Cults, "K" Texts, & Terrible Delivery Windows: We're Okay-ish! w/ Umbrella Rebellion

Ever received a single “K” text and immediately felt the passive-aggressive wrath? Or had your spellcheck completely ruin your life by changing it to an “L”?

In this wildly unfiltered episode of Surviving-ish, we are jumping from hilarious everyday frustrations straight into some of the heaviest realities facing our world today. Joining the conversation is Dee from the incredible Umbrella Rebellion podcast, and no topic is off-limits.

We kick things off with the ultimate ADHD tangents—debating the true meaning of “K” vs “KK,” arguing over infuriatingly wide delivery windows, skyrocketing utility bills, and a chaotic TVA home energy inspection. But things take a raw and deeply serious turn as we dive into the dark side of fundamentalism.

Dee opens up about the immense strain of supporting a neurodivergent family member dealing with chronic suicidal ideation, completely isolated by a lack of community support after escaping a cult. We tackle the terrifying reality of how political targeting impacts the LGBTQIA+ and disabled communities, while the host shares a deeply personal reflection on losing a stepfather to suicide and surviving his own traumatic past.

If you want to understand the terrifying truth behind Christian nationalism, the deep-seated misogyny in fundamentalist groups, and how Dee is actively fueling a rebellion against the harms of the IBLP and IFB, you cannot afford to miss this episode.

Hit that subscribe button, leave a comment with your thoughts on the "K" text, and join the rebellion.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/umbrella-rebellion/id1600802861

#SurvivingIsh #UmbrellaRebellion #ReligiousTrauma #IBLP #IFB #Deconstruction #MentalHealthAwareness #SuicidePrevention #Neurodivergent #ADHDBrain #LGBTQVoices #ChristianNationalism #CultSurvivor #PodcastRebellion

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Those birds are hey guys, welcome to surviving ish. This has been six months or pl or more in the making, but we have another podcast host with us today who's become a friend of ours and the show. She's been on Unholier. Her name is Dean, and her podcast name is Umbrella Rebellion. How are you, my friend?

SPEAKER_02 0:32

I am surviving.

SPEAKER_00 0:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 0:36

I I'm, you know, today is a good day. It's been busy, but it's been a good day. So I can't complain about today.

SPEAKER_00 0:43

Yeah. Well, you know, and I'm not gonna get crazy deep into this, but I made a life-changing decision um the past two weeks with my job. And uh yesterday was time for was my time to say goodbye. And so I woke up today and I'm having to figure out a new norm, you know? Yeah, and today's the first day of that new norm, and I'm I've already cried a little bit, and that's okay. But I was we're really looking forward to getting on here with you because we're kind of going in this too a little bit blindingly, but I think this was so great when you have two podcasters and a couple microphones. We'll sit down and we'll just talk.

SPEAKER_02 1:21

Just say a word and we will just jet off. ADHD. There's never a dull moment when you have ADHD and you have an endless plethora of topics to talk about.

SPEAKER_00 1:32

Oh my gosh. And in today's America, don't we? We are gonna start out with my ish today, because I think it'll be a short little thing, but it pisses me off. So I hate when someone texts the just the letter K. And I don't text just letter K. And if I do, you know I'm being a little bit of an asshole. There's a little bit of a passive aggressiveness to it, uh, just a little inside secret in case anyone ever receives a text that just says K to me. But you know what really pisses me off that I'm ish surviving is my spell check wants to correct it right when I'm hitting send and change the K to an L. And so it goes then. It's done that to me too. Yes. So it goes to this person where I'm just like okay, and it says L. And I'm like, great. Now I have to go on back and say, okay, but then I'm like, now the asshole part is gone. So now I've got just gonna say, okay, thanks, or whatever. And I'm like, damn it.

SPEAKER_02 2:25

Point just leave it, and it stands for loser.

SPEAKER_00 2:30

That's what I'm gonna remember from now on. Except sometimes I have a friend, and they do this just because they're always very short in their text. They will always text K and I hate it, but I've learned to just accept that with him that it's not passive aggressive. But sometimes it comes to me as an L. And so now I'm gonna think that that motherfucker loser.

SPEAKER_02 2:50

You need you need to get your spell track trained trained.

SPEAKER_00 2:53

I know, I know, and I think about it all the time, but I don't because you have to push all these crazy buttons, and then there's all these there's always these updates on Apple, and so every day I don't know how to work my phone. So let alone go into some kind of setting to figure out how to tell my uh phone that this stands for this and let this be approved. And why does everything have to be so hard?

SPEAKER_02 3:15

I could it just be simple. It is not simple. There's 18 steps, and when you have 18, when you have ADHD, 18 steps is way too many, so forget it.

SPEAKER_00 3:24

Yeah, so I guess we're stuck with L as a text message.

SPEAKER_02 3:28

I do have a question because being a podcaster, this is this question's on my brain. So, how do you feel about KK?

SPEAKER_00 3:36

I don't I've never used it. Okay, I've had a couple of people send it to me, and it I don't love it, but I feel like it's a little bit more there is I wouldn't take it as passive aggressive.

SPEAKER_02 3:54

Gotcha. Yeah, it's like an acceptance of K cool, like the K cool, okay, right, right. You know, like that's how I always see it. Like they're cool with whatever you just did, so we're good. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:06

Well, now I'm wondering, I'm like, okay, well, if I put KK, would my phone add an extra K to it, which I would never want to happen, but No, it doesn't. Okay, good. Okay, good. Because I was gonna say you probably have to have said KKK a lot on your phone for it to think you were trying to do that, and I don't ever have conversations like that, so uh, so I would probably be safe there. But now I'm gonna have to try it. I'm gonna have to try it myself and see how I really feel about it.

SPEAKER_02 4:32

Dude, I'm so much on social media that I wouldn't even think to use KKK. I would actually just use like triple K or uh K squared.

SPEAKER_00 4:40

Yeah, yeah, because we have to be like, how are we not gonna how are we not gonna get fussed at by whatever social media platform it is?

SPEAKER_01 4:48

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 4:51

All right. Well, thank you for letting me share that. But now I'm going to think loser when that happens. And it could be but it'll be funny when I send it to someone else, but when I get it, I'm gonna be like, bitch. So what is your lighthearted ish-ish?

SPEAKER_02 5:10

Um, today, oh okay, so lighthearted. I'm I am disabled and I'm a disabled veteran, and they ordered a ramp for me because I am an ambulatory wheelchair user. And the guy called me yesterday and it's finally in. It's out, it was ordered back in December, and it's finally in May. And he called me yesterday, and he's like, We're gonna deliver the stuff, and we're gonna either do it Monday or Tuesday, but can I deliver it tomorrow, Saturday? And I was like, sure. And he's like, I'll be here before noon. And I'm sitting around the house and getting stuff ready, and I'm trying to like do some podcasting stuff. And the anticipation of someone just showing up to your house between, I don't know, 9 a.m. and noon, it's just like, okay, when is it gonna be? Right. So about 11:30, I call him and I'm like, hey, are you still coming? And he's like, Yeah, I'll be there right about noon. I said, Oh, so you'll be here at noon, not before noon. I know to find out he had like a broken trailer and everything. I'm like, okay, your excuse is valid.

SPEAKER_00 6:17

But I wouldn't, I would need him to prove that. He came in a he came in a rental truck, so okay, okay, but yeah, you're right, because it's like it's like Xfinity or Comcast. You know, they always want to give you like this four-hour bracket. And then when you say between nine and twelve, I think between nine and twelve, meaning you should be done and out of my house by noon, so I can have plans at 12:30 and leave my house at noon and and make my plans in a timely manner. Um, but yeah, you're right.

SPEAKER_02 6:46

They it if they say between nine and twelve, they mean they can show up at twelve and then you're there for three more hours.

SPEAKER_00 6:53

Yeah. Damn. But is it in? Is it installed?

SPEAKER_02 6:57

Is it No, they just dropped off the materials, so it's here, and then they just show up on Monday or Tuesday.

SPEAKER_00 7:04

Between the hours of who knows?

SPEAKER_02 7:06

Whatever. I work from home, so it's like, okay, I'll be here.

SPEAKER_00 7:10

Yeah, but it never fails. It's like, you know, you'll sit and you'll weigh and you'll weigh, and it's like, you know what? I'm gonna go into the kitchen and start cooking. That's when they show up. Or the minute you think, okay, I'm just gonna go to the bathroom for a minute and cry, or whatever it is you do in the bathroom.

SPEAKER_02 7:28

Yeah, I had to go run an errand this morning, and I'm like, no, no, I should leave. And I'm like, I haven't gotten a call from him. I have no idea how long their drive is, so we'll just go. And it was fine. It was hours before they showed up.

unknown 7:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:42

So I'm surviving people telling me they will be here before a time and they get there at the time. Right.

SPEAKER_00 7:48

Yeah. That yeah. So okay, so I I guess in today's America, everyone's utility bills are going up. And like I started, so I'm on this balance pay where like I kind of just know each month what it's gonna be. I guess most people do that.

SPEAKER_01 8:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:04

And I never really look at my bill, and I have everything set up on auto pay, so I'll be the best person to hack because it would take me three months before I realized that I had no money or until the car started going, stopped going through, you know? And and so I you know how like you'll get notifications that you have an email like while you're scrolling through your phone, and you'll hit it and accidentally and it'll open the email or text message. And I hate it when it happens to the text messages because it's like, damn it, I don't know if I was ready to read that yet. And are they ready to be? Yeah. And so that one of the that was happening, and you know, right when I was gonna hit my phone, the notification popped up, and I hit that for my KUB, not so utility board bill email, and I saw $1,900 and I was like, what? And apparently the past few months my bills have been $1,900, but it uh like well, it was like 16, 17, and 19. But of course, the average ends up being like 500. When I first moved in, it was like 150, then it went to like 200, and now it's up to 500. And yeah, and so I was like, I called the utility board, I was like, what the hell is going on? You know, of course, I was lovely to them, they were very helpful, but they told me about this program with TVA. Well, they'll come out and they'll do like an inspection of your house, see if there's any kind of leaks or anything like that. What sucks is it came back um with good report. So it's just today's America and what we have to pay and power and utilities and electricity and all this shit. So the first time someone came, he called me and I was nowhere near ready. I thought I had about 45 more minutes before he got here and he called and he was like, Hey, I had an appointment can't, so I'm really close. Can I come on by? And I was like, sure. So I mean, I bought cap, t-shirt, and sweatpants, you know, and probably still sleep in my eye. I brushed my teeth. Uh, I I got to answer the door with clothes on and a clean and a clean smelling mouth. And he was a lovely man, but uh not an eye turn, not an eye catcher, you know, respectfully. So then he an average guy. And so he needed to set up a second appointment. And so he did. And I got the text message that, hey, you know, I'm on my way. I thought it was the same guy. And I was like, why don't I have to be impressive? You know, I don't have to get cute for this guy. Open the door, and America's next top model with a TVA company is at my freaking door. And I was like, damn it, why does the universe hate me?

SPEAKER_02 10:41

Expecting average Joe and getting Ken Barbie doll.

SPEAKER_00 10:44

Yeah, but you know what? They were both here either before they were supposed to be, which was lovely, or within the first 30 minutes of the four-hour time frame. So I love that for them.

SPEAKER_02 10:58

That promptness is great.

SPEAKER_00 11:00

Yeah, I'll take that. So, but now I've got to find a way to get that other guy back to my house when he would still I would still be well book beneath him, you know, and his level kind of but but I wanted to at least see that I take a shower.

SPEAKER_02 11:15

You can put yourself together, like yeah, just not some house slob.

SPEAKER_00 11:21

Exactly. So, okay, so here's where we're gonna get kind of into uh deeper parts of shit that's going on in our lives. But what I what I appreciate about me and you and and our listeners is we know how to find those moments in those hard times to where we're not just in it. And so what's your what's going on with you and your your big thing in life right now?

SPEAKER_02 11:47

So something that we have been dealing with in my family for quite a while, like four or five years, is I have a very close family member who struggles with suicidal ideation. And it has been really hard navigating that. Obviously, it's new to something that I'm navigating, a chronic issue like that. And my cult days did not prepare me for the reality of something like this. And trying to navigate it in a way that is healthy, that is not judgmental, that shows love and not condemnation, or diminishing the struggle of this family member has been a roller coaster. And it's like every time I'm dealing with this, I question if I'm dealing with it right. And then accepting the fact that the next time, maybe the last time, it was really hard. And when things start to go better, I kind of lose that acceptance, and if we have another resurgence of this problem, I have to reaccept again that I may outlive this family member. And it's I cannot describe to you the emotions of loving someone so much and seeing them struggle to the point where they don't want to exist and what it does to you as a person.

SPEAKER_00 13:36

It's one of those someone choosing to to take themselves out of this world is something that affects all of us. And what I get so pissed off about is, and I learned this the hard way when I lost my stepfather um several years ago, chose to to end his life.

SPEAKER_01 13:54

I'm so sorry.

SPEAKER_00 13:54

Um yeah, and you know, my mother, you know, found him and tried to try to save him, and that's a whole different set of trauma on top of the loss that you know, and I found that people, you know, I've always heard that when religion is involved, is it's it's such it's the biggest sin. And I'm sure, you know, coming from a c a religious cult, yours yours was a religious cult, right? Yeah, okay. I thought so. Uh which which to the listener, we'll talk more about that in the end. But you know, we always hear about how it's the most selfish act and that burden to put on someone when they're probably thinking, and I can't speak for everyone, but they're probably thinking that this is best for everyone. They think it's the most loving act. And so to deem it as the most selfish is very irresponsible of the survivors.

SPEAKER_02 14:46

Yeah. And also if dealing with this on such a personal level, I'm getting to see some of the mechanics or the uh thought processes behind this decision because we talk about it after, right? We're very open and we're, you know, as far as I know, we're very honest. And this person has neurodivergence, which makes it existing in the world a lot harder than many people. And the fact that they're just struggling to exist, there it's the struggle to exist that gets overwhelming to them. And to just think about that for a minute, to sit in the thought of what if I was struggling just to exist in a world that was not built for me? How would I handle that? And the being able to see that it's not about selfishness, it's about overwhelm. It's about how our society is not built to support people, it's how our community, our sense of community has eroded. We feel like my family doesn't have a very strong community because we isolated ourselves in a cult. And so when people need support, where do we go? There's there's nowhere for us to go. Like there's social supports and stuff. We live in Louisiana, they're not a whole lot, and you know, a lot of it is throwing solutions at a problem that and the solutions don't fix the problem, and the things that would work are not available. And so it's just seeing the dynamic of our society from a completely different perspective, and being able to say, you know, well, maybe I didn't know what that person was going through. So who am I to judge? What their motivation was for taking themselves out.

unknown 17:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:03

Yeah. I mean, the situation with with my excuse me, with my stepfather, it completely um changed my thoughts. Now, I I have shared this story before, but you know, to give you a little bit of the cliff notes, like I was the last one to speak to him. Uh I uh did not have the best relationship with him. And when I went, I had to drop something off at my mother's house. She was going to the store. When I went in, he was sitting in the living room in the dark, and I didn't think anything of it. I came in and I told him, I said, Hey, make sure mom gets this. And I turned around to leave, and he said, David, thank you for taking care of your mom. And I said, Someone has to. And I slammed the door and I left. And that's when he went downstairs. And uh and and how we know what happened in this time frame is my mom was just gone to the grocery store. She was gone for an hour, and I had actually passed her pulling out of her street, pulling onto her street, we waved. So, like so, I truly was a lot like that. Was the last thing that he heard. Now, I don't carry that guilt and shame and blame with me. It did take a little bit of time, right? You know, that first initial shock when my brother called and was like, he just he was just found. And I was like, I did this. Right. But I I did learn quickly how to, you know, r relieve myself from that. But there was something that you said that uh just really stuck out to me. It you said that, and and I'm not gonna be able to say it exactly how you said it, but you know, like when time passes and there hasn't been another attempt, that you kind of let your guard down, you know, and you think, okay, we're cured, we're better, we're whatever words you put with it, and then it happens again. And you and you even as the survivor, as the as the helper, are back to square one. And so it's almost like like if someone is an addict, maybe, right? Like you're never fully cured. You you know, it's that that you always have to be mindful of the person who's had an addiction. Yeah, I never thought of it like that. And I might I may not be saying it in a very educated way, but this is all thoughts happening in real time, right?

SPEAKER_02 19:12

But yeah, I mean it's it's a mental health struggle, right? There's something that that person cannot get past in their brain and function on a level that feels like they're participating in society enough to feel satisfied. Yeah, right. And so until they get past that, we will always be dealing with this, in my opinion, based on this, you know, based on the close close proximity of what I'm dealing with. And because I have been involved so closely with this person and have been a part of their childhood and everything, I sometimes blame myself for decisions I have made in the past. You know, did I enable it? Did I not prepare them for this? Did I do something that started the chain down this road? Because if I had done everything in my power to prepare this person for adulthood, then maybe things would be better or different. And it's something I struggle with, and I'm not there to where I don't question that all the time, especially because we're still dealing with it. But I know that in the grand scheme of things, we all deal with outside influences that also direct our decision making. And when I left the cult, I didn't have the tools I have today. And so I can't blame myself for not having the tools, you know, then and all I can do is use the tools now, right? And then as people grow and they get more mature and they uh enter adulthood, you have to shift the responsibility from being responsible for that person's care to taking your responsibility off of that, and that's hard.

SPEAKER_00 21:13

Very hard.

SPEAKER_02 21:14

That's hard. I'm just gonna let this person go and they may drop off of a cliff.

SPEAKER_00 21:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:20

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_00 21:22

You know, it's it's extremely hard, but but I think too that I try to look at things, you know, like I don't have children or I'm close to my family members, but they all have their own lives. Like, luckily, I'm not in a place where I'm dealing with this with any of the kids or young adults in my life. Uh, but but that doesn't mean there's not gonna come a day. And I'm gonna wonder you know, could Uncle David have done this? Could Godfather David have done this? Could Brother David have done that? Brother David sounds too preachy, sounds too church like sibling David do this, you know? Yeah, I was like, oh brother David, no. I'm like, oh my god. There. It's I try to one of the conversations I had with my mom, um, and I know this is gonna be completely different, but you know, when I was recovering from my you know hate crime attack, my mom said, you know, David, she said, when you came out of the closet, one of the things that I told you is that I I was just terrified of of the world around you, and I'm not always gonna be able to be there to protect you. And and it's almost like when I got to 18, 19 years old, 21 years old, I'm a grown man, I hadn't gone through any of that stuff. And so I thought I'm in the clear, you know, I don't know why I thought that once you reached a certain age, if you made it past this age, and you know, and you didn't get beat up in college, you didn't get beat up in high school or or whatever, then you're you're good. And and I was wrong, you know, and so my mom ended up getting that phone call that was her what her biggest fear. And she had even said, kind of like, you know, that you had said with with your family members, you get to that place where you kind of let your guard down a little bit, and you think, okay, my mom was thinking David's grown, he has a great network around him, he's confident in who he is, he he's you know, secure, and and her guard was down, and then she gets that phone call, you know. And so so it's one of those things where you know, my mom was even saying, like, should I have done this? You know, my family is not anti-gun, but we're not like rah-rah, go get your gun. Like my brother hunts, my dad hunts, they have guns. Um, my brother has called me uh and let me know a hundred times that hey, I want to go teach, you know, your nephew how to shoot. Um, if you want to come and and learn, especially after my attack, let's do that. But I'm like, no, I'm not ready. And that's the last week, doors always open, kind of thing.

SPEAKER_01 23:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:40

And so my mom went through that whole like, should I have put him in karate? Should I have, should I have said no, you have to have a gun, you know, but that's just not who we are. But I think that one of the things that was so important for my mom to even realize is that if she was able to inherit some of this blame, then she was able to correct it, right? So if she if she knew where she went wrong and she was the one that fucked all this up for me, she'd be able to go back and redeem herself and maybe fix it for my siblings or my niece, you know, got her grandchildren or whatever to not make that mistake. She was able to, she was able to be the bad guy and correct the bad guy. That's not the truth, right? The the truth is when my mom was becoming an adult, my grandmother didn't know everything. Like my mom didn't know everything to teach me. I'm not gonna know everything to pass down to whoever trusts their kids around me uh to teach them anything. I'm right, and I mean, you can trust me to they're gonna have a lot of fun with me, but they might not learn a lot.

SPEAKER_02 24:45

They're gonna learn how to have fun. That's important for kids.

SPEAKER_00 24:48

Very important. So I just, yeah, I just I can understand and and in a sense relate to to what you're you're feeling, but I think that sometimes we just need the bad guy. I think that's why we are so easy. I think that's why there's a lot of wrongful convictions when it comes to like true crime, because the moment we say you're the bad guy, then we know this bad guy's behind bars, this problem is now fixed.

SPEAKER_02 25:11

We we have a problem is solved, yes, because we're a solutions-based society. Go figure, except we don't look for the solutions that are actually actually gonna work, so yeah, whatever.

SPEAKER_00 25:23

Well, so and and let me ask you this too. You uh you were active military, uh, and so of course, suicide rates and in service members, did is this affecting you differently? I mean, and I don't mean different as in as in ones greater than or less than, but just differently than than the the people you had served with that like did you have any of these suicidal experiences with any of them?

SPEAKER_02 25:48

I have not personally served with anyone that I'm aware of that committed. When I was stationed in Korea, I was an ammo and there was I did inventory. And so every couple of months I would inventory the law enforcement section, the security forces. I would and I would have to go into a filing cabinet and count the remaining bullets from an attempt from a service member. And so that's the closest it's ever hit me, and that was a reminder every three months of what happened, and that that case was not resolved at that time because the weapon was still in evidence, right? And I was 20 when I was in Korea, and um which god, now that I'm thinking about it, that year was just the realization that people could die. My mother had a child thanks to the cult. I love my sibling, um, but they were they did a reversal, and I don't know if you saw Shiny Happy People, but in one of the episodes, they have a bunch of mom and dads and small infant children up on the stage, and that was a celebration of people who had either their tubals or their vasectomies reversed, and they had babies for the quiver full movement. So we called them reversal babies. My youngest sibling is a reversal baby. She is, they are 20 years younger than me. And I my grandfather had a stroke a week or two later, my or days later, I don't know. It was yeah, a couple weeks later, my sibling was born. My mother almost died on died in child died in childbirth. And then while I was in Korea, my favorite older cousin became sick with leukemia and died while I was on midterm leave. Wow. So and then that whole thing with the suicide and service and stuff like that. And so it was just like and I was I was scheduled, like I had orders to go to Germany after that. And once all of that stuff happened, I was like, no, I need to go closer to home. So I drew like a five-hour circle around New Orleans and I said, what bases are there? Because I was originally stationed at Barksdale in Louisiana, thank you very much. Had to go back to Louisiana, and um, I was like, I don't want to be in Louisiana, but I know I can do that five-hour drive, no problem. So I and I wound up in Panama City. Wow. So, but yeah, it's like that those events really changed my mind about being away from my family, and it's kind of crazy how events like that or multiple events can just change the trajectory of your life.

SPEAKER_00 28:53

Yeah, I mean, like you said, you know, it's you realize that people are gonna die, and and it but like what hit me with that is like it's not just people that are gonna die, it's your your close-knit family. Like when I say people are gonna die, I think of like someone over here in this state that I don't even know. But no, it's the and and not just the people that I know, we're all gonna die. Yeah, like I remember when I had that, I had that realization at a very young age. Um, you know, my my grandmother, my dad's mom, and so it was my grandmother, my great-grandmother, my great aunt, my little brother, and I, we were hit by a drunk driver and it killed all three of the women in the car. My brother and I, we were pronounced dead several times. Like our car accident was the first one in Tennessee to be considered a vehicular homicide by a drunk driver. Like, those laws were passed by family's name. And you know, and we lived with my grandmother at the time, like she she was the mom figure in my life at that time. We're extremely close to her, but we had three generations of and and I was so young and for it to be so tragic, you know. And and so I started thinking if I didn't call my grandfather every day, my great-grandpa didn't call me every day, he was gonna die. And then I even had a religious family member that that would sometimes use that in their power. They would say, Well, you know, you can't uh you can't move in with your mom because you won't get to see Papa every day, and you're the only reason you and brain are the only reason papa's stays alive.

SPEAKER_02 30:23

Oh my gracious, that's horrible. Yeah, that's so manipulative to children.

SPEAKER_00 30:30

Luckily, he lived 50 more years. He died at 103 years old, but oh my gracious, wow.

SPEAKER_01 30:36

Like you lying, bitch.

SPEAKER_00 30:38

Exactly. It's like every day I was like, another one. When's he gonna die? So, okay, so this this is like taking it back a little bit to the the suicide thing. I don't want to make this more political than you than you want to, but of course, I have started doing like the little political-ish episodes where I'm trying to educate myself along the way um because there's a lot of political terms I don't understand. And so I'm gonna like educate myself and and spit some facts. And of course, there's sometimes a little judgment wittiness in there too, but that's the whole thing. But I uh but to bring this the reason I say that is to bring this back to your family member. I know that as a gay man, I still at times feel that where am I going to be accepted in this world? I will say that I do recognize privilege and I lead as a white man with a little bit of money in the bank. I'm able to take care of myself, kind of money in the bank, not do anything crazy, right? I don't make donations to anybody for any votes or anything, but but but I do have trans friends, and you know, and and they're the target right now. And um, but even and and I'm not trying to say you're a family member, uh, but you said uh neurodivergent, and and there's a big thing right now in politics where they're talking about mental health and what caused it, and and so it's like is this playing a factor here in the world, here in this a certain republic, a certain political party, say these horrific things because I know that I've heard the things of of their uh what had said that if anybody that was on Adderall and antidepressants are gonna go to a certain camp. Well, I'm on all of those things. Um, someone who's gay is gonna go to a certain camp.

SPEAKER_02 32:24

Well Which camp am I gonna be in, huh?

SPEAKER_00 32:28

Like, and then you know, when uh I hear like you know, the trans or or or people who uh I don't say that trans, the trans community, um trans people, and and then it twinkles down to like when you're talking about the antidepressants, the medications, the you know, did you take Tylenol while you're pregnant, and that's what made, you know, and all that bullshit. So is that playing any kind of role with your family?

SPEAKER_02 32:53

Layers upon layers, because we have neurodivergence, we have I'm by, I have queer family members, children, and I have a very close family member that is not out but trans. It it plays a huge part, especially because our family is fundamentalist Christian nationalists, essentially. And I've pulled away from that, and I've started to educate myself. And having spent so much of my life repressing that I was by and trying to pray the by away and denying who I was, I understand to a certain extent, because I am straight passing, I am married to a man, I understand to a certain extent what they are going through, but add the layer of I have to hide this from the government because I'm scared of what they're gonna do to me. I'm disabled. Do you know how much they hate disabled people? I'm a disabled veteran. Do you know what they're doing to the veteran community and our veterans' health? Like, do I'm a government employee. Do you know how many layers of the fact that I haven't got on my podcast and screamed that the Republicans fucking suck and I wish all of them would be voted out is amazing considering what I have dealt with and the layers of trauma I have felt through this administration. And so it's out now.

SPEAKER_00 34:28

Well, and and we you heard it first here.

SPEAKER_02 34:32

Being in Louisiana, it's even worse because our governor is a Trump boot licking ignorant. Yeah, and he was more worried about bringing a live tiger to Tiger Stadium than helping the freaking Louisiana people with the cost of insurance, and we're like barreling down category five hurricanes every other year.

unknown 34:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:59

I was listening to this podcast I listened to, and they do a lot of they vet everything, and that's where I get like a lot of my resources when I'm trying to educate myself on things. And I'm always afraid because I love the things they say say, and it really sticks with me because they're so uh witty. It's called I Hip News. It's the two the two blonde women that love Bohama City. I love uh obsessed with them. Well, and what's so funny is a total sidebar. I never even knew about their I've had it podcast until I started doing this one. I had this all written out and had a plan with it. It's all uh timestamped and recorded in case they ever come across this and they they you know, like, is he copying us? Kind of, but it happened and unintentionally, and then as I started recording, you know, like your algorithm gets into things, and all of a sudden there I've had a podcast pops up, and I was like, This is a hell of a lot better than mine. But this is like my mine is like the stepsister to this.

SPEAKER_02 35:59

You're you're the dream I attain to, but I'm over here doing my thing. Yeah, I have podcasts like that for me too.

SPEAKER_00 36:05

Yeah, but uh I I don't think they would care. I think they would probably take it as a compliment, but but but they truly did inspire me to start doing like my little 10 or 15 minute segments because when I was when they started doing iHip at news, which is their 10 or 15 minute segments of vetted, really fact-checked research on whatever they're talking about, I started learning that like I knew what fascism was, but if someone said explain it to me, I was like, I know what it is, and I don't like it. But I wasn't able to, and so so when when politicians are are slinging out these words, yeah, I'm not know if they're good or bad, or you know, you hear all these different terms. Are you a communist? Are you the and I was like, I don't really know what those are. And so when they're saying uh New York Senate, uh Mem Dani, when he's a what what do they call him, a socialist, and they paint it to be this ugly picture. I'm like, I don't really know if I know what all that means. And so before I can pass judgment, I need I need to learn. And so I was finding that people were having the same questions. Like I when I would just talk to people through they were like, Yeah, I don't know. And I was like, fine, that's what I want to do. Let's learn together. Yeah, and and just really educate ourselves on it. And of course, I throw my opinions and stuff out too, but they really inspired me with this.

SPEAKER_02 37:17

That's awesome, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:18

And that I went on a tangent, and there was a whole point of me saying why. We're talking about learning the political stuff, and yeah, there was a whole point of me saying bringing all that up, but uh well, I'll I'll conclude your point.

SPEAKER_02 37:33

Okay, go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 37:34

Yeah, no, I was gonna say, I think I think it was them that was telling me that they had a senator on or someone that was hyping. They were saying that with what we are spending, with just a fraction of what we're spending on this war, that no one still knows why this war, other than F St. Files, um, other than I mean, what is this war truly about? Child care could be ten dollars a month for everyone.

SPEAKER_02 37:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:57

It's a mortgage for people.

SPEAKER_02 38:00

As a veteran, and I know so many veterans, like war fine, right? Like military war fine. Fine, we're gonna do war. I get it. But like have a plan and don't leave your freaking military members out there starving on freaking expired MREs and getting half to the third of the calories that they need to fight war. How the hell are we gonna win a war if we can't feed our freaking war fighters? Like, seriously, like no plan, no execution. The person who is in charge of this happening is a freaking failure. Guess who that is? Fucking Keg's breath, Mr. Drunk Nick Drunkerson.

SPEAKER_00 38:43

Like, I just I can go on and on and on and on about this, but on a little bit of a funny note with it is I'm terrified about a lot of things. But Donald Trump, our I'm gonna here's another thing. I have such a hard time putting respective titles to people who I do not respect. I can probably tell you on the count of one hand or less how many times I've said president Donald Trump unless I meant it in a bitchy way. No, like I I cannot put these senator, these congressmen, these security of war, whatever it is, secretary of the secretary because it is not a legal change of title.

SPEAKER_02 39:35

Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_00 39:37

Exactly. Like I cannot, you're Pete Headset Heggseth, you're Donald Trump, you're Trump, you're you know what, like I I just cannot put those respective titles. And I almost feel like if we break those away, because we are we're groomed and trained to when you hear Mr. This, when you hear sir or president, when you when someone calls you president, you immediately think this is the fullest of respect.

SPEAKER_02 40:03

You know what that reminds me of in Christianity, how they say love the center, not the sin. Oh fuck. It's like respect the title, you don't have to respect the person. I'll tell you, like, I was in the military under Clinton and but and Bush too, right? And I could respect Clinton's position as president. Absolutely. And I was a Republican then, I was a Christian nationalist then, and I could respect the position of president with Clinton, despite his failings. I kind of lost respect for him then, the whole Monica Lewinsky thing. Sure. And you know, like, and that was something that a lot of the evangelicals were up in arms about was you know, that whole Monica Lewinsky thing. And then we look at where we're at now, and I'm like, where's that ire now?

SPEAKER_00 40:50

Where's that now?

SPEAKER_02 40:51

Where's that now?

SPEAKER_00 40:52

Morally, I have no respect for Bill Clinton when it comes to Monica Lewinsky. However, Hillary chose to stay with him, not our business. Oh, she knew who he was before then. Oh, 100%. But he Monica and he were consensual adults.

SPEAKER_02 41:12

Whether but it wasn't consensual because of his position.

SPEAKER_00 41:16

Well, that's true. That's true.

SPEAKER_02 41:18

It's abuse of power. I mean, that's the highest ranking abuse of power if you're ever gonna have one.

SPEAKER_00 41:25

Yeah, that's true. I guess I and granted it's been so long since I've actually studied up or or read about them. Um, because and I was so young when that happened. Oh, I'm sure you were just an infant. Well, uh well, no, but I mean, and actually, no, and but when I say young, I mean like I was not in the political world because because it was one of those things where my family they voted, but it was it was like almost like if you're a Dodge person or a Ford person, like we're not gonna like everything about every every brand, but we're just gonna vote on the party line, yeah. And but no one's lives were truly at stake like they are today, you know. Now, granted, there has been progression, you know, where you know, gays can get married, at least as of today. Um, who knows why the time is episode? But you know, I mean, there there has been things, but no one has had to sit and think and worry like we are right now about ourselves, our friends, our family members. So, so so when I say young, I'm I guess I meant more of like the naive to Republican mind or to political mind.

SPEAKER_02 42:34

Yeah, no, I was just making a joke because you always talk with Jenny.

SPEAKER_00 42:37

Oh yeah, oh yeah, yeah, 100%. Yeah, oh yeah, you're right, you're right. I didn't even think about that.

SPEAKER_02 42:44

Make sure I, you know, uh I'm appropriate with your age so we can make sure that we maintain that joke throughout all podcasts.

SPEAKER_00 42:52

Absolutely, absolutely. So thank you for understanding that. And it is not a joke. I am very Jinny is a lot older than me. I'll have to make sure I said that to her. But it was really funny when I went and visited her a few weeks ago. We thought that we we were just like a couple months apart. It's actually a few years apart. I am I am younger than she realized. Yeah. Well, good for you.

SPEAKER_01 43:16

Yeah, we we we truly learned You have established that you are younger.

SPEAKER_00 43:20

Yeah, and more than just a couple hours. Okay. But okay, so what I what I was gonna say, that's what I love about these conversations. I go off on so many different tangents. But what I was gonna say is in uh Dementiadonny's awakenings, or what what is it that they call it?

SPEAKER_02 43:37

Oh, his sundowning.

SPEAKER_00 43:39

His sundowning.

SPEAKER_02 43:40

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 43:41

He's slowly coming out of the closet. Dude, right. And I the gays don't want him.

SPEAKER_02 43:48

Do you know like how he talks about other men being attractive and how that makes him feel safe?

SPEAKER_00 43:54

Like, wow, dude. Like that's the one I was with this um. Correspondence center.

SPEAKER_03 44:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:02

You know, he was standing back in the background watching through the curtains. And but on the 60 Minutes, who I thought the interviewer, I thought that was Lisa Vanderpump at first. Like, I was like, why is Lisa Banderpump interviewing Donald Trump? But it was like, I was watching and I just seen all these men, these physically beautiful men. And I was like, Oh, here we go again. Because you know, he gave he loves talking about Arnold Palmer's penis.

SPEAKER_02 44:27

Oh, I forgot about that. I don't listen to a whole lot, but I get a clip here and there. Yeah. It makes it like makes my mental health decline the more I listen to him. So I only can do like very few things. And I'm like, yep, he's still stupid.

SPEAKER_00 44:46

Yeah. I'm just like, ever since the whole thing, and I noticed it more when the uh Epstein file Bubba email was exposed. Oh, yeah. I know I noticed a little bit more of the coming out of the closet.

SPEAKER_02 45:00

And I you know, that's funny because it just seems like he's braggadocious to try and justify his straightness more. Like it just looks like that more and more.

unknown 45:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 45:10

Or maybe he's bi and he just hasn't accepted it. That's yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:14

And but how are we? Uh how are some people, I'm almost like how are some people able to look at him and think, you know what? This is the definition of masculinity. They talk more about the anatomy of children than anybody, they talk more about the anatomy of men than anyone.

SPEAKER_02 45:37

They wear because that's all evangelical Christianity is. It's a pervy cult, it really is. And they they focus so much on purity and protecting children by sexually children, but you know, like it's it is exactly the same message that they hear every Sunday in church, so it seems good, and that's funny that you bring that up. The masculinity is I'm reading on my channel right now, Jesus and John Wayne, and the whole point of the book is exposing this Christian masculinity that started being prevalent, and how the whole militarization of America and that military strength was so prevalent, and like they they harped on it, and how Billy Graham was like the epicenter of this movement, and how like the whole cowboy persona was part of it, and how they use that to essentially manipulate the masses and how intertwined Christian evangelical Christianity has been in our country since the 40s.

SPEAKER_00 46:53

Yeah, are you still how do you identify with religion now?

SPEAKER_02 46:58

I don't know, depends on the day.

SPEAKER_00 47:00

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 47:01

You know, like there's some days where I'm like, huh, if there was a God, he probably liked me today.

SPEAKER_00 47:07

Right.

SPEAKER_02 47:08

You know, like and then there's some days where I'm like, well, where the fuck were you, God? Yeah, you know, and then you know, it's like I like the message of Jesus, I like the red letters in the Bible. I think a lot of people don't read them and they ignore every single red letter in that Bible, and they focus on everything around it, and they worship Paul more than they do Jesus. And like I land at maybe there's a God, maybe there's not, and I'm okay not knowing. But what I'm gonna do is focus on exposing harms, exposing the teachings that led to abuse and excused it, and I'm gonna try to be the best human I possibly can be. So when if and when I have to go to the pearly gates and they say, Well, what did you do? I said I loved everybody, yeah, just like Jesus did.

SPEAKER_00 48:05

Yeah. The fact that as an atheist, I identify as an atheist, and and I will say that I haven't always, it's kind of a new thing to me. And and uh I've flipped back and forth with agnostic or atheist, then but if someone said right now, what is it? I would have to say atheist. But I'm I'm open-minded into into exploring that, and that's also come from someone that of course I have religious trauma as being a gay man, but nothing as far as like cult religious trauma, you know. Um, so so I I wanted to be very mindful, you know, uh respectful with that.

SPEAKER_01 48:40

But David, David, trauma is trauma. What are no degrees?

SPEAKER_00 48:45

Yeah, I know that that's something that's something I always preach. I'm like, we don't compare traumas around here until it's time for me, and then I must like, you know.

SPEAKER_02 48:52

Yeah, you just finish your own trauma.

SPEAKER_00 48:54

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 48:55

Smack that hand.

SPEAKER_00 48:56

Yeah, yeah. Do as I say, not as I do. But I but I live a more Christian life than today's evangelical Christians.

SPEAKER_02 49:10

You know, the atheist taught me how to be a Christian, right? That's who I learned how to be a Christian from because it wasn't fundamentalists, because fundamentalists made me feel like a horrible shit person, and they made me feel like there was nothing I could ever do to attain the love of Jesus or them. And I spent so many days of my life trying to become what they told me I should be, that I became a shell of a person and a I was a total fucking whacked out wife. I was freaking ridiculous. I probably should have been committed by the end. I was going insane, I was losing my mind. I could not distinguish reality from delusion. I mean, like, I wasn't into Lululand, but like what they were trying to tell me was reality was not. And I could not distinguish what was real and right from what felt very wrong because I had to keep saying, well, that it may feel wrong, but they said that it would feel wrong if it's right. So I had to openly deny my own inner thoughts and my own protective lizard brain, you know, saying, This is not right, this is not right, this is this is harmful. No, no, no. We're supposed to be, you know, sacrificial lambs for Jesus. And we should not be a person. We should just be attain to be Jesus. And if we feel like a person, then we're being selfish and yeah, all of that. Totally denying your human existence to try and attain to something that is impossible.

unknown 50:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:53

And the people that are taught us to Yeah. And the people that are telling us to be like Jesus, they're the ones that are okay if children go hungry, they're the ones that are okay that no one has health care, they're the ones that are okay that rent is outrageous.

SPEAKER_02 51:08

The Because it's their parents' fault. Because if their parents were good parents, they would have all that stuff for them. There's no systemic racism.

SPEAKER_00 51:17

No, no, not at all. That they've created.

unknown 51:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 51:20

And you know what else I think while we're on it, and then we'll start wrapping up, is okay, I'll preface with I've never read the full Bible. I don't know. Right. I know a little bit most of it, but not all of it. Uh I really like Lilith or the story of Lilith. Um we've got an expert that's gonna be coming on to talk about Lilith with us lives, and something I would like for you to put a pen in and have in the back of your mind that maybe me and Jenny can connect on is you mentioned the doctor document documentary Happy People.

SPEAKER_02 51:53

Tiny happy people.

SPEAKER_00 51:54

Okay. Ginny and I had thought about doing a series where we would watch an episode and and then do a live where we cover it. And so what since you've watched it and and can relate to it, that'd be fun for you to join us.

SPEAKER_02 52:06

Oh, I would love to do that.

SPEAKER_00 52:07

Three worlds, three worlds colliding, you know? Yeah, that'd be so much fun. So we'll have to start a chat and talk about that. But absolutely here's a theory that I have. And it's still in the workshop process, and I'll probably I'll never probably work through it because I really don't care that much. But I uh I think that the Bible is maybe full of some good stories that are that are fables that to try to teach how to be a good person, right? But I also think there's a a huge power dynamic in it in a way too. And what it shows me is what I think is this. I don't trust that Eve is the one that ate the apple. I think I think Adam ate the apple, blamed it on Eve Eve, and that's how the men got control that the women should be be a foot back, shouldn't be heard, um, that way women have the least of control. So men can make all the mistakes and women get all the blame for it. If we are this fucked up in this world with the way men have ran it for this long, what's the common denominator? Men men, and I'm a man like let a woman come in and let the women do the fucking work.

SPEAKER_02 53:18

And it's it's funny that you say that because you know, a lot of Christian fundamentalists that I was part of, the their whole like excuse for everything was it was a woman. Yeah, everything your husband cheats on you, it's your fault. Your husband watches porn, it's your fault. Your husband isn't the leader that he should be, you're not praying to read your Bible enough. I got counseled by a pastor that my ex-husband's drug use was because I wasn't praying enough. While I'm trying to tell him I only get $40 for groceries because he's spending $40 a week on weed. And we can have more food for our kids if he wouldn't smoke so much weed. I don't care about the weed really. It's the fact that he's not supporting us sufficiently because of the addiction, you know? And I know people don't think you can get addicted to weed, but when you cannot function in life without being high, I kind of think it's an addiction.

SPEAKER_00 54:17

Right. Yeah, absolutely. And you know, we mentioned how we uh not again, not we, how some groups of people sexualize children. Every episode of Jenny's Unholier podcast I've edited, any live that I've done with her, anytime that religion has come up in my show with people, it is the women, and not only women, it is the little girls' responsibility to only dress a certain way to make sure the men don't look at their breasts, that the win the men don't get tempted into stepping out on their wives or or be or get lustful. And that's just the 12-year-old girls.

SPEAKER_02 54:54

There is no teaching of personal responsibility to men about their thoughts, and there is no teaching of what is a natural thought versus a wicked thought, right? And like there, it's just this is bad, you shouldn't do it. And if you did, obviously it was that harlot over there that made you do it. Like, that is the whole entire teaching. And the harlot could be a three fucking year old girl, like it's insane.

SPEAKER_00 55:23

It is crazy, and you know what? I may just dial this hill. I think the Adam or Adam and the Apple need to be reinvestigated. I don't trust it. It's got it's got men written all over it.

SPEAKER_02 55:37

You know why, and so does the Bible. The Bible has men written all over it, and if in the perspective of their the way that they have interpreted it, has men written all over it. Nothing but misogyny, all over it, and you know what?

SPEAKER_00 55:55

If Jesus had 12 men as disciples and they they were strong and athletic, like Donald Trump likes, there there might be a couple of fruits in his basket, too, you know.

SPEAKER_02 56:07

You know, he didn't say a damn thing about that, did he?

SPEAKER_00 56:10

Not at all.

SPEAKER_02 56:11

And you know how you know the biggest proponent of women was Jesus. Yeah, he built them up, he wanted them around him. And so who else does that but gay men?

SPEAKER_00 56:25

I know not all gay men, but I think I think we might I think we just solved a couple things. Uh see when two brilliant minds get a lot get together, you know.

SPEAKER_02 56:35

Okay we can solve all the world's problems, yes.

SPEAKER_00 56:37

We're gonna have to do this more often. Um, okay. Um, I'm gonna share the link to uh your podcast in the show notes, and I'm also gonna share the the interview that you did with Jenny on and hole here.

SPEAKER_01 56:47

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 56:48

And um, and of course I'll keep everyone posted um as you and Jenny and I talk and we you know get something planned. I think that we're all have such great chemistry together. But I know that we've talked a lot about you know, we've mentioned the cult and talked about you know your religious upbringing or or situations through throughout this episode, but you obviously go deeper into it. Yeah, so tell us about uh your podcast.

SPEAKER_02 57:10

So Umbrella Rebellion was born out of the idea that my co-host and I, which she hasn't been a part of it for a while because of family life, but we both were watching like how people were responding to the Duggars, and we're like, no, no, no, no, no. That is not the way it is. Like, you don't understand the cult mentality. And so we just saw people like bashing on Anna and everything, and we were like, we need to expose what it was really like to live in that cult and bring a perspective with a little bit more grace and kindness towards survivors. So we both kind of had shared online, and we I was like, you know what? I know how to do content creation, let's start a podcast. And the premise of the whole podcast is exposing the abuses of IBLP and also as part of IFP, like Jenny was. Um, I joke a lot of times I was simultaneously in three cults IBLP, the US military, and IFP all at the same time.

SPEAKER_00 58:17

A lot of deconstructing.

SPEAKER_02 58:19

So much deconstructing. And so, like, I've gone through some of the materials that Bill Gother published, and I tried to expose the underlying message of the way he's interpreted the Bible and tried to apply it to people's lives. I am not a biblical scholar, but I can only give my perspective of do you see this, what he said here? This is where he twists it and makes it something it's not. This is what this is how it applied to our lives. Because a lot of people can read what he wrote and they don't understand the unspoken things that we heard all the time because his writings are only a fraction of what we got in the cult.

SPEAKER_00 59:03

Yeah, I really enjoy your podcast and I really enjoy your TikToks.

SPEAKER_02 59:07

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 59:08

Yeah, and uh you uh read chapters sometimes. What what is it that you read?

SPEAKER_02 59:14

Um, right now I'm going through Jesus and John Wayne.

SPEAKER_00 59:17

And so is it chapters of the Bible that you read or is it books?

SPEAKER_02 59:22

Oh, so I also had done the men's manual. I was starting to go through that and I've done a whole series on that, but I had to stop because of life. It just got too hard to do the editing.

SPEAKER_03 59:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 59:34

And so right now I'm just showing up with what I have, how I can, when I can, and trying to build up consistency because uh one of the the things that I've struggled with is getting more um followers because I'm not consistent. So I'm trying to just stick with what I can be consistent with, and I felt like if I got that under my belt, then I could add the men's manual again. So once I get ahead in a lot of my editing, then I'm gonna probably start back in recording and editing the men's manual, which is really interesting because in the cult, we as women were not allowed to read anything that the men were given. So it has shed a light on some of the teachings that has harmed the men of the cult. Because a lot of people talk about how it harmed women because yes, we were the scapegoat for everything that happened, but it was what they taught men that caused that. And so it's really exposing the underlying teachings that caused fathers to abuse their children and their wives.

unknown 1:00:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:45

Yeah, I really enjoyed those. And if there's ever anything I can do to help you with, let me know. Okay. And with the job that I had, I was able to do my edits while sitting at my desk.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:04

Oh my gosh, that's nice.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:06

So, but of course, I no longer work at that job anymore. So who knows if I'll ever be able to do that again. But but I think that if me and Ginny brainstormed, we could, you know, do something where we collaborate together and start reaching each other's audiences because I think and what I love about podcasters is we know there's enough room for all of us. So it's not it's not a like, no, I want them to like my show. You can like all of our shows, you know, like what's all of us?

SPEAKER_02 1:01:29

Every single one of us brings a different perspective because every one of us have lived a different life, and it really bothers me when you have people out there that are content creators that want to corner the market on something, and it's like, girl, boy, you don't know half of it. So sit down, shut up, and listen to this other thing. But like, if we all promote and help promote, people will get exposed to different viewpoints, and there's some things that I don't understand because I didn't grow up in it that like Jenny would understand better. I always talk about how I had a complete perspective outside of the cult because I grew up Catholic. We went to Baptist, and then when I turned the month or two after I turned 18, I was at a basic seminar, then I went into the US military. So, like I had a worldly perspective that I understand, and then I saw my younger siblings grow up in mostly the cult and seeing how they didn't have that relevant life experience as a child and how isolated they were and the result of that. And then so it's like I have such a unique perspective being my generation and having gone into it as an adult, yeah, you know, at 18 and not growing up in it. And a lot, I think that affords me to talk about a lot more because even though this stuff is triggering, and that's another thing, like the weight of going through all of this stuff can get very mentally heavy. And as I was talking about earlier, what I deal with sometimes I have to put the podcast on the back burner so I can deal with the mental load of being a support system to somebody who's really struggles.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:20

So and I want you to know that that I respect that and that it's so important. And one one of the things that I've done that's helped me is I I pre-record. And so I could die right now, and y'all wouldn't know for three months. I've got to go edit it and scheduled. It's like, and so it like I just had to take, I just had to say, you know what, I'm taking three days. I'm getting a bunch of recordings and a bunch of editing done. And you know, and I have an AI system that helps me edit, so I kind of have it trained where when we're having these conversations, there's very few edits, you know, or you or you find ways like keywords I don't find to kick it out. But if there's anything I can do for you, your mental health, but still keep your show going, please let me know. Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:03

Yes, we're gonna have to talk because if I'm gonna get back to the men's manual, I might need some help.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:10

Yeah, I would love that. And I think that was so cool about Modern Ginny's dynamic is I don't know a lot about cold. And so when I'm editing her show, I'm like, and so like I'll start taking notes and then I feel bad sometimes because we'll have that guest on on a TikTok live, and I feel like I hijacked the live because I'm like, I've got all these questions because it's so foreign to me.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:30

Yeah, you know, that's that's what's good because you bring a different perspective and you can make people aware of yo, this is fucking crazy. Like, like, and the survivors are like, Oh, I didn't think that was crazy, but yeah, that's crazy now that I think about it.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:47

So, yeah, so we'll connect. So the last thing I want to say to you uh uh before we head out is a bit of a confession. I typed out on several of your longer TikTok little uh reading, you know, your readings or whatever. I've typed out several comments, I've deleted it every time because and I was like, I'm just gonna wait until I see her and say it. And here's why. I always want to say, you put me to sleep or I fall asleep to you. Now, if you're just reading that, if you're just reading that, it could be like, bitch, I thought we were friends, and you had to you could have sent that to me in a text message and didn't blast you all up. I right I know what you mean, but I I love to turn on and and listen to you because you have such a lovely, comforting voice. You are a safe place, and I like to fall asleep to noise, but I don't like it to play like all night, and uh and so it it's a place where like when I would lay my head down, I could cut listen to your your reading to me and and I would happily fall asleep with and so so I I could never find a way to say that with the few characters you have where it didn't sound like I was trying to like give you a K.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:56

Bitch, you just put me to sleep. You're so boring.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:02

Because I was like, if there is any kind of troll, even though you would know my heart, you would know that it all takes that one troll to be like, or not even a troll, but I know that I have some people that are just so protective of me. If they saw something like that, that'd be like warriors arise.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:19

No, I absolutely love that. And that makes me feel so good because one of the goals that I have is to be a safe place, especially for survivors. But anybody who has experienced trauma and and a lot of people I've gotten comments about how we joke about trauma. Dude, if you can't joke about it, you haven't experienced it, I don't think. You can't survive if you just take all of this stuff seriously. And honestly, laughter is a trauma response. So shut up, go away.

unknown 1:06:51

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:52

But no, that makes me so happy that I comfort you in my reading and put you to sleep. So that means that I lull you to sleep and then I'm in your subconscious.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:02

Yes, I know. I'm like, maybe she should start reading happy stories because, and it's not because you're a woman, but so I'm not blaming you because you're a woman. However, my dreams have been a little off, and then I wake up and I have weird days, and maybe that's probably why maybe it is the women. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:24

Well, well, it might be the topic, might be the topic more than the woman, but what? Whatever. Well, you send me some suggestions, some suggestions of a happy book to read you to sleep. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:35

Well, Reba's got a new book coming out, so we'll start there. Oh, Reba.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:38

Oh, yay!

SPEAKER_00 1:07:39

I love Reba. Oh my gosh, this has been so much fun. Thank you so much. Like I said, today's a weird day for me. Today's the first day of whatever. Well, I can't even say a new norm because I don't even know what the new norm is.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:51

Today's the first day of me putting figuring out your new norm.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:55

Yeah, putting unemployed feet on the ground.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:59

Dude, you are gonna just do amazing. I just know it. Whatever you do, I just I see the efforts that you put into everything that you do, and the product that comes out is amazing. And so, whatever you decide to do, I know that you are just gonna be amazing at it.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:18

Thank you so much. That means the world, because what I've decided to do is go find a rich man, and I promise I'll be very good at spending his money.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:28

As long as you put some this way, I won't complain.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:32

Well, tell tell everybody where the best place to find you is.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:36

I am on Umbrella Rebellion on everything: Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Substack, which I haven't really been on a whole lot lately, but I mainly post on TikTok and YouTube and occasionally Facebook, Instagram.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:51

Cool. Well, and I will share all those things. And but yeah, thank you so much. And I'm here for you on and off the record. If if you need someone to just vent to, because I know what you're going through and trying to help out your family member, you know, I I understand on a certain level. And and regardless of, I'm a huge ally for mental health. So if I can do anything, let me know. I'm sending all the love your way. And let's me and Jenny connect real soon. Yes. It could be a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:19

Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate you.