Speaking Up with Andrew Pledger

Andrew Pledger was born in a fundamentalist Christian home. He was home schooled and fully immersed in religion from a very young age.  When he began to question things in his teen years, he came to some conclusions that didn't quite line up with what he had been taught. He broke free from his religion and came out to the world as part of the LGBTQ+ community in a very dramatic and public way. Now Andrew is an activist, writer and podcaster helping to bring awareness about spiritual and religious abuse and trauma. He's working on a book about his experiences and also hosts a podcast called....Yep you guessed it, Speaking Up with Andrew Pledger.

Follow Andrew on social media:
www.liinks.co/4ndrewpledger

Listen to Andrew's Podcast:
https://anchor.fm/andrew-pledger

Transcript

What was that we were saying last time, if only we had as good a boundaries as computers, have he put one wrong letter and they're like, Nope, not gone there. Funny. welcome to butterflies and bravery.  We have today with us, Andrew. So Andrew, you were raised in a fundamentalist, Christian, is that what you had said? Yes. I was more specifically. I grew up and an IFB church, which stands for independent fundamental Baptist. And the thing about IFB churches is they're not.

Associated with any organization. Cause you know, obviously they're independent, but there have been a lot of systemic issues still with these churches of abuse, even though they're not connected to any organization that controls them, but they still have their own issues. A lot of issues just with the way their power structure is set up and the very extreme, oppressive theologies that they have the environment.

So it's definitely, it keeps people in place in line and it's  very patriarchal type system. The church that I grew up in it was called gospel light Baptist church. It used to be pastored by brothers Bobby Robertson, who was pretty well known in the IFB circles. And, he was, he, wasn't a nice man, but the obsession.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking too.

Ooh. But he never had a scandal throughout his whole career, which really shocked me. And he generally was a very loving person. He had that charisma too, that people really loved and people that really drew people to him and the obsession that my church had for him was very cult-like. And I didn't really begin to understand that until I got into my teen years.

And I think a church member was praying in the pulpit and they were praying to God and in the prayer, they were like, dear Jesus, please help us. It be more like brother Bobby. And

when they said that, I was like okay that's wow. If God is real, like that's such a slap in the face to him, and as I got older, I realized that the reason people were so obsessed with him is because to them, he was as. I'm living example is living proof that oh, he's a great Christian. He, our faith must be true because even a lot of Christians will admit it's really discouraging

so being around other Christians, because they could be really terrible alive. And even there were times I would argue with my mom about how I felt like people who were unbelievers were much nicer, kinder people who were believers in our church. And, there were times she was like, yeah, it would upset her, but she would eventually agree.

 A memory that really stuck out to me or stood out to me was someone gave my mother an ESV. Bible. And they obviously did not know her. The fact that they even gave her an ESV Bible. And I remember when she got it, what did the ESV Stanford, I'm sorry.

Cause I know king James version. Like we know that one for sure. The case, honestly, I don't know. I should. I grew up on the KJV yeah. Oh gosh. So I never like delve into other Bibles growing up. And even as I got older and got rid of that view, it was hard for me to even go to other versions because I had been indoctrinated for so long.

So that to even pick up another Bible just cause psychological discomfort, just because even though it was really like cognitive dissonance experience it. Cause even though I didn't hold that belief. But that had been ingrained in me for so absolutely automatic. It's I think really like in psychology, it's called like a conditioned reflex.

That just happens to you. Yes. And yes, it stands for English standard version. I had English standards. I thought that's what I was going to say. I thought it was gotcha. So yes, someone gave her this Bible and she picked it up and looked at it. She's I really want to throw this in the trash can, but.

But then there part of her that I didn't want to do, because she was having her own moment of cognitive dissonance of oh, that doesn't feel right to me. Even though I believe this isn't legitimate Bible. And then she was like I don't want it to go to Goodwill because I don't want it to just see anyone or lead anyone astray.

And she like put it in like a tough of a closet somewhere to just be forgotten and to be in dust. So gather dust.  Another example that really stood out to me.

And my parents were able to use was that I was taught that interracial marriage is a sin. And so growing up, I couldn't, I remember as a child, I wanted to watch this Disney show and it had an interracial couple in it. And I was watching a show on TV and my mom walked in the room and she got really angry.

She was like, I cannot believe them having an interracial couple on that show, pushing this agenda onto children. It's that's not right.  You're not allowed to watch this show again.  I didn't really have a concept of  racism at all, or was taught about racism. And I might've accounted obviously some in like history books with Abraham Lincoln and that time period, but that's probably the only exposure that I got.

There was no idea of that racism exists, right? Yeah. That it was even a social issue. Yes. And so even without knowing that internally, I knew that when she said that, like something felt wrong, About it inside. And I was like, okay.  I don't see the issue here. That's really messed up. At these two people, obviously it's a TV show and it's fake, but I'm like, if two people love each other, like why does it matter?

And I didn't say that out loud to her because I knew that they were very firm about their beliefs  they were like, we want you marrying someone of the same race, because we don't want mixed grandchildren. We want them to look like us and, things like that.

 They were stuck in this mindset of the fifties and sixties. Yeah.. I rarely got in trouble ever, because I was so scared the wrong thing. I was like blindly obedient to authority. At least in front of their faces, but right. Because that was how you got their approval and their love. So yes, most definitely. And so as I got older at 20 years old, I remember, I think by that time it was like my fourth depressive episode at 20 years old.

And I had struggled with depression quite a bit in my teen years. And. I think it was around 16 was when I had my first depressive episode and it got very bad where I was like in bed, I couldn't eat, I could literally feel my bones aching.  I had never experienced a depression that terrible. And it was like just a whole weight was  on top of me and some kind of like energy or force just had my mind or something, if that makes sense.

I felt it had passed. It just felt so awful. And of course, like if you don't eat, that's not going to help your physical health or mental health at all.  I was struggling so much and I still didn't know exactly how to really ask for help, but of course my parents didn't notice I stopped eating.

And I think it was like in two weeks I had lost like 20 pounds. 

And as I got older and as I continued to struggle throughout periods of our life with depression, I would just try to hide it basically. And even before that depressive episode at 16, I had already asked my mom, I wanted to go to the doctor and get on antidepressants.

Just, I was so sad and she didn't, she said, no, she's they usually just make it worse for teens your age. You don't need to be on antidepressants at 16. You'll be fine. Like she never mentioned it again after that. And and even at my well visit, I had mentioned to my doctor at 16, that I was.

Depressed. And I think she's okay. She's I think it was at the end of our appointment and she's come back or do another appointment and come back. But that's when my mom had said no. And when I finally go to the doctor, four years later, at 20 years old, she looks in her records and she's oh, she's you had depression at 16, but you never came back to the doctor.

She's what happened? And that's when I told her, my mom did not want me to be on antidepressants. Yeah. And she looked at me, she's no, I'm at 20 years old. And she was like, Andrew, she's your mom knows you're going to happen. You're going to be an antidepressants, does he accept that?

And I'm like, she realizes it now. And in order to actually to get to go to the doctor I had still tried to hide my depression and, for this episode I couldn't sleep. Yeah. That was the big difference I could not sleep. And of course the same thing with feeling heavy, wanting to being in bed and, with so little rest and that will definitely destroy your mental health.

And so I really tried to deal with it just by constantly taking melatonin, taking sleeping pills and different things, just to get some sleep. Cause I'm like, okay, once I get sleep, it will be better. It won't be better. And, I knew it was serious when melatonin and sleeping pills would not get knocked me out.

 I was working at a fast food restaurant near the time.

And you have to be so alert for that and constantly doing tasks and be doing that efficiently and quickly with focus. And of course the lack of sleep that was so hard to try to function at work. And so then during the day I would take caffeine pills just to have energy. 

. And so I basically had a breakdown at work and I had to go to the bathroom and just crying and, thankfully like a manager, sat down with me and asked what was wrong.

And I, I think it was really the first time I think I consciously admitted to myself that I was depressed and I just didn't know how to get out of it. And that was hard to admit. And I remember saying to her, I'm like, I don't want to live anymore. Like I just want to die. And so they let me off my shift early and they sat and talked with me for two hours trying to help me.

They were so sweet and kind and so helpful. And, they gave me the courage that I needed to go to a doctor. Cause I told them I'm really scared about trying to go to a doctor. Cause I know how my parents are about mental health and going to a doctor and getting on vacation. And also too, like I was very worried about like how much it would cost to.

Cause I wasn't aware of that area about how insurance worked or medication and my family we were pretty well off, but like my parents were very frugal and my dad was very  obsessive about money. And so growing up, I always felt that like money was more important than being right.

And that, it was always before me. And so basically, my, my managers will let you need to like Andrew. Cause I told him like, oh, what about the cost? Or like Andrew, like you cannot put a dollar amount on your life. And so when they set that, I'm just like, that's when I truly consciously realized, I'm like, oh my gosh, like I've seen money as more valuable than me because the behaviors of my father and I've repressed my knees just to save money because I see that as more important than me.

So that was a really big moment and a big step for me to truly begin to value myself and began to know my worth. And so that's when, I even taught you to them for a while. And my mom, she was in the car and she had already been waiting like 30 minutes to pick me up. And so I knew she would have been upset about that.

So I got in the car and she immediately starts doing her fake crying. And at first I thought it was real. And with the fake crying, they always put their face in their hands and makes this like wailing right now. It's and then. And then she's I was so worried. She was like, I was so worried about you.

I didn't know where you were like, oh my gosh. And I was like in the sun of her voice on a genuine, and then I'm like mother I'm like, I'm dealing with my own things and issues in life. I literally haven't slept in like nearly a week. Like I just want to die and so depressed. And then she looks up shocked by that.

And there's no tears in her eyes. And I was like, what? That's my process that it was fake. And that she was trying to emotionally manipulate me and make me feel guilty really so that I wouldn't do that again.  I said to her,, if you don't let me go to a doctor I am not going back to college. I am quitting my job and I'm just going to be in bed all day until it goes away finally. And so then that finally woke her up to be like, oh wow, this is really serious.

And so then that's when I was able to go to the doctor and for me, I knew medication. Wasn't going to be like a cure. I knew there were deeper psychological issues that I didn't even have the capacity at that time to even know what it was. And, therapy was something I had thought about, but my life is so busy with working full-time and going to college.

You know what, I can just take medication for now. And it can definitely help. It'd be like a life raft and the storm for me, it helped me function and maybe I can get help later. And so later on, as I still suffer from depression for a while I finally realized that I was struggling with religious trauma.

And when I found the term religious trauma and understanding that people can be traumatized by toxic religious settings or just traumatic religious experiences. Yeah. It really clicked for me. And I, as I was reading all the symptoms of trauma reduced critical thinking skills, like that was a thing that immediately stuck out to me because I have very poor, critical thinking skills when I was bad, very bad because of all the indoctrination and skirts and from thinking in general.

Very reduced critical distance skills and struggled with emotional regulation. Yeah, be knowing how to deal with the emotions. And then I see, they can, people can struggle with depression, anger, anxiety, grief, all these different things. . And the awful thing about trauma is that, it really, it disconnects you.

From yourself next, you from other people too. And as human beings, we want to feel alive and happy, and we want to feel connected to our need, to feel connected to ourselves and others. So when we don't have that, we have all these other trauma going on in our minds or things that have damaged us psychologically.

And also we're being deprived at the social needs that we need also. And also we're disconnected from ourselves. So it's if you don't run a disconnect with ourselves or connect with our help with ourselves, we're not going to heal or even get better. So it's this awful cycle that's compounding.

It is most definitely. And so for me, It was really too much to handle when I first realized it was religious trauma. So I'm like, okay. I, this is complex PTSD. Whoa, like this was a lot, it was a lot to take in and realize. And so then I was like, I don't really want to deal with this. I'm so afraid that if I dig deeper, I'm going to get so dispirited and I'm just going to want to die.

Like in this infinite pit of just misery I'm so afraid of this. What if it's too much? And I'm just hopeless. I can never get better. What if it's that bad? And so I had read a book on spiritual abuse, but it didn't have the term religious trauma in it. So like I knew I had experienced spiritual abuse, but I didn't know about religious trauma or just trauma in general or.

And I had to look back on my life and  as a pinpoint all of the things that affected me emotionally and figure out the needs that did not get met and the traumas that happened and how that affected me different ways.  I thought about it, as I'm older,  if a person gets saved, and they're fine for the rest of their lives  then why didn't they go back to church?

You know what I mean? 

And of course the child I was told so many times about how like Jesus died for me. Like he was thinking of me when he was nailed on the cross and bleeding and tortured. So as a child thinking of sinning, it was, to me, it was like nailing a nail and to Jesus or something.

And it was just so much psychological. And so it didn't make sense to me that we were forgiven, but God was still angry about our sins. And he still seems so mad and pissed off all the time. I was like,

all right. Yeah, contradictory. It was, and I was like, huh. So in order to get a REM as a kid, I was like, you know what, I guess to me, I'm like, okay, I guess I get a ticket to heaven. Like he's forgiving me in that sense, but he's still going to be mad at me about every single thing I do. And he's gonna steal the bike, hurt me mentally and emotionally, but Hey, I'm not going to suffer for eternity.

 And I think other things that cause religious inshallah or that cause religious trauma in me was very like homophobic teachings at my church.

Of course that church, they love the Sodom and Gomorrah story and they love to talk about how, oh, if our nation, oh especially with the U S legalized gay marriage, it's oh, we're becoming Sodom. And Gomorrah of God's gonna punish our country. Like you better turn back and all these different things and, I was always taught in that church that, being.

Dave was a choice and they painted such an ugly picture of gay people in the LGBTQ plus community. And they were all perverts trying to go around and hurt. Children are trying to convert them in quotes, like to their lifestyle and different things. And so when I started having my own like same sex desires, it was very like confusing to me.

Yeah. I first I'm like, oh, I'm not gay because. I don't mean these lists of things that they say about these people. So I must be straight then all that's hilarious.

I must be straight. Yeah. I'm not looking at kids. I'm not feeling perverted. Oh, I don't think I get, and I know it's really sad how, because I was tough that I was really taught this very specific, really a general lies  slandering of just the LGBTQ plus community. And I really didn't have internet access.

So I was like 16 or 17. So my only access to other information was through books. And I think it was at a bookstore. We were looking around and I saw a book on homosexuality and I picked it up and I actually started reading it and understanding what it actually buzz and how it wasn't this very narrow definition that they talked about.

And then it wasn't a choice and different things. And so that really caused a lot of confusion too. And me I'm like, okay, I'm like, Okay. Maybe I am gay. And that was still very hard to accept. And reading that book. I was like a little bit of it. I was like, okay, so they're lying or wrong about this.

And really, I feel like that's what kind of started a domino effect of okay, what else could they be wrong about? Yeah, let's question everything else. So that really just started this big effect. And it really stuffed that illusion of blindly 72 authority is always right. Because , growing up, I was always told by my parents, even when adults are wrong, they are right.

Yeah. Because you have to suspend common sense to be able to follow the beliefs. Did none of them connect, like we're saying there's just constant contradiction after contradiction. So you'd literally the only way to be able to make sense of them in your own mind is to suspend rational thoughts and common sense.

And yeah. And then we all wonder why we're confused or depressed or, yeah. And so I knew what they said. Wasn't sure about gay people. I still had, all those years of conditioning. Like I imagine being taught to hate a group of people and have an awful discussing view.

And you hold that belief to I had a very awful view of the LGBTQ community growing up because that's just the environment I was in. That's what I was taught. There was nothing else. And then when I had that realization of myself, that was just too much to handle, even though I knew now those things that they say weren't true, but still all those years of conditioning, it really caused so much self hatred and self loathing.

And that was really a big part of my depression that self-hatred self-loathing and having to hide who I am. I can't really be myself around anyone. And even in my household, like we never talked about emotions. We weren't even really allowed to express anger. We weren't allowed to have any opinions because my parents were always right.

And what their fundamentalist, Christianity and their interpretation. So it was just such an emotionally repressed. And fire and  psychologically abusive, in the church and really at home and, they wouldn't see it that way, but looking back at some of the things growing up, I'm like, okay, like that was very verbally, psychologically abusive.

And an example of this was that I remember when I was a child and I would do something good. I would say to my parents like, oh, I did this good thing. So I deserve a piece of candy or time to watch TV because I did something good. And I was just a child looking for validation and praise from my parents, like any child wants and needs.

And and I remember, my mom looking at me and being like, no,  you deserve to burn in hell forever. And  as a kid, I'm just like, wow,  I could just feel myself. My spirit  completely changed to feel down and just, I guess  Hertz and fearful and felt worthless.

Yeah. Very little value. And after a couple of times of that, I'm like, I really just learned to never say that I deserved anything after that. And, I think like unconsciously as a kid, I learned from observing my parents' behavior, that the more I can form for their religion, the more that they would show love and acceptance, like that was the only way they showed approval.

Yeah. With them more performative tasks I did related to their religion. So the more I read my Bible than my read my, the more I read, the more I went to like teen activities or different things. And what made me like went to the altar in church after service, like it caused, I could tell that caused more happiness and they would show more love after doing that because I could tell even though they never explicitly said, oh we're not going to love you as much if you don't conform to this.

But they said it through their behavior, they communicated so much like actions speak louder than words. Most definitely. And children in a developing years, like they're sponges, they absorb everything around them and internalize that really a lot of the times unconsciously. And they learned to adapt to that, whether they realize it or not.

 Oh, okay., I get more love if I conform to this and I really fooled myself, I think into thinking that I enjoyed this. That, oh, this is really good for me. This is making my life better. And I think as I got older and my mental health deteriorated from  the internalized homophobia, the Phillies of just worthlessness from  growing up under hateful messages and being put down by my own parents and other adults in Sunday school.

 And of course, as I finally got into the teen department, the extreme purity culture really kicked in and, sadly it's much worse for women.

 I remember his Sunday school, the teacher talking on and on, about abstinence and waiting until marriage. And I remember him handing out all these pieces of paper in class and he's there's a signature line at the bottom. And there's a statement about saying, you're going to say pure until you're married his and he's God is going to see you sign this and God is going to now, if you break this.

Rolling. This promise that you made like, oh, God died on the cross for you. He did all the suffering for you. He saved you from hell. This is the least you can do is just keep this promise. And even at the age, I think  I was probably 15 or 16. And at that time I was still a hardcore Fundy Christian.

 But doing that purity pledge. I didn't even sign it though. Cause I didn't feel comfortable doing that because at that time, I didn't know about coercion or emotional manipulation

there were things that I felt like, oh, this is wrong, but they were doing, but I didn't have a word for it. Cause it wasn't an educated right. I kind of thing. And I just tucked away the pledge in my Bible. I didn't sign anything. And I like try to subtly leave the classroom because of course he's waiting and watching everyone signed this

so like this guy coerced all of these, like teen boys into making this huge commitment. And, there was still so much shame just around sexual desires in, and of themselves.  Not even  having sex with just all this sexual repression just really causes a lot of issues. And I think really it's caused a lot of.

Men and these churches to  sexually assault women, because they've been repressing it for so long. And then finally it  explodes.  They don't know what to do with it. And not that it doesn't justify anything that they do and that they shouldn't sexually assault people at all, but their theology  it's not helping prevent those issues that extreme you just towards sexuality in general. And thankfully, I'm sure the women got it much worse in the Sunday school room, even in the Geisinger school, I was always taught oh, like girls, they don't really want it.

They don't really care.

Meanwhile, trying to even figure out if you like girls or not, like you're like your girls don't want it. You're like, okay, so guys do then.

And  that constant, just fear, guilt and manipulation out my life. I remember living in so much fear that God would literally kill my family at any second. If I didn't confess my sin for something. What's your relationship with your family like that? Are they still pretty much in the same church and they're still in the same church that I grew up in and was traumatized by.

  At 17 years old, I knew that I wanted to leave fundamentalist Christianity. Like I knew  I have to get the fuck out of here. , but it was so hard because that wasn't my entire world.  I was homeschooled my entire life.

I was homeschooled for the sake of being indoctrinated into fundamentalist Christianity. My social life was church and the youth group at church. And  I was in a homeschool group that I was religious and I was in a four H club that still have religious people. So I was very tiny bubble.

 The same kind of people who thought in similar ways and yes, very cult-like. And, so yeah, I was very isolated in that environment.

So it's like, how do you escape that? 17? Like I was so financially dependent on my parents still I had a job saving up for college and, even my parents at that point, they were like, we're only gonna pay for college if you go to a Christian university, because obviously I couldn't pay for college on my own.

Doing minimum wage at fast food was not doable, so trapped, very trapped. And  I had always dreamed of going to college.   My parents, they wanted me to go to Pensacola Christian college, which is a fundamentalist Christian college in Pensacola, Florida.

And my brother was there at the time. And he loved it of course, because he bought into all of it. But thankfully I knew myself enough to know that I would hate that so much because at this school, Pensacola Christian college, number one, you could not leave campus without signing a form and telling them where you're going and with.

Number two, you weren't even allowed to go to your own church. There was a church on campus for everyone to go to. So very cult-like atmosphere, very controlling. And like the rules of course were so extreme. Everyone like music, TV, just media in general,  separate of guys and girls,  girls could only wear dresses.

They could not wear pants at all. Like that extreme. Yes. And this college wasn't even accredited at the time at all. So I'm like,  there were people going there getting a degree in education, but they could only teach in a Christian school and it wasn't valid anywhere else. So it's to me, I was like, okay.

I'm like, if I'm going to go to a Christian college, it's going to have to be accredited and it's going to have to be worth something. And so Bob Jones was another college in the list. The possibility is Bob Jones university in Greenville, South Carolina.  They were founded originally as a fundamentalist Christian college.

That was their foundation. And as the years went on, they drifted away from that label. And they said that they're a nondenominational Protestant college, but it still has those fundamentalist tendencies   I was there for three and a half years. Yes. And so Bob Jones was still iffy for my parents because Bob Jones does not take a KJV only stance.

They use several versions of the Bible. Yeah. And so my parents were like, you know what? They're like, we've decided we feel like it's okay for you to go there, but we're just letting you know that if you were going to be like a ministry major or a Bible major, we would not want you to go there at all.

Yeah. What kind of majors? Do they if it's not accredited and it's a fundamentalist university or college, what sort of majors can you even? Yeah, so those, the reason I went to Bob Jones university is that they are accredited, they're regionally accredited. Okay. So that's really a big reason why I went.

And another reason is that they're one of the  few Christian colleges that has a very wide variety of majors. . A wide variety from the sciences to the arts to communications and so originally I was looking into being like a cinema major.

Cause that's what I was interested in at the time. And, Pensacola didn't have that. So that was a good reason to not go there.   When I was there for the fall 2018, that was the first semester that they allowed women to wear pants.

Oh, my goodness in 2015 and another tidbit about this school is that in 2000, the, in 2000, they finally lifted their interracial dating ban So I went to Bob Jones university. And that year. At that college, I was surrounded by so many people, but I had never felt so alone in my life. I had no real connections with people. I've can not be honest. I can not be authentic. I live in a state of hyper vigilance, just always being on alert, always having some anxiety.

And so my nervous system was just, and my mind was so distracted. Oh yes. So much. And just the very strict schedule that we had to we almost had chapel every single day that we had to go to, which is it's like a worship service. And then like a sermon that's usually like 40 minutes that we had to do just about every day.

Then we had discipleship groups several nights a week at 10 30 at night that we were required to go to. And, also we were required to go to two church services a week. So either two on Sunday or one on Sunday at one on Wednesday. And, on Sundays they would check the dorms to kick people out.

So they would just have to go to church and it was crazy  yeah. This is the level of control like that. They have to impose on people  it was the same for us, like growing up, like they had to schedule us down to the minute to be able to keep control, to keep everybody in line, to conform to their beliefs, to conform to the way that they wanted them to behave.

And that's obviously what you went through too. Did you graduate from that? No, Atlanta that this is so a 70 things have happened, that year I got so severely depressed, I think at that time, that was like my third depressant episode at I think I'd just really 18 and then 2019.

Yeah. , it was to the point where it was like, oh my gosh, like if it was this really essential feeling of oh my gosh, like I'm not going to be alive tomorrow. That feeling, I like knowing that it's your end? It's the end of your life? This is it.

And it was like towards the end of that year that I was just so frustrated with my life because I was bullied and harassed so much. I was struggling with religious trauma that I still wasn't aware of and  very poor relationships and a lot of  attachment issues. And there's just so many different coping mechanisms.

I had two that were just all these different things in my life and different traumas that I just needed to deal with, but I wasn't aware.  I remember even making my own suicide video and thinking that, this is it, but after making that and actually talking. It was a very therapeutic really, cause I'd never talked to anyone about any of these, but then just to say it out loud , it's just like a video camera, there is it was like not all of it, obviously a nice bit of, it just was out of my system.

I was like, oh my gosh. That feels wow. Who knew that it could help to actually talk about your feelings? Yeah. I always say it's like, when you're sick to your stomach, you have to puke and you're just sick to your stomach and you're sick and you're sick and you're sick and then you pay off and you're like, oh, I feel a lot better now.

It's like that. It's just like a verbal vomit. Just gotta get it out and then it feels much better afterwards. It really does. And, after that, I called like Trevor hotline, which is like a suicide hotline, those people, and they still help me work through that. And, I think that was really the first time in my life where I made the decision  to start thinking for myself, because up to that point, I had been so indoctrinated to always go with a prayer first, go to the Bible first, go to God.

But clearly that wasn't helping my life at all. It was making it so much worse. My mental health is so bad, even though I was doing all the things they told me to do, an issue  with the just trauma is that, because we're disconnected from ourselves, we don't even recognize our own needs.

And even if we can get to the point of recognize our needs is really hard also knowing how to meet those needs too. Yeah. And you don't know how to emotionally regulate when you're taught to really be scared of your emotions and not think for yourself and that you're supposed to be just joyful all the time.

Have the joy, the Lord is like this Christian toxic positivity that goes on. And so finally in that moment, I was like, what do I need in my life?  I need community. Like I need to be able to give love and get love back. And cause that's what I really needed and I cannot get this here.

 At Bob Jones, when you went to church, they had a list of churches that they approved. That you could go to, and  I'm like, I'm not going to find love and acceptance in a fundamentalist church.

And not all of the chairs on the list are fundamentalists, but a lot of them were still very conservative. They weren't fundamentalists. And so that's when I started searching, affirming churches in Greenville. And I found first Baptist Greenville and me being an introvert, like it was so scary for me to think about going to this huge church in this completely new environment, all by myself with no one with me.

And I finally got the courage to do it and I didn't even have a car. So I had to get an Uber and go to this church. And I knew I couldn't go to that church every week. And an Uber, like I was a college student, like that's expensive and long story short, when I got there at first, I felt out of place, but there was a visitor's lunch in.

And as I was walking to the luncheon, this girl says something to me and she was around my age and we started talking. And I sat at a table with her and her mother sat down with her and they introduced themselves. And I told them about my situation at Bob Jones and why I was at that church.

And they were like, oh, they're like, we literally live right by Bob Jones. Our neighborhood is not even like a quarter of a mile away from it. It's so close. And that's when they were like, oh we can drive you back. So you don't have to get an Uber. And, we exchanged numbers and,  they're a very nice family. And , at that time, it was a very hard for me to accept love from people to accept kindness.. It felt really uncomfortable because it was not something that like I was used to.  I felt guilty if someone did something good for me.

Cause I felt like I had to do something back or that really, I guess I felt that I didn't deserve it.. Because of all the indoctrination or just being put down and feeling worthless and all these things. And so as I got to know them more, they're like, we really want to help you, Angie.

, since we've gotten to know you, we're going to give you a key to our house. You can come over whenever you want, when you have time just to get away from the campus. And that was really great for me. And it's really what I needed. Exactly. So I'm so grateful that I happened to go to that church that day and that family and have this worked out and, I continue to going over to their health and seeing them.

And I think it was my sophomore year.  I didn't visit too often that semester. So then the next semester happened  and then that's when the pandemic happened.

Okay. Yeah. So that was. 2020. Yeah, that was March of 20, 20. Wow. Yeah. Two years. Yeah. So the country was like shutting down and I just couldn't believe it. And unlike is Bob Jones going to shut down. Cause that was something that seemed crazy to me cause they didn't seem like they would do that. And I remember going to chapel and they announced like we are shutting down the options diversity.

Cause we all need to go into isolation until we can get this pandemic under control and we're going to switch to online and finish the semester. And they're like, you're going to get a refund back for the rest of this semester. Cause you're not going to be here everyone got a refund for like room and board and food and all that stuff.

Of course you sort to pay something, but it was a lot less thankfully, but So we went back to online and I think horrible thing with dependent, it was that a lot of LGBTQ plus people had to go environments and small space and affirming spaces and adding on to the struggles that mental health of the pandemic in general, 

and it was so hard to deal with that to be separated because it was that first time truly experiencing. And acceptance. And then to suddenly be separated from that was very difficult., In order to deal with the pandemic. I just, I bought a bunch of CBD and,

and, and really that was the summer of the, like the first start of the pandemic.  So then flash forward to my junior year at Bob Jones, going back to Bob Jones, made my mental health even worse.

And I still couldn't even see that family because  there was someone in their family who was immune compromised. So they had to be isolated from everyone, even family.  I would try to text them every once in a while when I could and have conversations.

And we never really talked on the phone cause  at that time, talking on the phone was not something I did often.  Because I was so isolated and I was so sheltered, I never really got that chance to develop social skills.

Or to meet diverse kinds of people with different viewpoints and interact and learn how to get along with different people. And so I didn't have that. So it was very hard and like working in fast food really was tough, but it really got a lot of that out of my system. I really had a wake up call. I had to adjust for a lot of things through that, but I call it college.

It helps you adjust to different things, deal with that environment. That junior year  I still got really depressed.  I just started cutting just to feel something like it was so bad. . 

. So at 21 years old, , that's when I have friend decided I'm like, I'm leaving Christianity because this is so unhealthy.

This is making my life so much worse. And what really made it so hard to leave  was, I had so much fear of leaving because they tell you that, oh God's going to move as a blessing from you. If you leave, you're going to be out of the will of God.

You're going to be so unhappy, so miserable, but I was already experiencing all the terrible things that they were talking about in the church. So I was like, can it really get worse like that? And it really, it ordered to leave. I had to get to know myself and know who I really was and what I want. And what I needed to be happy and really figure out my issues.

And even at that time of the spring of 2021, I had not really dug into my religious trauma. And that's when I decided I'm like, I'm going to have to really face these demons. And that summer, I worked part time just for my mental health. I didn't do it full time because I need that break.

At the end of that summer, I began buying different psychology books and some books on religious trauma. The very few that are out there, after several months of digging into psychology and really journaling and figuring out all the different traumas in my life and the different causes and how I can get through.

I was in my senior year at Bob Jones university, and this is the fall of 2021.

This is last year. And, I'm a visual arts major and my concentration is photography. And at that time I really loved art photography, which really meant that I use photography as an artistic form to express my thoughts, ideas, and emotions. And I had an internship at the school and.

It was a photography internship. And I had the option in my internship to work on my portfolio. And so I decided to work on a cohesive,  photo series, surrounded around religious trauma.  It was the peak of my college career is you know what? I'm like, I've learned so much about photography.

I'm like, it's time to apply everything I've learned and create this very personal body of work. And it was the most personal thing I've ever created. And I think I spent like 60 plus hours planning and executing this photo series. And the photo series is like emotionally. Going through the experiences I had growing up, and this series is really centered around this subject.

This person who is locked inside of this dark dungeon type room, and all they have in this room is their Bible and across that's all they had. And really to me emotionally, that represents me how I was so locked in chapter my world at all I had was religion. That was the only resource that I had. And this person is struggling with their mental health and it's deteriorating throughout this series.

And they're praying and praying so hard trying to get better. They're reading their Bible. And , I decided to add the scary. Elements into it because that's really what I experienced. So I did in a series, I add some elements of demons. , there is a photo of someone reading their Bible and there's a demon in front of them, even though, at the, at that time I lied, I didn't believe that a literal demon, but at that time I thought it was so real to me.

And that's how I felt because I believed it. And it really caused all the pain. Not necessarily because there was a demon, but by all mind was just pit against myself. Really. And what did you do with this body of work? What did you do with it?  Would usually submit work that I was doing every week to my teacher who was the head of my internship, but I decided to not. Submit this federal serious to hurt and let anyone see it at Bob Jones, because, I knew it was controversial because religious people don't want to deal with the fact that their religion has caused trauma. It causes a cognitive dissonance.  A lot of these people blame victims because they don't want to deal with the harms, their religion and their beliefs and their theology and their behaviors

and so I decided to not submit it. And I was like, you know what? I think I'm not going to submit this to school, but I'm definitely going to release this to the world and I'm going to put it online. So I was like, I want to promote this. I had limited time and resources. I'm like, how can I promote this? And that's my found out that Joshua Harris, the author of I kissed dating goodbye, which has sold over a million copies. He was really big in pushing the purity culture moment in evangelicalism with his book.

, so he came up with his book in the nineties and he was 21 years old when he published this book on love and dating 21 years old. And the Christian Church jumped on this book because it was filled with purity culture of saving sex until marriage never touching don't date.

,  to give advice. He gave in this book caused so much harm to so many people and I've never read the book. I've had no desire to read the book. It sounds so toxic and harmful with the ideas around sexuality it's, it was a best seller.

Christians really loved it and. He was a pastor. He was big in the evangelical movement as an author. And, 20 18. He renounced his book and apologizing. He was like, I'm so sorry for all the harm this, because, and then he announced that he left Christianity completely and he saw through all the harm that he was causing through the beliefs and teachings that he bought into and how it really harmed him.

And he continued that cycle of harm and he publicly announced it and he even had his own Ted talk about it, just about admitting to being wrong,  that really changed my perception of him so much. And it made me look up to him because we see a lot of church leaders and evangelicals who do so much harm and they don't give a fuck about it.

They don't care. But the fact that so much harm, he apologized for it terribly. And then he's you know what? I am, this was wrong. And I am getting myself out of this system. So that's a little bit of his background. He used social media to really show his deconstruction journey and to give a voice to people from different face in a deconstruction journey and really in Christianity.

And he had this Instagram show called every story matters that he did live . And I was like, you know what? I am going to DM him  and so I reached out to him  and he did respond to me and he was like, I would love to have you on my show. . And it was the day before I went back for my last semester at Bob Jones university. And, I knew the possible consequences of being on his show and talking about my photo series and deconstruction and talking about my sexuality, but I knew intuitively that I was supposed to do this and I was okay with the consequences, whatever, because of the number one, the awareness that I could bring to religious trauma through his show.

And. Really art is so powerful. There are only so many things that you can express in words, but art , it's like a whole other language expressing emotions and traumas different things. And I'm like, if I can just share this photo series with this audience that I think would definitely relate to it and enjoy it and help them process things like it was, the Sirius was incredible for me.

H it helped me process so much trauma through creating it and like actively thinking. And  it took me to a dark place to create it, honestly. And, but I was able thankfully to get out of that and still continue processing things. And I posted it on my Instagram around, I think it was like January 2nd, 2022.

And I finally I've put it on my website too.  On the show, it was a talk about my photo series, but I really ended up chilling my story because it was such an important context to the whole series.

 In this photo series, like I said, this person is locked in a room.

, the person, they have a necklace that has a key on it. So the entire time they're relying on religion, they have this key on them that unlocks this door. Like they had the answer to their problem. It wasn't in religion or these external things. It was inside of them.  The very beginning shot of the series is of the key hole. And you see this person inside suffering and the very good last shot is other than putting this key inside of the. Uh, Of how they escaped. And there are different emotional stakes. They go through in this series.  It is on my Instagram and on my website and  Instagram has guides just go to my guide section and I've put it into a little guide that people can look at. And  also my website,  as results of that interview with Josh, I got expelled from Bob Jones

and, I was okay. And it did really hurt a lot. Not gonna lie. Like it was hard because I was, I was supposed to graduate on May 6th of this year, 

there is a part of me that sad that I won't graduate mistakes, but part of me is so happy. It's really so proud of myself for doing it because. I, I was true to myself. I was authentic. I shared my story. I stood my ground and I did pay the price for it by this authoritarian environment. But because of that, I was able to inspire so many students at Bob Jones university who , had experienced so much spiritual abuse and religious trauma, but can never speak about it.

And I was just sickened by how much abuse that has gone on spiritual abuse that has gone on at Bob Jones university, because I did a poll on Instagram.  I'm like, Hey Bob Jones students, it's this is anonymous. Tell me what have you experienced at this college?

And it was just so sad to hear about so many people who have been blamed for the abuse that had happened in their lives, biblical counselors, looking at people and asking them, oh, what caused this person to abuse you? What did you do? And it's just so sad. And they don't even believe or understand psychology at all or apply it, ignore it completely.

And really biblical counseling is it's a pseudoscience. Like it's not based in science. And  what they told me was that I got kicked out because I said I left Christianity and that they can't have non-Christians at their university. And that's what they told me, the meeting.

 They never even brought up my sexuality  and all which, you know, in Joshua Harris has video.

That was like my official, like first coming out publicly for the first time, really going from the angle of how, being LGBTQ and the correlation with that and religious trauma and how so many people in the LGBTQ plus community have been traumatized from religion and many other people outside of that, to through these toxic doctrines.

Yeah. And so they were like, oh, you said these, you say you're deconstructing Christianity. So you're kicked out. And they never mentioned my sexuality, which is weird to me because Bob Jones is technically allowed to discriminate based on sexuality and gender, because they have a title nine exemption.

Which means they can still receive money from the government and still discriminate. And thankfully there is an organization that's trying to fight that that  all Christian  universities have a title, nine exemption.

And there, there are people fighting, hopefully there'll be a day where universities can't get that slip to discriminate and yeah. . So I was expelled and. I moved in with that family that I met my freshman year.  I was vaccinated. And  they have been vaccinated too, so if it was safe, so no one would get sick or anything. I was expelled and I was able to move in with them. And, after that family, they saw the Joshua Harris video. They called me and they were like, they talked with me for a couple hours.

Like you think you're going to be expelled or we want to let you know that happens. Like our doors are open. Like you are part of the family. And it was so great. And really, I just see how, wife has just worked with these different things out. And I really, I don't think I would be alive today if I had never met them and really had that love that I needed.

And I'm grateful for that. And, because I have survived all these different circumstances and depression and religious trauma. Now I've really become an activist. And spreading awareness to religious trauma, spiritual abuse, and educating people on mental health and helping people to learn, to understand like cult like behavior and manipulation tactics, and fight against these systems and not be manipulated and abused and harmed.

And so since I got expelled from Bob Jones university, after that video, ,  I started my own like IgG show back in February, where I interviewed people who have been in toxic religious settings.

Just so you give them. To share her story and get them a boy to speak up which is  why I love y'all show and what y'all are doing. And, continuing that chain reaction of just trying to get people's stories out because really a lot of social change has happened when people collectively come together and speak up and share their stories and try to make a difference.

And the world and hold these institutions and people accountable for their actions. And since that interview, I've been, interviewed on about eight podcasts.  I think the biggest one I was on was preacher boys at the preacher boys podcast.  They specifically exposed IFB abuse. And I felt like that was the perfect podcast for me, because I grew up in the IFB church. 

, I feel like my life has become so much better since I got Excel because I'm able to be authentic. I have I'm in a safe environment. I have a community and I know what my purpose is in life to wake up every day. And do your purpose in life.

It's just so incredible. I've never had such a greater feeling of it. And it's so incredible for me to meet all kinds of different people on the internet and talk with them and hear their stories and help each other heal and give them a voice. To tell their story, to make a difference in other people's lives. , I've been using social media as a form of activism to spread awareness to these issues. And,  it's something that I've made like a life commitment to. I think it's something that we'll be doing for the rest of my life. And I really admire both of y'all too for doing the same thing, because y'all had, I know, terrible, awful experiences in the children of God.

I was telling  that last time I watched it was really freaky that I watched the episode of cults and extreme beliefs on Hulu. And, I saw, you whisper in and I was like, oh my gosh. I was like, I'm doing a podcast with them next week

and it's just, it's so heartbreaking to see all the different ways. Religion has been used to abuse and hurt so many people. And now I'm also so grateful for people like y'all who are continuing to sound the horn, ring the bell, and just let people know and be aware of all these different issues.

And. To stop it. Cause it's still going on so much. so many children are being abused under the guise of religious freedom.  In this country, in the U S we need to find a way of that balance. Like we don't need to give total control to these people to do whatever they want with children, because children are not objects to be owned.

And children are not robots to be programmed. She'll have a price. They do. Yeah. They should have their own right to religious freedom. Definitely. Yeah. Yeah. So more freedom from religion. Yes. Yes. Yeah, I've greatly enjoyed. Being on here and telling my story. Yeah. I definitely hope it would be Ms.

Operation to your listeners and I can get something out of it. But yeah. Thank you so much for having me on here.  I think that it's really important to have People  within,  that  young age range,  you've had to do these really serious, like self examinations and like understanding where you come. I mean, That's a breakaway from, where you've been raised in a really extreme level that a lot of young people don't have to even think about.

So it's really important to have voices,, we'd been around the block here and there, we've had years to sort some of these things out and here you are like,  having to sort these things out.

So it's super important to have voices like yours.

Super, super different backgrounds. But yet here we are the same, like the same words, the same family now. Exactly. I guess we'll end it like we always do. Yeah. Stay brave. And remember that every butterfly was once a caterpillar.