Former Worship Leader Reveals Why She Left Christianity | Church Hurt, Abuse & Deconstruction

What happens when the church that taught you about God also becomes the source of your deepest wounds?

In this episode of Unholier Than Thou, I sit down with Nikki, a former worship leader whose journey began in a Pentecostal church at 17 years old. After entering an abusive relationship with the pastor’s son, she found herself in a church culture that protected leadership instead of victims, leaving her to wrestle with questions that would follow her for years.

After escaping that relationship, Nikki rebuilt her life, found a healthy marriage, and returned to church, eventually serving in worship ministry alongside her husband. But new experiences inside church leadership forced her to confront difficult questions about faith, authority, abuse, and authenticity...ultimately leading her to deconstruct Christianity.

In this conversation, we discuss:
• Domestic abuse and spiritual abuse
• Church culture and purity teachings
• Victim blaming in religious communities
• Worship ministry behind the scenes
• Deconstruction and leaving Christianity
• Healing after religious trauma
• Finding freedom after faith

Whether you’re deconstructing, questioning your beliefs, healing from church hurt, or simply interested in hearing another perspective, Nikki’s story is one of resilience, courage, and reclaiming your voice.

 Connect with Nikki:

https://www.instagram.com/nikkileaks_exposingabuse?igsh=b2xiY2lrejdmMXd0

https://www.tiktok.com/@nikkileaks_exposingabuse?_r=1&_t=ZP-98CVrlFBII2

If this conversation resonates with you, please like, subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode with someone who might need to hear it.

#Deconstruction #ReligiousTrauma #ChurchHurt #FormerChristian #Exvangelical #SpiritualAbuse #Healing #FaithJourney #UnholierThanThouPodcast

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:22

Welcome back to the Unholier Than Thou podcast. Today's conversation touches on domestic abuse, spiritual abuse, and trauma within the church. If those topics are difficult for you, please take care while listening. My guest today is Nikki. She first walked into a Pentecostal church at 17 years old, never imagining how deeply that decision would shape the course of her life. A few years later, she began dating the pastor's son. What started out as a relationship eventually became one marked by abuse. When she turned to the church for help, she found herself in a community that protected its own and left her questioning not only the people she trusted, but the beliefs that had shaped her life. But this episode isn't just about what Nikki survived. It's about rebuilding. It's about finding healthy love after abuse, serving in ministry alongside her husband, wrestling with difficult questions, and discovering the courage to follow those questions wherever they lead. Today we're talking about church culture, spiritual abuse, healing, and deconstruction, and what it means to claim your voice after years of being told what to believe. I'm incredibly grateful that Nikki was willing to share her story with us, and I think you'll find this conversation both powerful and thought-provoking. So let's get started. So I really liked how we were talking about before we hit recording about just how our audience is sort of vast and broad. The want for various opinions to not be in an echo chamber and to because we were in an echo chamber for so long, right? With our upbringing and being in the church. And now that we're out, I think it is so important to discuss this topic repeatedly on this platform, especially and on your platform, but to give people a perspective of we weren't always deconstructed. We were in the church every Sunday, in the pew every Sunday. I was a pastor's daughter. I was then a youth pastor's wife. You were a worship leader, all of these things. And so it's not that we were deconstructed and we'd figured it out and we were out of the church, and now we're these heathens, um, according to some, right? But we were there every Sunday. We were faithful, we were there more than just Sundays. So I'd love to start out on this and then kind of just flow into your journey where you started in church, and then coming out of that and where you're at now.

SPEAKER_02 3:06

Yeah. It's it's always interesting to me the assumptions that that people will make off of five-second video clip that they see of you. And I've seen this a lot with a lot of the deconstructionist content creators that there's a lot of assumptions made that we weren't ever really part of a church, or we just visited a church, it wasn't our thing, and now we have this platform. But yeah, a lot of us were in higher level leadership. And not only were we there every Sunday, but we were there for most of Sunday. We were there midweek service, we're there in the leadership meetings. And one of the things that I really try to talk about is I've sat in these meetings, right? I've sat in the meetings where the pastors are telling the media team, okay, we need to bring in more people. I want, you know, camera one, go find this woman who's usually bawling her face in the front of in the front row and get a picture of her for promotional purposes. Wow. I've seen it done with race, where most of the congregation is white, Caucasian, and they want to appeal to other ethnicity groups. And so they find the one person who might be a person of color, and they do a ton of media around that person. And this is all without their consent. So I think a lot of people don't quite understand that I've sat in these meetings, I've debated with these pastors in those meetings where they're talking about how can we essentially use these people for our benefit, bringing up hey, you know, that's that's really manipulative. That's not honoring of your congregants and the pushback that I would get. And it became very clear to me in in really most of the churches that I was in that position that people were not the center. Jesus wasn't even the center, their organization was at the center. And everything came down to the church and how do we continue to promote our church and promote our agenda at the cost of our people. And I think that's something that a lot of congregants are not previewed to because a lot of people, they come in Sunday, they do the service, maybe they have a Bible study during the week, maybe they serve. But aside from that, there's kind of that divide of, I guess, for back of lack of better words, the ordinary people of the church versus the leadership of the church. And that was very eye-opening to me. I I grew up in the Catholic Church and my family is very Irish Catholic. When I was 17, I started going to a non-denominational Pentecostal church, which ended up to be a cult. My parents were very concerned, and I was very upset with them at the time. And now I'm like, oh my gosh, you were right. That was a cult. I should have listened to you guys. How did you end up there when you were 17? I so I was working at McDonald's, which is one of my teenager jobs, and there were two brothers there who their dad was the pastor. And so they would always invite the group of friends that we had formed there. And we always thought it was funny. We're like, oh yeah, let's do fun things like go to church. And then we started going. And I was really into music. I loved music, I loved singing. I always wanted to pursue that. And for all of their faults, they were very phenomenal musicians and still are phenomenal musicians. So that was what really kind of hooked me was I loved the music. And then it just kind of all went downhill from there. But I also, one of the brothers I was also very attracted to. Uh, we ended up dating for many of years. I now hold a permanent restraining order against him. It's one of those situations where, in that bubble, the brainwashing, the manipulation was so intense and strong without really any accountability. And I remember hearing the pastor say things like, People are gonna tell you you're brainwashed, but the Bible says that we are not of the world. So you need to have your brainwashed from all that filth. And like in that moment, and I'm looking at the Bible, I'm like, oh, it does say like we're not of the world. And I'm like, oh, maybe he's right, you know. But I was also a very vulnerable person. And I noticed that about a lot of the people in that congregation specifically. There was a lot of vulnerability there, and the behavior was incredibly predatory from the leadership, and I guess that's how I ended up there.

SPEAKER_00 7:22

So you mentioned that you dated the pastor's son and that you have a permanent restraining order against him. What uh happened to allow you to have a permanent restraining order against him?

SPEAKER_02 7:36

So I was in that church, I think, from like 17 to about 21. I dated the pastor's son from 19 to 21. Um, off and on. He was incredibly abusive every single possible way. And it always came back to well, you have to forgive. There has to be grace. And just really the patriarchy was great in that church. So because he was the man, right? And I was the female, they usually would believe him, even though they would see how he would treat me. We had a situation where actually one of the final straws for me as things were escalating within the relationship was he had dragged me down three flights of stairs in front of his sister-in-law. And she was the one that went to the pastor and was like, Hey, I just watched this happen. And so then when I went to go sit down with the pastor, the pastor was like, Oh, well, I talked to him. He said he was just trying to help you out. And what? Yeah, I go, Well, I was screaming at him to stop and trying to like hold the wall back from like getting dragged down. So, no, I don't think he was trying to help me. He goes, Ah, well, you know, you make him feel bad for not going to college. And that totally blew my mind because I'm thinking, I don't even know we've had a conversation about him going to college. So, one, if he is feeling that way, it's not because I'm putting that on him, it's his own insecurity. But two, not a reason why you drag somebody down a flight of stairs. That's not right. Um, so that was one of like the straws that broke the camel's back in terms of me being like, okay, well, I'm actually in a really dangerous position here. Um, and up until that point, I was listening to the leadership of, you know, God can do anything, God performs miracles, he can change anybody's heart. And really trying to help to to position me to look at the potential that may have been in my partner at the time. He was also a very talented worship leader. So there was this uh there was a lot of pressure of like, oh, you guys are gonna be a power couple for the Lord. And you know, after two and a half years, I'm looking at this and I'm like, oh, this is only escalating. And now other people have watched it happen and they are still defending him, they're still dismissing me. And I remember telling his father, like, you know, this this is abusive. And he was like, Oh no, that's not abuse. And how's dragging somebody down three flights of stairs, not abuse? He goes, Well, I know how you girls, you know, over exaggerate sometimes. What? Yeah. And I said, Look, I said, I've been in counseling, and I was at this point in time, I was in college. So I'd started going to a church out there as well, which was about an hour away from where I live. And I will forever be grateful for for those people because they so you know, when I when we talk about the healthiness of the church, a lot of people are either it's healthy or it's unhealthy. And I look at it as a continuum, right? When you have a system like that, there's always gonna be something unhealthy. There's always going to be things that need to be worked on, things that need to grow. So on the continuum, I would say the original church I was in, the cult I was in was, you know, way unhealthy. The next one I was in was healthier, but there were still a lot of unhealthy things taking place there as well. But um, they had two people on staff that had gone to college for counseling, and one of them kind of took me under her wing and she counseled me for free. And I remember saying this to the pastor, like, I'm in counseling for this. And my counselor agrees that this behavior is abusive. And immediately he shut that down. He's like, Oh, it's therapy, and that's of the world. And I said, Well, she's she's the pastor's wife. And he goes, A pastor's wife? I go, Yeah, like she's a pastor. He goes, Well, that's that's part of the problem. A woman, a pastor. I'm like, okay, we're not gonna get anywhere here. Um, and that was, you know, that I I left that meeting, and I remember letting him know, like, hey, I'm uh I'm not coming anymore. I will come this one last time to serve. And then I was silenced. They told me I was not allowed to tell anybody I was leaving because it would create problems. And I remember saying to them, this doesn't make any sense. This is a very small church. There's probably maybe 30 people who attend regularly. And for the last three years, I've been on the platform every Sunday helping to lead worship. People are gonna know I'm just gone. And it wasn't until right later that I kind of put the pieces together of they wanted to control the narrative.

SPEAKER_00 12:26

Sure.

SPEAKER_02 12:26

Because everything came down to how is this gonna look for the church? I decided to leave, and a big part of it was because of how they addressed my concerns with their son who was abusive, right? That wasn't good for them, that wasn't good for the church, so they wanted to control their own narrative, which eventually ended up being, oh, she was just jealous, and she left because he started dating somebody else, which was not the case. So yeah, I was able to get away from that. And I think the more distance I had, the clearer I was able to see how deep the manipulation ran.

SPEAKER_00 13:06

So at the time were your parents aware of what was going on?

SPEAKER_02 13:11

Yes and no. So they from the very beginning did not approve of me going to this church. One, because we were Catholic and that was what our family did. So anything outside of that was kind of like we don't know about this. Then they met the pastor's sons, and I remember my dad saying to me, he's like, Nicole, something's up with those kids. They are out of control. Yes. I don't like it. And he goes, They're out of control. I remember he's thinking, how can a man who can't ever control his children control a church? And I was so pissed. Yeah. It's what and and these are one of those moments where within my deconstructing and you know, trying to figure out what do I really believe in? What are what are the parts um that I've been taught that and I've experienced that I feel like are true, and what is just people, people using religion to control or manipulate whatever reason it may be. And I opened the Bible and I went to a scripture, 1 Timothy 3.5, for if a man does not know how to rule his own household, how will he care for God's church? And it hit me like a ton of bricks, and I sat there and I thought, oh my god, my dad has a point. I can't believe my dad is right about this because I was in that state, right? I was I as a teenager, my dad and I, he's a great dad, I love him, we get along now, but I was kind of I was stubborn. I was stubborn, don't tell me what to do, and I couldn't understand why. Like, this is a good thing. I'm out of church. Why is this something that you're not supportive of? And then on the other side, you know, you have this whole group of teenagers whose parent none of our parents really supported us going because all of our parents were like, something's not right here. But we'd go to church and from the pulpit, the pastor would look at us and he'd be like, Your parents aren't capable of loving you because they don't have the love of Christ in them. They're upset because you're here on a Sunday, but they don't have anything bad to say about you partying on Saturday. And so, you know, I'm getting this messaging from my father, who is essentially saying, Hey, this doesn't look healthy and I don't support this. Meanwhile, I'm in love with this guy, and I'm finally feeling like I'm able to pursue these dreams that I have in music. Then I have the messaging from the pastor going, Well, the most important thing is the love of Christ, and your parents don't have so how could they possibly truly love you? You know, and saying that now, I'm like, oh my gosh, how diabolically like manipulative.

SPEAKER_00 15:55

Oh, it's evil. Yeah. Uh so was he saying that they didn't have the love of Christ because they weren't true Christians because they were Catholic and they didn't believe the same way? Okay, because I've heard that before, or some a similar rhetoric with the way I was raised as well. So yeah, that is just it's so like you said, diabolical. It's evil. Um, it's it's it's all of those things. So okay, so of course, but as a teenage girl, you're like, but I like this guy, and I'm going to church. I'm not out, you know, galvan around town on the weekends, getting drunk and doing drugs, dad, like a lot of these other teenagers. I'm in church. I'm on the worship team, I'm doing the thing, and you can't support this. Like, what the heck? And then the pastor is just solidifying what you are feeling, and you're like, that's it. They don't have the love of Christ. They don't love that.

SPEAKER_02 16:50

And and scripture talks about, right? Christ came to divide, you know, father and son. Sure. Yeah, however, these scriptures are misused. Um, so there were so many things that made sense that they were saying when you look at it the in the context of a young impressional girl who is for the first time in her life felt like she met Christ. And all I wanted was to know Jesus. All I wanted was to learn everything I could. And I didn't have any other context. I didn't have any other people really who I felt like were real Christians at that time in my life, except for that group of people. So I heavily depended on their opinions, I heavily depended on their knowledge of the Bible and scripture and how Christianity should look. And now looking back at it, it's it's mind-blowing. Um, but I understand, I understand why so many people fall prey to that. Because so many people are searching for love. So many people are searching to feel like they belong. And so you just get a little bit of that, and then you come in and you weaponize scripture against it, and it's it's the perfect storm.

SPEAKER_00 18:04

Oh, yeah. I I often liken it to a gang where gangs often absorb people who have single parent homes or are foster children or adoptees, people that don't they feel like they don't belong. And so they find a gang, and then the gang accepts them. And then, of course, there's things that the gang expects them to do to be a part of the gang. They have to steal something, or they gotta rob someone, or they gotta vandalize a building or what have you. And uh a church, I'm sorry guys, a church is a similar mentality. It's like you have you have to do these things in order to be part of this community, or we're going to shun you, we're going to tell you you gotta leave, we're gonna relieve you of your duties here. Like a lot of people, if they step outside the perimeter that they're given, it's you can't be a worship leader anymore, you can't teach Sunday school, you can't work in the nursery, you can't be a deacon, you can't, you know, all these stipulations. And so everyone's just this little robot doing what they're supposed to do day in and day out when they go to church. And it's making people, I mean, a lot of people are very miserable. I know this is a very controversial topic, and people are gonna get mad at me for saying this, but it's like you said once you got out, then you could see, but when you're in it, you can't see it.

unknown 19:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:32

So you may you you you might have fractures to your paradigm, which then causes you to leave, which thank God for those. I had those myself, but um, you can't really see the clear picture until you're out, and then you're like, oh my gosh, that was way worse than I thought it was when I was in it. I'm seeing in real time, as you're telling me, the fractures that are happening, okay, with the lack of accountability that the pastor is making his son take towards um his treatment of you, the the things that he is saying from the pulpit versus what your dad has said to you and things you're finding in scripture. Um, the church that you went to was quite different in their leadership, and the people that went there were a lot different than the people that went to the first church. So there's these little fractures that are happening along the way, of course, that are part of your deconstruction journey, that shedding of your paradigm that you had, which is lovely and I love it, and I love hearing these stories because I always tell people it's not a one incident, it's not one thing that happens. It's typically over time little things that happen that just I always liken it to like peeling an onion. You just have layer by layer by layer, and then you sort of arrive at this, like looking back, I cannot believe I thought this, or I cannot believe I stayed that long. Right? Exactly. So it's so it's sort of a metamorphosis of swords. But when you were in college and you started going to that healthier church, were you there for a long period of time, or did you just go there during college and then end up somewhere else? Or what happened during or after college?

SPEAKER_02 21:17

Yeah, we were I was there for a long time. Um, I'm I went, I would say, I think it was my sophomore year, I kind of got plugged in. And just the friendships I'm at there were far healthier than the ones I had at the at the previous church, and there was a lot more encouragement. Worship leading wise, um, they were very encouraging. They were, you know, they were like, oh, why don't you try this? Oh, that sounds great. Here, you know, we want you to lead the song, do it as you want to do it. And practices ran really smoothly.

SPEAKER_00 21:52

Okay, so so they weren't like, okay, you need to be more emotional here. We're gonna dim the lights, we're gonna have the back light. Lights going, we're gonna have the music soft. You need to be crying at this moment, raising your hand, doing all this. No. Because I know some churches do that.

SPEAKER_02 22:09

Yeah. Yeah. So that wasn't the case here. But it was such a stark contrast to what I was used to. When I was on the worship team, I'm just gonna refer to the other church as the cult. That's kind of how everybody, I guess, like in my sphere, refers to it. Um, but the worship, I was the only non-family member on the worship team, and worship rehearsals were wild. People were screaming at each other, punches were getting thrown, like that sucks. I should be singing this song. And then after service, what they would do, the worship team would come down and they would go outside and then they would sit there for a half an hour and just rip each other apart. Like, oh, you missed this note and you missed that beat, and you should have hit that harmony different. So it was it was really toxic. So it it would not have been hard for for any church that I went to next to be better, honestly.

SPEAKER_00 23:02

Um the bar was set so low. It was set so low. So, what led you from this healthier church to where you're at now?

SPEAKER_02 23:12

I joined the worship team, they started giving me opportunities, and then within about two months, everyone on the worship team left. Somebody had to step down because they want to focus on their family. One was a missionary who went back home. There was uh two members who went to college, and then another who left to go plant a church. So then it was just me with my guitar and this man named Chris. He came up and he goes, Me and my siblings, we played. Do you want some help? And I said, Yes, please. And now I'm married to him. So I'm very grateful. That's awesome. Did you know him in the church at the time? Um, a little bit. So when we first met, he was in a relationship and I was still dating my ex-boyfriend. And so we knew of each other. We just had never really talked, and then he joined the team. It was great. I had a team, they were very musically inclined, which was great because I can sing, but my ability to play instruments, I only learned to support my vocals. But we just I became very good friends with all three of them, him, his sister, and his brother. And over time we just realized actually what it was, somebody I knew had asked me if I would sing at their wedding. And so I asked him if he would play guitar for me. So we spent a couple, you know, a couple after church Sundays in the church basement playing love songs, and that was kind of it for me. Wow, I like that. That's cool, and it's been a real like I've been very fortunate. We've deconstructed together. Um, I my journey started a little bit earlier, so there were I was a little nervous because we were both such strong Christians, right? We had such convictions and felt very deeply and very strongly about a lot of our beliefs. I remember going to him and I decided, I'm like, I don't think that we should tithe. And that was one of the things that we had always been very, very faithful in. And I wasn't sure how he was gonna respond. And he said, Okay, why? I go, Well, we're not really participating in church anymore. And there were had been a number of shifts in our life, and I was a say at home mom, and I said, I'm gonna have to go get a job. Why are we paying the church $1,200 a month? I'm just we're just gonna stop. And he said, All right, well, you know, the Bible says that that is the one area you can test God in. So we took a deep breath and we expected to our world come crashing down, and it didn't. He got a huge raise, he like got a promotion, we got approval for this other thing for um our son, and uh, you know, I my platform started growing, and I'm looking at this and I'm thinking, oh, okay. This had nothing to do about the money I've been putting into church. You know, anytime, any monetary blessing, I was like, Oh, it's God, and it's because I'm paying the church every month. All right. But that still continued even when we didn't do that. Um but yeah, just a little, I guess, side note.

SPEAKER_00 26:21

Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that because that is that is a very interesting point, and I I can attest to the same thing that happened to us too as well. So you guys were deconstructing together while you were both on the worship team. No, I'm so sorry. That was more okay.

SPEAKER_02 26:38

Yeah, that was more recently. Um so yeah, no, there was no deconstruction. And we would have been the people that if somebody had said, Oh, I'm deconstructing, we'd have been like, Oh my god, we need to get the prayer group together. We have to fast, we have to pray because they're being deceived. Embarrassing to admit, but I'm I used to be the Christian that I talk about now. That's a good one. I'm I'm not as bad as a lot of the ones I talked about, but I was certain, I I certainly could have hung around with them for sure.

SPEAKER_00 27:07

Yeah. You're like, we're gonna pray for you, and then you like mention them on a Wednesday night during prayer meeting. I love how they do that when they're like pray for so and so, but it's really just a way of gossiping that they think is an okay way of doing it.

SPEAKER_02 27:24

Oh, I can't even tell you how many people are like, Oh, you have to pray for Susan because X, Y, and Z supposed to tell you. I'm just telling you so you can pray for her. Yeah, yeah. I remember being like, I think God can handle that with sharing this information with me. Uh if you can't, that's problematic.

SPEAKER_00 27:43

Yeah, you know, I know. Okay, so you guys were on the worship team, and then like what happened that caused you guys to leave?

SPEAKER_02 27:52

Just life. Um, this was about an hour away from where I grew up, and we had always talked about moving back to that area when we were having kids. And actually, funny enough, so I used to be a teacher, and for the first probably two and a half years, my career consisted of covering maternity leaves. And I was offered a permanent teaching position back where I was where where my family is. So we took that opportunity and we were joking and laughing about like, oh, we ended up coming back sooner than we thought. What I had not known was that I was actually pregnant when I accepted the job offer and then found out two weeks later that I was pregnant. So the timing worked out well. Um, and yeah, we came back. We had a friend who passed at a church in the town we were moving to, who we thought was lovely. We were so excited because we knew him, we knew his wife, but they had just taken over that church. And so when we got there, it was not at all what we had, I think, expected. We knew it was Pentecostal, but it was like next level Pentecostal where you know people are running around screaming, and I'm like, what is happening?

SPEAKER_00 29:00

Yeah, that's what I think of. When I think Pentecostal, I think speaking in tongues, you know, getting slapped on the forehead, um playing in the spirit, yeah, running around. That's what I think of. Is it not all like that?

SPEAKER_02 29:15

I think there's varying degrees and varying levels. Okay. I think it kind of depends on the service, right? Because some have the spirit that move better, right? Like, oh, the spirit's really moving in this service. And then there's the encouragement of let's let's seek the Lord deeper and let's pray in in the language of the Lord and the angels. And so I I I've found that there's very different levels of it. Okay. And different parts of that are shown, I think, in different, not different settings, but in different services.

SPEAKER_00 29:50

Yeah, that makes sense. Because even the way I was raised, um, I was raised independent fundamental Baptist. And um I would say I always call it, I always say that it's a spectrum. There's a spectrum of, you know, light to extreme. And so people that come from the lighter side of the IFB, when I say the IFB cult, they get all offended and they say it's not a cult, you know. I don't know what church you were raised in, but it's not a cult. It's like, well, I mean, now I think all religion is a cult. So I'm I will argue that point for sure, but good that they are in a healthier environment than a lot of them are. But there were services like a tent meeting or revival services where there would be running in the aisles and hooping and hollering and throwing handkerchiefs and water bottles and all kinds of weird stuff going on. But we weren't Pentecostal, we didn't speak in tongues and do all of that, but there was it, there was some stuff that were it was pushing that way for sure. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:55

I would say so the cult I was part of, they were Pentecostal in the sense of, oh, you know, the youth pastor's coming up because he has a prophetic word, or people would be slain in the spirit. There were some people who spoke in tongues, and it was always the the belief around that was these are gifts of the Holy Spirit that you can have. And then the next church I went to, there wasn't so much of being slain in the spirit. There was a lot of speaking in tongues, there was a lot of prophetic words. Um, it was very interesting. We had a microphone up at the front that anybody could just come and speak on behalf of God. And we were just outside, like just outside um of a city, and we would have people walking by. Our services were Saturday night, and we had the doors open most of the time. People would just come walking off the street, they would see what was going on. They'd go up and take the mic and start giving prophetic words. And I remember being there as like a worship leader, like looking at my pastor, and he's like What did anyone say anything crazy? Oh, yeah, there was a lot of crazy things. We had somebody one time who came up, the mic got taken from her, she went screaming out. She she was upset about another religion. We were talking about something that had happened, a current event, and so we were praying for them, and she was gonna be praying all that stuff, and so she was kind of like, Okay, I'm gonna take the mic from you now, and so like that did happen, and I will say at that level they were pretty good about stepping in, but for the most part, it was a free-for-all, and just yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:40

Interesting. That would be entertaining, I think, but yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:45

Yeah, oh, it it was for sure. Um, you know, because there was a couple bars on the street, so sometimes we'd get drunk people just like what's going on in here, or they would think it's a bar because they hear the live music, and then they're like, What language are these people talking?

SPEAKER_03 32:59

Oh my gosh, yeah, hilarious.

SPEAKER_02 33:03

Yes, and their belief was also very much this is a part of you know, the gift of the Holy Spirit is a part of your Christianity, but your Christianity's not or your salvation's not based on that. So, this third church we had gone to, it was very much like you have to be baptized in the Holy Spirit. And you have to speak in tongues, in other words, yes, yeah, yeah. You have to be baptized in the Holy Spirit, you have to speak in tongues because that is the evidence of that. And if you had that hasn't happened, like every single service, it was like, Oh, come on up. If you don't speak in tongues, come on up, we're gonna pray for you and you're gonna do it. And I remember the the first time I was so excited to go there the first time because I'd been there before for events and they were they were great. I loved them. The person who I was at the time loved the events, and we knew the pastor who had just taken over. The way it was set up is you had to go in the building and then up the stairs to the sanctuary. But when you pulled in, there was a big glass window, and there was a greeter who would just stand there and like look out over looking up, but like, I wonder what that guy's doing. And I figured out that he was, you know, kind of tracking who was coming because it was his job to go hug them. And this was when I just found out I was pregnant, I was so sick. My poor husband, like, he would try to come give me a hug, and I'm like, please don't touch me because I'm gonna puke. This man would just like you know, hi, we're so happy you're here, and I'm just like and at that point in time I I had zero skills to stick up for myself, so I was just like, That's so nice to be here, thank you. And so we started going late because I to to avoid him, yeah. And he I I'll never forget we showed up like 15 minutes late, and not on purpose that that day, we just happened to be late because something else happened. And I look over in the middle of worship and I see this guy like beelining for me. And I turn to my husband, I'm like, is he coming over here? And he's coming through the crowd, he's like, excuse me, excuse me. And he's like, I'll get away from me and give this big hug. And I just he walked away and I looked at my husband. He's like, Yeah, we won't come back. And I so wish that I was the person who I am now and had the appropriate confrontation skills with respect, and hey, this is you have to consider this and whatnot. But I watched him do it to everybody, and you could tell, like half the people were fine with it, half the people were kind of like that's weird. Yeah, there didn't seem to be any intervention. It was like, Oh, he just loves the Lord, it's fine. But okay, but what about my personal boundaries? If I'm standing like this, that should be an indication to you that I'm not, I don't want to be hugged.

SPEAKER_00 35:52

Yeah, so that was like you're just like, Okay, we're done. This is pointless. So, and you're pregnant, girl, you are going through it, that you got an a bun in the oven, and you don't want to be touched, and you're like, is it really worth it getting up on a Sunday? I could be sleeping in in my PJs, not getting hugged by this guy. Um, and your husband was supportive of that and was like, Let's just not do this anymore. That's cool. I like that. Okay, so so were you guys like, we'll just watch online at that point? Or were you like, we're done with church altogether? Okay, no, we weren't there yet.

SPEAKER_02 36:28

We had to find a church because we were still in that belief of yeah, gotta go to church. You have to go. Yeah. If you're not in church, you're not really a Christian. Right. Our mindset at that point. So not going to a church was not an option, and it already felt so bizarre to just be going Sunday mornings because prior to that at our previous church, we were doing something with the church, leading a small group or worship night. We were in eldership training. So we were there, I would say, five to six days of the week. So we had already felt we were feeling a lot of guilt and shame already because wow, we've already decreased our time within the religious community so much. We went to a we visited another church, which we did like, but there was just something that didn't sit well with me. I just, and at this point I had my daughter, and I just didn't feel comfortable leaving her. And as a new mom, I I was very cautious, but I remember saying to uh one of the other women there whose husband was on staff, I said, you know, I said, I just I just there's something I don't trust. And she's looking at me, she goes, I think you should listen to that feeling inside of you. So I said, Okay, thank you.

SPEAKER_00 37:53

Do you think she knew something? She did know something about it.

SPEAKER_02 37:56

I think she did. Um, I have no idea what it was because we weren't there for long. And so after that, we just kind of didn't go. Um and then there was a mega church in our area that was opening a campus in our town. And we were very excited about that. We started going there and we were plugged in there for a while, and for the most part, our experience there was pretty good for the for the I feel like each step was like a little bit healthier just in terms of what what they accepted in terms of people, right? Or I guess maybe in in how the severity of control that they were trying to exercise. Um this next one was pretty pretty open. Um they were I remember the pastor I explained some of what I had been through, and he like looked at me with tears in his eyes. He was like, as a pastor, I'm so sorry that that has been your experience with the people of God. He's like, that breaks my heart. It's unacceptable. And I hope that you can find healing in this community. And that meant so much to me. And it was, and he was, he he's a really good guy. But what I've come to find is that no matter how good of a person is, no matter how good of a guy is, they, you know, how good of a man or woman they are, every single person that I still respect or still have respect for who are in those positions, still had behavior that I was like, that's manipulative. Don't do that, that's manipulative, hey, that's toxic. Do you realize you're being controlling right now? So even the people that that I even still have respect for had those some of those behaviors. The only difference is that they were a little bit more open and amendable to that feedback.

SPEAKER_00 39:59

Yeah. I think a lot of times when you're raised in that environment or and or you're around it for so long, you don't even recognize, you know, that you're acting that way or that you're you have the ability to manipulate people because if you're in those leadership positions, it just ends up becoming part of it. I've seen pastors, I mean, you can watch some of these sermons and they are so manipulating people. I mean, manipulating them emotionally and um guilting them and shaming them. And it's just it's really disgusting. And you really don't see it again until you start to really step away and then look at it from the outside perspective, and you're like, my gosh, I was being totally manipulated.

SPEAKER_02 40:46

Yeah. And in this particular situation, so he was our campus pastor. So there was a couple things that happened back to back, and we were like, We're we're all set here. One of them was I knew of some abuse that was going on within some relationships that the woman was being told, Well, you just have to pray more. Don't give up on him. God brought you together while he's being promoted through ministry. And then when there was it was more than one person when they had had enough, some of the pastors on staff refused to continue working with them because, well, you left. Like, yeah, she left. What do you mean? This was during COVID. Our campus opened and then it shut down. And during that time, we lived about 40, 45 minutes away from the main campus. And so Sunday morning, main pastor gets up and he's like, if you were serving at that location, you need to come serve here and because if you come here and you sit in that seat and you're not serving and volunteering, you care more about your own comfort than people going to hell. Are you really okay with people going to hell so you can just sit comfortably in your chair? And I just look at my husband because we're watching this like on online. Oh, this stream. And I'm like, Did he just say that? And he's like, Ew, yeah. And we're watching the comments because it's on Facebook how people, oh my gosh, thank you so much for loving us and being honest with us. Thank you. We have a pastor who can speak so boldly to us. And I'm sitting there going, Oh my gosh, he is manipulating the shit out of you, and you're thanking him.

SPEAKER_00 42:30

Right. Of course.

SPEAKER_02 42:33

I just couldn't believe it. And then he goes, So if you were, if you told that campus pastor that you're not gonna volunteer here, and there's only a couple of us, right? There's probably like four families that were like, No, we're not gonna do it. So it was pretty directed, I feel like. He's like, You need to call him back right now, and you tell him, sign me up. So my husband picks up the phone. He's like, Hey, he's like, I just heard, you know, what lead pastor said. He's like, Oh yeah, he goes, We're still not volunteering, and that's manipulative. And I cannot believe he just said that. Yeah. And for the most part, I will say they were pretty understanding. Um, his wife did say to me, 'Well, we go out there, we drive out there every Sunday.' And I'm like, 'God for you.' Literally, your job, though. That's yeah, you guys are on staff and get paid to do this. She goes, Well, I'm not. And I go, Well, and that's too bad. I go, that's too bad that you give so much of your time and your energy and so much of who you are. This free labor, like, I I I don't think I think we'll ever get off the soapbox of the church runs on women's free labor. Oh, absolutely. But, you know, she's like, Yeah, I'm gonna get paid. And I'm like, but that's your choice. I said, if that's what you want to do, go ahead. But my life at that point in time, too, was just insane. We had decided to adopt through the foster care system, which was incredibly eye opening and devastating how many children are failed. Just on A daily basis by our government. Um, but you know, the question's always, what's your ministry? What's your ministry? What's your ministry? And they wanted us to volunteer, and every volunteer position was at least a year-long commitment. And prior to the campus getting shut down, they had to set everything up and break everything down. So it wasn't like you just popped in, you did your little service and you left. It was like six to one every Sunday. My husband was traveling a ton. There was a point at one time that we had three kids in our home that were having, you know, significant behaviors. So I was just like under. And then that's when my ex-boyfriend started popping back up, and that's when I had to get the restraining order.

SPEAKER_00 44:41

Okay. Yeah, let's talk about that because that is wild. Okay, so how how many years between the time you guys broke up and then he showed back up into the picture?

SPEAKER_02 44:52

So he would pop up randomly over the course of about 12 years. Um it started when I first left. He would threaten me. He had given me a necklace that he wanted, and I he's like, You need to come to my apartment and give it to me. And I just knew I'm like, Don't go. You're not gonna leave if you go there. Um, and so I didn't go bring it to him. So he's like, I'm gonna find you in your new church and I'm gonna rip it from your neck and choke you with it. So he was like, you know, threatening to kill me. And I'm oh my gosh. And even at that point, I still did not see how dangerous this was. Because I still had that, oh, he's a child of God, and you have to forgive and show mercy and grace and remove the plank from your own eye, and you know, all of those phrases that they use. And um, so at that point, after that, there was probably about a month or two where I'd hear from him, and then he started dating his new girlfriend. And so I didn't hear from him for a little while, but I'd randomly get phone calls at three in the morning, I'd randomly get text messages at three in the morning, to the point where I'd reach out to her. I was like, Hey, can you can you talk to him? Because he's still reaching out to me because I figured she didn't know. Yeah. And then I completely cut them off because at this point they had seen when I left, him and his family were like, Oh, you're not in God's will, your life's gonna suck, you're gonna fail at everything you do, which was not what's happening. I was now thriving. So I'm like, Oh, can you come lead worship at our church? Um, and I'm like, that's so funny because you never let me sing when I was there because I wasn't good enough. But now that I have success over here, now you want to use my talent for your gain.

SPEAKER_00 46:45

Wait, they wanted you to come back to their church? Yeah, that is so wild. Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 46:52

So more recently, when I had kind of connected back with my friend, who my ex-boyfriend ended up marrying, they were trying to get her to convince me to go back and lead worship from them. And this was five years ago. Yeah, like wild. So I left, I just cut them off. Yeah, smart. It was a big, you know. Yeah, it's bad enough that you have disobeyed God and have gone outside of his will by leaving our church, but now you're cutting us off, kind of thing. And so I'd really cut my my ex-boyfriend off, and would just kind of pop up over the years. Sometimes I get random messages. So my worship team was visiting a church, so that sorry, and there's a lot of churches. The the church that I met my husband in that we were leading worship in. The second church you were in. Yes, yeah. So they had a really good relationship with a church that was back where I had grown up. And so we went with our worship team to a Sunday morning service because we really liked how they led worship. So we were gonna go and observe, and then we were gonna have a meeting with the team afterwards and just you know, see what we could glean from them. And I'm sitting there and all of a sudden I hear this voice behind me singing, and I'm like, holy shit, I know that voice. And I look over my shoulder, and it's him, it's my ex-boyfriend.

SPEAKER_00 48:25

What was he just singing in the auditorium? Like just singing the best during church service. Okay, I was like, Oh no, you're I I pictured you guys having like your little worship meeting afterwards, and he's just in the back of the auditorium singing randomly.

SPEAKER_02 48:39

Yeah, you know, I wouldn't put that past him though.

SPEAKER_00 48:42

But that's something he would have done.

SPEAKER_02 48:45

Okay, but I'm sitting there and I'm worshiping, and all of a sudden I'm like, and I turn around and I'm like, he's like, is that you know, so and so? I'm like, Yeah. And I was sitting with a friend of mine who he was interested in, and she was not interested in him, she was interested in somebody else. So the whole time he's leaning forward in between me and this girl, being like, You're disgusting. I can't believe you don't want to go out with me. That guy up there, really, look at his hair. You'd rather be with him than with me. So, and this is happening the whole service. And I'm looking at, you know, one of my other teammates, and I'm like, Can you come switch seats with us? Wow. It was just it was a disaster. Um, but thankfully that pastor actually came and witnessed for me for my for my court hearing because he was like, Oh, I went to church there. And that pastor, she was like, No, he didn't. He had come before. She goes, but he knew you were gonna be there because somebody told him, so that's why he showed up. So there was that. And then I randomly got a message from one of my friends going, Hey, this is ex-boyfriend. I heard you were talking about me and talking about what happened in our relationship. I've wanted nothing but the best for you. So please keep my main name out of your mouth. And I'm looking at, you know, my friend Sarah's profile, thinking, Why the hell are you messaging me from her Facebook? Because I had blocked him on everything else. Yeah. My friend, you know, Sarah. And I'm like, uh, hey, I just got this message. And she had no idea. She goes, I think I had logged on to something because she was in that kind of church community um that he was part of. She goes, I think I logged on to something, and I probably didn't log off. She goes, so he probably saw the opportunity. So that was another thing that happened. And then what broke the camel's back was I put myself back into therapy and I was talking about all this stuff with my therapist. I had shared some things with her about my ex-boyfriend that he had shared with me that were crimes against children that he had participated in, that his family members had participated in. This is the pastor's son. Yep. Okay. And specifically the pastor's family. He told me my dad knows about this. He told me not to tell anybody because it would look bad for the church. He said I wasn't allowed to go to therapy because that would look bad for the church. And so he had shared those things with me. I can't remember, it was either shortly after or shortly before he had dragged me down the stairs. So with those two things, I was like, oh, this is bad. This is bad. And that's when I had started safety planning my way out. So back in 2022, when I'm in therapy talking about this, um, I had also reconnected with my old friend who had married him. And she was leaving him. And she told me she was leaving him. And I thought to myself, something horrible must have happened because she's an incredibly loyal, faithful person, like to a fault. And you know what we came to find out is that he was sleeping with his underage cousin, who he still has a relationship with today. And what? Yeah. So she had reached out because at this point she was no longer talking, she was incredibly isolated, was no longer talking to her family. Her family was his family. And her experience was similar to mine, but there wasn't as much physical abuse. And she basically was like, I don't know what to do, I don't know how to get out. And so I was like, I will help you. And so we didn't tell anybody we were talking to each other. Um, I was trying to give her advice, and we ended up contacting another ex-girlfriend that I was still friendly with. So she kind of joined, and we were trying to help her and encourage her. And we uh told her, we're like, hey, whatever you need from us, let us know. We will come testify on your behalf, we'll write witness statements because he was pulling the oh, she's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 53:04

Of course.

SPEAKER_02 53:06

She's like one of the sweetest, most down-to-earth people, and like, no, she's not crazy. If she's crazy, it's because you drove her crazy, you know, just she's an angel of a human. And so there was one night that me, her, and the other ex-girlfriend, we decided to meet for dinner and just kind of game plan her safety plan. And um the wife at the time was staying with his brother, so my ex-boyfriend, her seemed to be ex-husband's brother. And she just got a new phone. She changed the number, and we told her we said, do not give it to your pastor. She's like, Oh no, I think we do not give it to him. He he cannot be trusted, he does not keep secrets. Things you tell him in confidence are not in confidence. He will give your number to your ex-husband. And she's like, Well, no, I don't think so. You know, I just got the phone anyway. She literally got the phone and was coming to meet us at the restaurant. In the parking lot in the restaurant, her phone starts blowing up. He's calling her, and she just looks at us, stunned. Like, I can't believe my pastor gave him my number. And it was, I think, in that moment that I saw her go, holy shit.

SPEAKER_00 54:24

Yeah. You can't trust him. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 54:26

All the things I heard about how bad you guys were, that wasn't true. You know, all the things that you had said were true. So we sat there, and the reason he was upset and wanted her old phone, he wanted her old phone because it had evidence of him. Sure. So he's calling her. I want the phone, I want the phone, come give me the phone. And then we see that her location starts turning on remotely. What had happened was she's like, oh my gosh, my Samsung was the only account that I forgot to switch my password. He was going into her Samsung account and trying to find out where she was and kept turning her location on. And then he was trying to remotely uh back to its factory mode. And we're sitting here and and we're like, oh my god, if he shows up and sees all three of us here together, like it's gonna be bad. So we ended up leaving. She was concerned that he was gonna come to his brother's house. We don't want them to know that we were involved either, just for her own safety. So I go and I literally park like under a bush. This poor girl, she runs in, she grabs all of her stuff, she's running back to my car. They're like running after her. They're like, Who, who's helping you? You know, like where who are you with? She throws her stuff in the car, like we peel out. It was a fucking scene. She went to court, she got a temporary restraining order. Um, so what happens in the state I'm in, you go, you get your preliminary restraining order, and then you go back 10 days later where the person you got the order against can come, you know, plead their case. But because they had started their divorce proceedings, that had to go in front of the divorce judge, who is just uh is very well known uh in my area for just being the worst. There are rulings that come out of her courtroom that are jaw-dropping, but she did not extend the order. And one of the things she said was, There's no criminal history here, and you're telling me he hasn't hit you. So I'm not gonna give you a restraining order.

SPEAKER_00 56:40

So the phone, she wasn't able to use that as evidence, she didn't submit that as evidence against him, the previous phone. They didn't care. You know, I have a yeah similar experience with that.

SPEAKER_02 56:58

Yeah, with my there was a lot of things they didn't care about. They didn't care that he was using her social security number, like it was, yeah. Um but I remember going into my therapist's office and I said, I have so much guilt because I experienced these things and I never pursue justice. He told me about these kids that his family have heard, and they've never told anybody. I said, I just feel like it's too late. And she said, Well, she said, Why don't you call your local police department and see if there's anything you can do? So I said, Okay. So I reached out and they said, Can you come? Can you come in and have an interview with us? So I said, Okay. So I went, I was there for two hours. I told them everything I could. They started an investigation, and the police officer looked at me and he said, Do you feel like you're in danger by sharing this information with me? And I said, Yeah, absolutely I do, because not only is that immediate family very aggressive, the pastor has an extensive criminal history. Uh, and family members also have quite an extensive criminal history, like so they had a rap sheet. Yeah. What? And the church members didn't know about it. Um, I don't think so. Yes and no. So it was very much presented as I used to be this horrible, terrible person. I was so lost, and then I found God, or God found me, and you know, now I'm good. So I don't know that there was much criminal activity during that part, aside from you know, just the typical fraudulent things. He has like assault on a police officer on his record, kind of thing. The pastor does, and then just extended family members from there who are part of the church also have assault with a deadly weapon, things like that. So I was like, I I do, I I do feel very afraid of this, and I have to block these people and whatnot. And I forgot to mention an important part of this. So in between that, go talking to my therapist and from when that night at the restaurant with the phone, he somehow kind of figured out that maybe I was helping her. And he reached out to me and he texted me. He said, Hi, I want to talk to you about our relationship. And I said, I don't want to talk to you. So then he messages me on Facebook. Hey, I want to talk to you about our relationship. And at that point, I had called the police, but there was nothing really to report. So by the time I'd gotten into the police station with all this information, they were like, Oh, yeah, you're you're in danger by sharing this information with us. So the police officer recommended that I go get a restraining order. And looking at his ex-wife's experience, I'm thinking there's no way they're gonna give one to me because we broke up at this point over 10 years ago. But I was able to show over those 10 years, he had threatened to kill me. And then he showed up at this church, which is now considered stalking. He's messaging me from other people's Facebook accounts when I had blocked him. He um, you know, now is talking, you know, reaching out to me. I'm telling him I don't want to talk to him, and he's now reaching out in another way. So um thankfully, you know, the court was like, Yeah, they gave it to me right away. The 10-day hearing was really interesting. His attorney was not good. He's sitting there, like, oh well, you say that he messaged you from someone else's Facebook. How do you know it was him? And I'm like, Oh, do you want to see the message? It says, Hi, this is blank, and then talks about a relationship, and it sounded exactly like him. He's like, Oh, oh, um, okay, no more questions. You know, like it was just it was not good. So they did extend it for a year, and I remember asking my attorney, what does the appeal process look like? And he laughed at me. He's like, Oh, he's like, honey, you don't have to worry about that. I'm like, no, really, what does it look like? And he goes, uh he it's a one-year order, like he's not gonna fight it, nobody fights it. And I said, Mark my words. I said, he will appeal it. Like, okay, you know, we'll see. A couple weeks later, I get a phone call. Yeah, he's trying to appeal it. Okay, so what does this look like? And then my attorney passed away unexpectedly. Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:26

Like crazy. So, so what did they do?

SPEAKER_02 1:01:29

Did they make you get like a mutual restraining order so that no, so it stayed in place until the appellate hearing. But when I started looking for new attorneys, they were like, Okay, so I remember I had one attorney go, I'm sorry. She goes, he's appealing a one-year restraining order. I go, yeah. She goes, is he a police officer? I go, nope. She goes, Oh, so he's just an asshole then. I was like, Yep, pretty much. And she goes, Well, let me tell you, this is a very expensive process. So for you to defend yourself in this, it's probably gonna cost you anywhere from twelve to twenty thousand dollars in attorney fees. And my ex-boyfriend was requesting the judge order me to pay his attorney fees, of course. So I'm like, okay, so on the table, there's a possibility of what me paying forty thousand dollars for this appeal. I was incredibly fortunate enough there was the law for that worked pro bono for abuse victims. So they took on my case and I was so grateful for that because I didn't have to pay anything. They did an incredible job. The part that sucked was his attorney at the end of the hearing kept arguing she never should have been given this order because she doesn't qualify, because this is not considered a substantive relationship because of the amount of time that has passed, which is definitely a legal gray area. In my state at that time, there was nothing on file of anybody having a restraining order against a previous partner that had been separated for that long.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:09

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:10

Well, he was kind of arguing, and I think the judge at this point, I I could see him trying to be very like, you know, neutral, but he kind of was just like, that's that's a whole different argument, and that's like all he said, and that was what they held on to. The judge made an error because he did not consider this piece of information. So we got the uh ruling back from the appellate court, and I really appreciated how they worded everything because they basically they said she proved her burden of proof. Like we believe she needs protection. However, the judge did make this comment, and legally we are required to vacate and remand, which means the restraining order is no longer in effect, but we're putting it back to the lower court, and so we can go discuss that specific issue, and they could either reinstate the restraining order or just keep it. So at that point, my attorney was like, Well, you can go get another restraining order between now and when that hearing will be. So I went and I remember getting up there, and the judge looked at me and he's like, I was just looking at this ruling that came across my desk. And he goes, I'm not sure what to do here. He goes, Um, I'm assuming you're you're here to get protection between now and the next hearing. And I said, Yes, Your Honor. He goes, Okay. So it was like five seconds of, are you afraid for your life? Yes. You know, are you concerned about your safety? Yes. Okay. He's like, do go ahead. So he ended up with an extra restraining order on his hearing because of that. And we went to the that next hearing, and we found out the day before that his attorney had dropped him, I'm assuming for lack of payment.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:05

Oh.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:06

And it sounded like he was gonna show up and defend himself, which I was actually very much looking forward to because I uh 50-50 if he would have been held in contempt. Because he's one of those people that he wants the last word. He does not respect authority, but he does not think that uh rules and authority apply to him. So I was kind of like, well, this is gonna be interesting. He didn't show up, they extended him for two more years. I thought that was great. So I go back the next two years and the judge that I had at that hearing was the original judge I had who had got the appeal passed, basically, on his ruling. So the appeal had passed on his ruling and And so I was like, Okay. So he comes out, he's looking at my thing. He's like, How long would you like this for? And my attorney said, Well, she's committed to coming back as often as she needs to have this. And he goes, Great, do you want a permanent one? And I said, Yes, please. And he said, Great. There you go. So had he violated the restraining order? I could not prove that he violated it. I thought he had moved out of state, and there was a number from that state that had called me a couple times. And when I answered it, no one was there. And when I looked it up, I was like, oh, it's from that area that he had just moved to. I also had gotten a message or two from his cousin slash girlfriend that sounded to me like him. But there was nothing I could prove, you know, that he had broken it. Um so I guess in in legal sense, no. But the really cool thing about that is I I had a lot of people that I had known at that point for 15 years across that whole span who were like, I'll show up for you. Like I watched what he did to you. I'll write you a witness statement. If you need me to come to court and testify on your behalf, and a lot of them were the Christians that had helped me kind of out and through that whole situation. So it was, yeah, it I I really appreciated that. And I think that's also really helped keep me centered and grounded in the times that I do get frustrated or angry and have that kind of inkling to just clump everything together. It's like, no, it's a systemic issue, and yes, there are individuals involved, but and I do, I have Christians that are truly beautiful people in my life who are kind and sweet and compassionate, who are shocked by these stories. Like they believe them, but they're shocked by them just because they haven't had any experiences that even touch on some of the stories that we shared.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:01

Yeah. And good. We don't want them to have those kind of experiences, and and good for them that they've had a lovely church experience. I hope that continues for them. Um, however, the reality is that many have not had good healthy experiences in a church environment. So at what point did you and your husband just say, we're done going to church? So was it was this all happening at the same time?

SPEAKER_02 1:08:31

So I think it was 2024, I think, is when I got my permanent order. We were in a church at that point, which was by far the healthiest church we've been in. And those leaders specifically, I have so much respect for them. They truly are incredible people, they are very supportive of survivors. They are like no bullshit. You are hurting your wife. Like, we're gonna, you're in our church, we're dealing with you're gonna you're not gonna have a platform. You're not gonna we're gonna surround her, and we're gonna encourage her to separate herself from you so that she can be safe. And they run women's groups, uh, you know, for women who are either in an abusive relationship trying to get out or recovering from that. Good. Um so it was interesting because we kept going, and I remember sitting in church thinking, and and this is also too where I had started my platform, and I remember sitting in church thinking, I have to be really careful because I'm really starting to get pulled into this, like I don't really know that I believe this anything. And a lot of these people who are talking about not so much deconstruction but deconversion is making a lot of sense. And there is this fear inside of me like, oh my gosh, like I'm gonna fall away.

unknown 1:09:58

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:00

And within that same service, right? So that was kind of like the first half of the service. In the second half of the service, I'm sitting there and I'm thinking, but you know what? This is by far the healthiest church I've been in. It's not it. Like, this is what am I doing here?

SPEAKER_00 1:10:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:25

You know, like I really do like these people, but what am I doing here? I don't believe half the things that they're saying. Um You just felt like you were going out of obligation at that point, like it wasn't and I was fighting panic attacks almost every Sunday to go. I'm just looking at my husband, and I'm like, why are we doing this? And he was like, I don't know. And I'm like, you know what? Let's just stop. Let's just stop. And at that point, too, they had brought on a youth pastor that I did not trust. He ended up getting fired, rightfully so. Just he was very emotionally and spiritually immature, and that was causing a lot of problems. So between that, I'm like, I don't trust that leadership over my children, and I'm going because I feel like I have to, so that I don't fall away because these other creators I'm now, you know, connected with are just making too much sense. And it was in that moment that I realized, oh my gosh, I am now starting to use my logical and critical thinking skills, and I have been so brainwashed to think that that is dangerous. And it was like this epiphany, and it was over. And we we've never gone back since. And I've never been happier. My health, yeah, my physical health, my mental health have never been stronger. So it's it's fascinating to me. My husband were talking about this the other day. I'm like, you know, it's it's so interesting because I get a lot of comments like, oh, you know, I'm so sorry to hear all these things are happening. I wish people could go to my church because my church is so great. Like, how many times did we say that? The churches that we were in. But I'm like, I feel so free and so liberated for 15 years. I was chasing that feeling of being loved and accepted and belonging and freedom. And I found it almost immediately after I was like, I'm done.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:39

Now, do you still have people that contact you that want to like hang out that are still in the church or not really?

SPEAKER_02 1:12:46

It's sad because I did have a good group of friends in that particular church, and once I stopped going, one of them being someone I've known for a really long time, and I went through a really, really hard season. Just some things had happened outside of my control, just you know how life just blows up sometimes. And I had walked through hell with those women, and they were nowhere to be found. And I was like, Yep, that's far for the course of you're you're either with us or you're not. Um but I've actually been thinking about am I gonna post anything to my personal socials, right? About about our uh conversation today, because there is still, I think, a huge group of people that have no idea that I've deconstructed. And I know a minute that they know that my phone's gonna be blowing up. And so for me, it's just weighing do I have the mental capacity to deal with that in this moment?

SPEAKER_00 1:13:45

Yeah, I I hear you on that. I really do, because some people want to contact you to argue. Yep, some people want to contact you to make themselves feel like they're more spiritual than you are and they're concerned, and they think that you've just been given up to a reprobate mind, and they're gonna say all the rhetoric. But I think some people genuinely will want to know because maybe they're also searching and they've also felt those things. And I gotta tell you, just from my own experience since I've started this podcast, I have had the occasional negative comment. Um, and you just let it roll off your back. But the majority of the comments and the messages I get from people privately messaging me, people that grew up similarly, people that grew up with me, people that I never even imagined would reach out. And they've most of them been very, very positive that coming out and talking about this openly has helped them because they were struggling as well, and they thought they were alone in it. And so I encourage anybody that is, you know, going through deconstruction to share their experience openly as much as they can do that comfortably and safely within whatever community they're in. But there's a lot of us out there, and there's a lot of people who are struggling because they feel like they're alone. They're literally like, I can't talk to anyone about this. No one understands what I'm going through, but it's a growing community. I say that all the time. And I think that's because we're finally finding out information about the Bible and about history that we weren't taught in the church. And um really protected from right, because they didn't want us to know this information because then we would then search out for more information and then learn the truth. So even like we are now, exactly. So I would encourage you to share if whatever you're comfortable sharing, but I do think that you're gonna get a little backlash, but I think probably more good than bad messaging.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:07

And I think too, I am more prepared at this point in my journey to have this conversation. I think there was a point in time where I was still weeding through a lot and still presented with the typical Christian phrases, and I was like, oh, this doesn't feel right, but I can't explain why. And I feel like now I have a lot more words and vocabulary to be able to respond appropriately. For me, I think it's timing. So I'm actually homeschooling my children right now, which is hilarious to me because I watched all these mothers homeschool their kids and they're like, you should homeschool. And I was like, over my dead body.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:48

Like, no, I get it. I homeschool my kids too.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:50

I get it. Oh, do you? Yeah. You know, it's it's been interesting because I feel like my whole experience has really prepared me for other events that have happened in my life. I never thought I'd have to pull my kids out of school because there was abuse and manipulation and neglect, and you know, here I am. And the way that I've dealt with that and advocated for them is not at all what I would have expected, especially as when I was a teacher. Um, so I I don't prescribe to the, you know, everything happens for a reason and look at your trauma, it made you stronger. Like, no, like bad things happened to me and I did the work to get where I am. Right. I don't know that I'd say I'm fortunate for those experiences, but I'm fortunate for the opportunity that I had to grow into who I am now.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:40

So just to kind of close it up for everybody, I have one final question for you. So if somebody listening is maybe they feel trapped, they're in an abusive relationship, or they're in an unhealthy church environment, or they're in the middle of a faith crisis. What message would you want to leave them with?

SPEAKER_02 1:18:07

That's a really good deep question. My biggest message would be to them that you're not alone. Love doesn't hurt. There are people out there who will help you. And there are a lot of people who are gonna yell at you to just leave. That's not always the safest thing to do. Find somebody that you can trust that can help you safety plan, whether if that's in an abusive relationship, whether it's in the context of a church, because there's a whole gamut of churches, right? You can leave and they'll never talk to you again, that's fine. But I've seen people who have left churches and they get stopped. So evaluate your risk level and a safety plan with somebody and search out the people online that you can look at and see what their life looks like now. Because I promise you it will give you hope and it will give you encouragement. And there's a lot of us out there that you're not alone. And I think that that is the foundation of everything I've done. I one day I woke up and I thought I'm just gonna throw my story out there and see what happens. And I could not believe how many people either related because they had been through that or related because they were currently going through that.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:23

That's awesome, and I agree with you. I think finding your community is so important and keep going down that path, be open to it because the truth is gonna find you if you're looking for it. So that's the way I look at it. Okay, so we want people to be able to find you on social media, and where can people do that?

SPEAKER_02 1:19:45

Um, so on Instagram and TikTok, it's Nikki Leaks, N-I-K-K-I-L-E-A-K-S under dash.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:53

Mm-hmm. Underscore.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:55

Underscore um exposing abuse.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:58

Cool. Well, I appreciate you coming on today and sharing your story and just being vulnerable and transparent with everyone. Conversations like this are so important, especially when somebody is having a faith crisis and they're looking for someone to relate to. So I appreciate you coming on today, Nikki. Oh, thank you so much for having me. This was fun. I enjoyed it. Thank you so much to Nikki for sharing her story with such honesty and vulnerability. Whether you agree with every conclusion she reached or not, I hope this conversation encourages you to think deeply, ask questions, and approach people's stories with empathy. Conversations like this remind us that behind every deconstruction story is a real person navigating pain, healing, growth, and the search for truth. If Nikki's story resonated with you and you'd like to follow more of her journey, all of the links to her social media pages will be available in the show notes. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing, leaving a review, and sharing it with someone who might benefit from this conversation. Until next time, stay curious, keep asking questions, think for yourself, and never stop searching for the truth. The answers may not always be comfortable, but the pursuit of truth is always worth it. Thank you for listening. Before we close out, I just want to share a quick reminder. The stories told on this podcast are personal experiences and perspectives. They're shared to create awareness and connection, not as medical, legal, or mental health advice. Some of the conversations here focus on abuse, trauma, and other heavy topics. So please take care of yourself while listening. It's always okay to pause, skip an episode, or step away if you need to. And if anything we talked about brings something up to you, we encourage you to reach out to a trusted professional or support resource. You don't have to carry any of this alone. Thank you for listening.