is right what we've been taught here and I started just seeing people completely differently and I knew that I had to change. But I also knew that because I was still in the same community that I had grown up in,

[00:20:08] I knew there was only so far that I could go before like I would either have to stop growing or I'd have to leave the community, which obviously I left. And so when I moved to Nashville, I started going to a church that kind of build itself

[00:20:25] is like a progressive Southern Baptist. I don't even know if that actually exists. But the one thing they did allow was for questions, meaning that you could ask questions and you weren't automatically accused of like doubting your faith or backsliding or whatever.

[00:20:41] And that was really helpful for me because it allowed me to ask those questions to practice genuine curiosity to wrestle with things in the presence of other people and have that support and to feel good about doing that and not automatically judged for the answers.

[00:21:00] But what it kind of boiled down to was that like the answers that I was arriving at just we're not lining up with what the church was saying. And I think ultimately it came down to becoming friends with a lot of people in the LGBTQ community

[00:21:16] and I just could not put together how these folks who were trying to pray their gay away like couldn't do it and I knew their hearts and I knew how hard they wanted to be like this biblical Christian. And yet they still had these quote unquote urges

[00:21:35] and desires no matter how hard they prayed or how hard they tried to date the opposite gender and they couldn't do it. And I just was like why? Like what makes me so special that my quote unquote sin, like the sinful thing that I struggle with the most

[00:21:52] like still allows me to be in love with a human. You know or have sexual attraction towards somebody, I just couldn't put it together anymore. And that was really, really impactful for me and was like okay I really have got to rethink this.

[00:22:08] The other thing that was really important for me was having sexual experiences and feeling zero guilt or shame and even though I was like begging God to convict my heart. I was like please make me feel guilty because I knew that's what I was supposed to feel

[00:22:26] and I just didn't. Like I just didn't. Yeah. I love that because I feel like a lot of times you hear like even though you know that, yeah, you know you're allowed to do these things now. You still feel that guilt and shame

[00:22:41] and you know of course everybody's experiences different and so it's cool to hear that where like I was having these experiences and I didn't feel guilty. So that was like something isn't right with what I was taught. Yeah, yeah it was very confusing to me

[00:22:55] because I was just I was waiting. I was literally like okay I'm ready. I'm ready to feel it, bring it on and it never came and never came and still to this day has never come. The only time I've ever felt any sense of guilt

[00:23:11] was when I bulldozed over my own boundary that I had set for myself and I was like do you have it? Like I did that. I did that and but I knew clearly that it was because I had done something

[00:23:24] that I said I did not want to do and I've never felt guilty after that because I've set to my own boundaries. Yeah, see the queen. Yeah, there it is. So let's talk a little bit about your work that you do.

[00:23:40] How did you get into working with people with religious trauma and working in this field and like talking about this topic so much? Yeah. Kind of accidentally. So I live in the south which means that you know, the first question people ask you

[00:23:56] after your name is where do you go to church? And you know, people are like really and it's like yeah actually that's true. And so it's just very it's part of the culture down here. And so I didn't actually advertise myself as that

[00:24:11] but I started to just notice that clients were coming into my office talking about things like this feeling really harmed by their churches, feeling really triggered by different things that were happening. Noticing that while they maybe didn't have these really overt experiences like clergy sexual abuse,

[00:24:29] for example, but they were still feeling a lot of triggers or hyper vigilance or maybe what they might consider extreme reactions to different doctrines or practices or walking into Hobby Lobby and hearing you know, Christian music being played. And so I started to notice just the similarities

[00:24:48] between what was happening to them and what the research was talking about with trauma and PTSD and things like that and also being able to compare it to my own experiences and what I was struggling with. And I still remember the first client

[00:25:03] that I had where we really were talking through religious trauma and interestingly, we weren't using this language. I mean this was 11 years ago and maybe I was 12 years ago and we did have the term spiritual abuse. That wasn't a term that he felt comfortable using.

[00:25:23] And so I think we just maybe use like harmful theology or toxic theology, I think that was maybe a term that he felt comfortable with. He had grown up in the same denomination I did so there was a lot of common language that we could use.

[00:25:36] There was a lot of times where we could kind of laugh in solidarity of the doctrines and the practices and the old remember this. And it was a really healing time for myself too, just in being like, oh, I had done my own work

[00:25:53] around some of this without really having the language of religious trauma, adverse religious experiences, things like that. So I felt equipped to be able to work with him but it was really the first time I was like really walking through this kind of beginning to end

[00:26:09] with a client. We used the modality internal family systems, it was really helpful for him. And I remember after we were kind of starting to wrap things up where he was just like, come in for like, we'll call maintenance sessions, you know, just as needed.

[00:26:24] I thought, wow, this is really an area that I would love to be working with clients in but I didn't know how to market myself. And I'm also in the south where everybody's religious and everybody, you know, like this is just baked into our culture

[00:26:40] and that's not necessarily seen as like something that you would push against, right? Mm-hmm. So I just kind of like hung back and as people talked, you know, we would talk about things but really it was when the 2015 when we were starting to approach the 2016 election cycle

[00:27:01] and we started to notice certain candidates coming on the scene, certain discussions starting to happen moving into 2016 into that election cycle, that's where we started to see like a more global conversation happening around different religious groups, religious figures starting to take stances

[00:27:22] in public on media, translating over to social media and then that started to just translate into office spaces, relationships and conversations and that included their put experiences as well. And I would say that's for me when I started to see a huge uptake

[00:27:39] in my office as well as feeling much more comfortable advertising myself as somebody who works with this on like a professional level. Yeah, yeah, it's so interesting because I had left church before the 2016 election but I hadn't talked about it.

[00:27:56] I was just like I just, I left but I'm not going to look at it. And after the 2016 election was sort of when I felt comfortable putting words to it because I could say, I'm looking at what the church did in this election cycle

[00:28:11] or how they responded to this election cycle. And so I know that I'm not comfortable with it and I knew I wasn't before but it gave me, it gave me the courage to say something. And so then I started going to therapy

[00:28:24] and I could use that as like my way in like, well, I'm having some trouble with dealing with the election cycle things around like family and difference in politics and religious beliefs. And so yeah, it's just interesting that you also saw that

[00:28:39] in your office and it makes sense. Yeah, well, and I think it's important for just kind of the masses to know. So like when somebody goes to school to become a therapist, we are taught that religion in general is what's called

[00:28:53] a pro social factor which means that it's typically looked at as something that is a pro in somebody's life. It's something that can be used as a sense of support and identity, community, a sense of purpose and growth we can use that in somebody's life

[00:29:11] to find meaning and hope. And I'm sure that that is true for some people and we typically don't look at it as a source of harm or risk or something that could be a negative in somebody's life. And most therapists will stay away from religion

[00:29:29] in terms of a part of the treatment process. We're trained to like not like we bring it in if a client wants it to be a part of the session. We do not sway them for or against it.

[00:29:41] If it's important to them, we encourage them to lean into it. If it's not important to them, we don't make it a thing. Contrary to what Christian counselors will say, we don't try to get people to walk away from their faith.

[00:29:52] That is not a part of it and all I have never met at therapists who has done that, but that's a different conversation for a different day. But therapists are supposed to remain relatively neutral in that stance. So I think there was a lot of people prior

[00:30:06] to the 2016 election that were kind of just hands off. They're like, you know what? If you're coming in with some spiritual abuse stuff, all I'm really trained to say is that perhaps that's a bad church experience. If this is important to you,

[00:30:20] maybe you need to find a different church. That's really all the training that they got because psychologically speaking and colloquially speaking and culturally speaking, religion is this off like taboo. We do not talk about it other than it being a pro social factor.

[00:30:36] What 2016 did for us was to say, oh, hold on here. I think we're wrong. I think that things have been happening because there's this mass exodus of people coming out of religions and denominations across the spectrum that are not only pissed at this political landscape,

[00:30:55] but that are saying there's great harm that's being done as I'm evaluating all of this and we have to take this into consideration and look at this because there are clients in our offices that are now demonstrating severe mental health symptoms and even symptoms of trauma

[00:31:11] and we can't just turn our eye and say, that's a bad church situation. Right? Yeah, and I had a therapist not the one I see now. The one I see now is great. She's fantastic. But the first one that I saw said,

[00:31:25] what would you like to find a different church? And I was like, yeah, no, you didn't hear me. Yes, I did! But that makes sense if it's seen as this pro social factor that's like here are all the good things that it can do.

[00:31:38] Let's find you one that's healthier. Yes. Can you give us a definition of religious trauma or the one that you use in your work? Yes. So simply, religious trauma is trauma, which people are like, come on, right? No, so the reason I say it that way

[00:32:10] is when we're talking about like modalities, it's important to know, religious trauma is trauma. That actually gives us so much information and research and tools and resources that we have at our fingertips that we can use for treating trauma and helping us understand what's going on.

[00:32:29] I personally don't believe that there is like a super-sustink definition of trauma. Now some people say, like, oh, but in the DSM or the ICD codes or whatever, the ICD is a little bit closer, but in the US, we don't use the ICD codes

[00:32:45] because we're just so special. We've got a great healthcare system. Yeah. We have to have our own diagnostic manual, which does not include CPTSD and the definition of trauma is, in my opinion, and the opinions of many, many other people, very much and complete

[00:33:02] because it does not include complex trauma. But that's a whole soapbox that I can get on, which we're not gonna do today. But anyways, to that end, I usually describe trauma as anything that is too much, too fast, too soon, that overwhelms our ability to cope

[00:33:15] and come back to a place of safety. So that means trauma is not the thing that happens to us, but it's the way that our body and our nervous system responds to the thing that happens to us. Trauma is very subjective, so what is traumatic for you?

[00:33:27] Mary may not be for me and vice versa. It is perceptive, which means that there doesn't actually have to be a threat in front of us. It could be something that we just perceive to be a threat or that we have remembered to be threatening

[00:33:41] and trauma is embodied, which means we do not think it away. And so religious trauma is all of that as well, but it just usually originates from a religious context where that is a relationship, a doctor in teaching, practice or belief.

[00:33:57] Can you talk a little bit about complex PTSD, CPTSD? Yes, such a mouthful, because I think a lot of times people who have trauma from a religious context say, like, including myself, I'm like, well, nothing specific happened. I didn't have one specific thing.

[00:34:13] So can you talk a little bit about what the complex part of that looks like? So I usually categorize religious trauma under the umbrella of complex trauma. And the reason being is this. So I like to define the difference between what I call single incident trauma,

[00:34:30] which usually is more characteristic of PTSD, versus complex trauma and CPTSD. So single incident trauma is pretty self-explanatory. There's an incident or an experience that happened so there's a before, the thing happens, and then after. So that might be like a car accident.

[00:34:48] You know, there's the before the car accident, the car accident, and then after the car accident, which might result in PTSD. Complex PTSD though, it is ongoing and pervasive and often inescapable. So it may not be one big thing that happens, but it's this kind of ongoing, consistent

[00:35:09] and persistent overwhelm that goes on over time, that is usually inescapable. So when we think about religious trauma, we can see how that might fall under that umbrella. Especially if we've grown up in it, it's this ongoing, consistent, persistent. And if we're kids, like we don't have

[00:35:28] an ability to escape it. We can't run away. We can't fight against it. We usually just have to make ourselves smaller or freeze or just comply because that's all we have available to us. And it may not be that we necessarily have something

[00:35:44] really, really big happen to us. I know I keep using that example of like clergy sexual abuse, but that's usually what people go to is like, oh well, I haven't been abused by a member of the clergy, but it could be that we're hearing really scary doctrines

[00:35:58] that are taught. We're being threatened with hell all the time. We are being told that we're worthless, that we're nothing. We're being shamed about our bodies. We're being told that if we wear certain things, we're gonna get raped and it's gonna be our fault.

[00:36:13] We're constantly being warned about the dangers of hell or making a mistake or whatever, or that if we don't witness enough then we're surely going to send somebody else to hell. So it's this pervasive kind of ongoing overwhelm and threat that you're constantly living under.

[00:36:32] And what some people call like these micro moments, but over time they all add up and we start to see that we're constantly hyper-vigilant, constantly overwhelmed. And that becomes our norm, right? That's like our baseline. There's never like a place to come back to of like,

[00:36:50] hmmm, okay, I'm safe, right? When we look at PTSD, right? We have the before, that the thing happens, then after with complex trauma, we don't have the before or the after. It's just ongoing all the time. So that's why I think religious trauma,

[00:37:05] usually if it's really kind of nicely under that umbrella. What are some ways that you see in your clients or in your work? You see this CPSD living in their bodies long after they've, thought themselves out of the harmful religious doctrine, but it's living with them still. Yeah.

[00:37:26] So I think what you're talking about there is what I would really say is the difference between deconstruction and actually resolving trauma in your body. So deconstruction is a philosophical concept and it's primarily cognitive and it's extremely important and often is kind of the starting point

[00:37:50] that most people take, where they're untangling their beliefs, they're trying to decide, what is it that I believe? Why do I believe this? Is this something I believe anymore? What do I believe instead? And that often is a catalyst for leaving a church

[00:38:06] or denomination or religion or faith altogether. And I think that's a really beautiful process, one that hopefully never ends because it always keeps us growing and moving forward. I think that's awesome. However, that is very different than healing

[00:38:22] from religious trauma or resolving how trauma lives in your body. Deconstruction is primarily cognitive, whereas resolving religious trauma is physiological. It's understanding how trauma lives in your body and resolving it within your body. So we can know a lot about trauma on a cognitive level.

[00:38:43] We can even know the ways that religion may have harmed us but until we address it in our bodies, it's gonna continue living there. So that's why we often see a lot of people who are confused or frustrated or maybe even feel a lot of shame

[00:38:58] because they're like, I don't get it. I don't believe these things anymore and yet my body is responding in this way. One way that I see it very, very frequently, is somebody will say, I don't get it because I don't believe that sex before marriage is wrong.

[00:39:14] I believe that my partner and I are both consenting and we wanna have a good time, but we go to engage in this activity and my body totally phrases up or I feel so much guilt and shame or something like that. And it's so weird to me

[00:39:31] because I don't even believe that, right? So your body is having this very different experience than what your head actually believes. That can feel very confusing and very shameful. So it's a two part thing. I think the deconstruction part is extremely helpful

[00:39:47] and that's usually then what leads us into the trauma healing pieces of it and resolving how that lives in our bodies. What are some ways that you help your clients heal that in their bodies? Yeah, so that's a little bit complex but what I will say is,

[00:40:05] so there's a couple of different things that we have to do. First of all, religion very much focuses on divorcing ourselves from our bodies. And when that happens, everything is external. So we find our sense of okness and safety and control outside of us.

[00:40:24] Somebody else is telling us if we're good or bad, right or wrong, safer unsafe, okay or not okay. And so we're constantly looking outside of us to see if we're doing okay and we never have any sort of internal awareness or goodness or safety.

[00:40:43] And though it sounds so simple, that actually is the first step of really resolving those messages in our bodies because until we can feel safe within ourselves, it's gonna be very difficult to let that shame move through us cause otherwise it's gonna feel too big, too scary. Right?

[00:41:03] If I view my body as this absolutely terrible place to be because I've been told it's bad and sinful and evil, like I'm never going to be able to kind of be in that space. So we have to learn to, I know my sound cliche,

[00:41:19] like come home to our bodies, feel a sense of safety inside of us. And I will hang my hat on that is the foundational piece of trauma healing. Now I'm not a therapist or a coach who says, here's how you must heal. Everybody must heal in this way

[00:41:37] because I think there's a million different ways that could work because everybody and everybody is different. But I will hang my hat on saying, this internalized safety and sense of awareness of understanding the internal landscape of my body, that is absolutely foundational.

[00:41:57] That piece has to be present in order for us to be able to truly then resolve those messages. So when we have that internal safety, when we can understand what's going on and have internal resources, oh, I know how to know that I'm okay within myself.

[00:42:15] I don't have to look for you to make sure that I'm safe. I don't have to make sure that you think I'm okay in order to be okay. Then I can move into those messages, those experiences and in trauma world we use the word renegotiate.

[00:42:31] So like to renegotiate them to go back through them and give ourselves a different way of completing them. In trauma world we call it like completing the cycle. So oftentimes when something happens to us, whether it's an experience or a message,

[00:42:47] there was something usually that we wanted to do or should have been able to do, but we're unable to do it for a myriad of reasons, usually fear-based, right? So I wish I could have run away, but my body froze, right?

[00:43:01] I wish I could have yelled back at them, but man, I was not allowed to yell at my mom, right? Or I wish I could have punched them in the face, but it was this big dude and I couldn't do that, right?

[00:43:12] And so what we want to do is give our body the ability to do what we should have been able to do that, but weren't able to because we were more interested in surviving. We needed to survive that situation and start. And so we go back through this

[00:43:27] and allow ourselves to complete that cycle, which often, okay, it doesn't mean you have to go actually punch somebody. It doesn't mean you have to scream at your mom. It doesn't mean any of that. We have some unique ways that we can do that,

[00:43:41] but it just means allowing that energy to move through your body so that your body can resolve that and then come back to a place of safety, like that definition of trauma that I used earlier, suggests. When we can do that, it doesn't mean

[00:43:58] that we'll never remember that thing again. It doesn't mean that we might not even feel a little bit activated, but it means that that thing isn't alive in us anymore. Our body doesn't feel as if it is happening right now.

[00:44:13] And even with those messages, those messages aren't alive as if that's the truth, right? It's oh yeah, I used to believe that, but it's not what I believe, it's not active within me right now. So many of my clients struggle with this the most

[00:44:29] because they want to get through it as fast as possible. And I get that, right? Because we gave up so much of our lives to this system. And we're just like, I just want to be done with it, right?

[00:44:43] What I always encourage people to say is be slow. Like go as slow as your body and your nervous system need to right now because the slower you go now, the faster you get to go later.

[00:44:58] And I don't mean this as like a brag or a humble brag. But now in my life now, it takes me almost no time to process through things because I have a sense of safety in my body. I understand what's happening.

[00:45:14] Took me so, so much time, like five, six, seven, eight years ago. And it was, I had to learn this process. But when I did and my body was finally like, oh, we've got this. I could start going through things much faster.

[00:45:29] You will get there, but give your body time to learn that. And then you get to go fast and you will, you will get there. But just like give your body time to get there. What are some ways that you recognize success and clients?

[00:45:44] When you're like, oh, they did it. Like what are those like, ah, they've made it kind of moments for you or for them. But yeah, what is the other side look like? Because I don't think it really ends.

[00:45:56] But I think that there are some things we can pin on the other side. So it's gonna sound funny, but I think it's usually in the small moments. And I say that because they're almost so small that the clients don't always pick up on them

[00:46:07] and I'm like, oh, you notice that, right? So for instance, it could be like, okay, something you have a client where it's like, there may be in a relationship with somebody and they're explaining how this person did this thing. And so they noticed themselves respond this way.

[00:46:25] And I'll pause and be like, okay, you responded that way. And they're like, yeah, I'm like, you know that you used to get anxious in that point right there. They're like, yeah, I'm like, well, why didn't you get anxious? And they're like, oh, well, I did this.

[00:46:39] Instead, I'm like, that's huge though. Like that used to send you into this spiral that would last the entirety of the day. And instead, you had this other response that it seems so tiny, but you've got like eight hours back. They're like, oh, yeah, okay.

[00:47:00] Or they're like, yeah, I totally perseverated on this thing and it'll be like, well, for like how long? And they're like, I mean, like 15 minutes and I'm like, that's it. And they're like, yeah, but I perseverated still and I'm like, yeah, but you used to do that

[00:47:14] for the whole weekend. And instead, you backed it up to 15 minutes and then you said, okay, I need to go do my puzzle or something like that. And so I know that sounds so silly, but it's like, we have this idea in our head that like healing means

[00:47:29] it's rainbow and butterflies all day. It's that I'm gonna never feel triggered or that when I am triggered, I have this beautiful tool kit that I open and I select these things and then my life is perfect again. And I'm like, no, it's literally these little tiny choices

[00:47:48] that we make, but sometimes we're like clawing on for dear life to make the different choices but we do it anyways. It is messy and it's not pretty, but we do it anyways. And we come out and we're like ragged but we did it, right?

[00:48:06] And I think that that's like so, so important. It's like anything. It's like, you know what? This is the moment where I tend to like really pull back and avoid people, but instead, I leaned in for connection. And it was so hard, but I did it.

[00:48:21] I sent the text message instead of just icing the person out or I said that I'm so sorry. I didn't show up for you this way when in reality I wanted to rip them apart and tell them how they had hurt me.

[00:48:34] And so those are actually what I would consider big moments of healing. Any tiny moment of awareness, any tiny moment where I did something different, I made a different choice. Those, I think are big moments of healing. And moments worth celebrating. Yes, we do sometimes have those big,

[00:48:53] like cathartic moments where we stand up and we're empowered. Like, we do have those, but more often than not, the healing comes in the small mundane daily moments where we make little choices, little shifts. And I think we need to celebrate those as well.

[00:49:09] Yeah, yeah, I love that the answer is not like, you don't have triggers anymore. You're not triggered anymore. Or you manage to avoid all the things that bother you in the world. It's like, nope, that's not what healing looks like. It's being able to move through them.

[00:49:23] And I believe that feels healthier for you. Yeah, yeah. One question that people had for you is, do you have any advice about setting boundaries with family who are still in these religious spaces and in these religious beliefs? Yeah, I mean, first of all,

[00:49:41] it's going to look different with every single person. So this is not a universal answer because you're going to have to figure out what is right for you. Boundaries are for you. They're not necessarily for the other person, meaning that it is not anybody else's responsibility

[00:49:58] to keep your boundaries. Of course, in a perfect world, it would be so nice, right? Like, here's my boundaries. And you're going to be the one in charge of making sure that they're cats, like great, right? That would be so wonderful.

[00:50:12] But that is unrealistic, not going to happen. So they are for you. Now, how somebody receives our boundaries or reacts when we set them, that can sometimes be information for us. But even that, like not always, because people are allowed to have feelings about our boundaries.

[00:50:28] And those feelings don't often mean that they're disrespecting them. It just means they have feelings about them. So I'm always a big fan of really looking at, like what are the things that I need in order to feel safe

[00:50:41] and how does that shape the way that my boundaries look? And how can I give that to myself without involving other people? So if it's like, hey, I need these things. Is there a way I can do that without having it, like in fringe on other people,

[00:50:59] like with my family or whatever, do I need to tell them about this in order to have this family? Are there other supports that I can bring into this that can help me with this? So I don't actually have to have a sit down conversation

[00:51:10] with my parents or my siblings or whatever. And I don't say that so that they're not being held accountable just because sometimes they're not always going to be the best people to have the conversation with me because they might not understand it, or they might get deeply offended.

[00:51:25] Also, I like to look for what are the areas where you can say yes, where you can say, hey, here are the connecting points. Here are the things that I do feel comfortable talking with and can I make sure to steer the conversation in those directions.

[00:51:38] Sometimes you might need to have a very specific conversation where you say, hey, mom, I know we disagree on these topics but I do really value a relationship with you. So would it be okay if we talked about these 10 things

[00:51:52] on this list here and we just keep these three things off of it? Or I'm willing to have a conversation with you about anything other than these two topics, right? And so if you go in that direction, just know that I'm going to probably try to steer

[00:52:07] the conversation over here or I'm going to disengage until you're ready to talk about something else. And what you're doing there is you're looking for a point of connection, like I am connecting with you if this comes up, here's how I'm going to handle it

[00:52:22] and I'm not disconnecting from you but I will wait until you're ready to reconnect in this other way. I think that can be helpful. If you have family members who maybe you've asked like, hey, can we not talk about this?

[00:52:34] Can we maybe steer clear of these things over here and they're constantly disregarding you or dismissive what you're saying? They're truly maybe points where you're like, hey, I do need to remove myself from the situations and that might be things where it's like

[00:52:51] I have to really limit the time. I spend with them and maybe there's a variety of things you could do. Maybe I will only be in public with them so we can only meet somewhere for lunch. Maybe it's that I will only spend holidays with them.

[00:53:03] Maybe it's that I will only do phone calls with them. Maybe it's that I will only send text messages, like looking for what are the ways that I can feel safe to communicate with them or connect with them, what's the bare minimum that I can handle

[00:53:17] and give yourself permission to just do that and don't go above that until you feel safe and or comfortable to try just a teeny tiny bit more and if that doesn't feel good then go back to what you were comfortable with in the first place.

[00:53:33] And don't feel bad if you can't push yourself further than that. Like that's okay. I know there are people that make the choice to go no contact. I know that's a very hard decision for most people and most people don't come to that lightly.

[00:53:45] That is of course an option and I know it's a difficult choice if people do have to make that but I do think that's on the table for people as well. Yeah, absolutely, thank you. I usually end with having our guests offer some kind of encouragement

[00:54:01] to the deconstruction community but you do that in all of your work and in everything that you do. So I'm gonna flip the question for you and could you offer some encouragement or think about what you might say now to your younger self who is in religion

[00:54:21] and what you might say to her? Yeah, when you said that the first thing that came to mind was trust yourself because the story I shared earlier, I think I was probably 19 or 20, maybe 21 at the oldest, like having that thought

[00:54:36] of like what are we really doing this for? Like is this really matter and I've often gone back to that moment and just said like you know what you're talking about. You can trust yourself and I think she was brilliant in wise

[00:54:51] because she knew like this is not gonna end well but I also know she was scrappy and so she would have figured it out. And so yeah, I always do wonder like what if I just would have gotten out then? Like what would my life have been like?

[00:55:08] Which is hard to imagine. I really like my life now. Like I do, I love everybody who's in it and I'm so proud of what I created. So it's like okay could I have the same life maybe and still have gotten out at 20 that would've been great

[00:55:23] but I would tell her to trust herself like she is wise. She knows what's up and she can trust that. I love that, thank you so much. Well thank you so much for being here. I will link all of your socials and websites

[00:55:36] and all the things in the show notes so people can find you and connect with you and I'll put your book there as well. Thank you for being in this space and being on the podcast of course but for all the work that you do.

[00:55:46] We as a community appreciate it. Wow, I appreciate being here for having me on. Yeah thank you. Thanks for listening to another episode of Hello Deconstructionists. If you enjoyed this episode or any others please like, follow or subscribe to the podcast

[00:56:02] and if you feel like it leave us a review so other people know what this show is all about. If you have any questions, comments or parts of your own experience you'd like to share on the podcast you can email me at hello.deacons at gmail.com

[00:56:15] and as always you can find me over on Instagram at hello, underscore, deconstructionists where together we are building community post evangelicalism. Huge thank you to Amy Azara for writing their theme song for this podcast and when the sweet little box inevitably gets stuck in your head

[00:56:30] I hope it reminds you of this wonderful community that's here with you. Thanks to all our guests for sharing these parts of their stories with us and of course to you for listening. See you next time.