Leaving the pew

Why are we here? For many of us the cathedral didn't crumble overnight- it started with one question we  weren't allowed  to ask. In this debut episode, I'm exiting the sanctuary and departing from Catholicism.

We're exploring the 'why' behind this podcast and discovering what deconstruction really looks like. This isn't about having the answers; its about finally being comfortable with being curious. Grab a coffee, tea (or something stronger) and lets be uncomfortable together.

As mentioned in this episode, here are some important resources :

www.nsvrc.org  -National sexual violence resource center

www.snapnetwork.org -Survivors Network for those abused by priests

aaagnostica.org - a secular 12 step recovery

https://www.crusadeagainstclergyabuse.com/ -website created by the surviving family of the case I reference in this episode.

Sexual abuse is NEVER justified. If you are a victim of abuse there is help available. Please visit the above listed websites, call local authorities, or at the very least, reach out to me via the provided email address.

I welcome any and all questions/comments from my listeners.

I would love to hear from you! Please send questions and comments to:
Ode2nick@hotmail.com

Just added some podcast swag, let me know if you'd like something!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:14

I'm your host, Nick. I'm so grateful to be able to share my story. Before we get started, I am going to throw a bit of a disclaimer out. This episode is going to contain a discussion about clergy abuse. And this is obviously a very emotional subject for people. If this isn't a topic that you're comfortable listening to or spending time with, thank you for joining me. And please check back for episode two. Unfortunately, this is a bit necessary for me to kind of get a little backstory on my deconstruction process. Again, uh this is the Man of the Boy podcast. And I'm your host, Nick. I am a 42-year-old man. I live in western Wisconsin. And again, this is a this is the story of my path to deconstruction. I think it's important on kind of a timeline to build up, I guess, what I would call the the before, right? So before the event, typically the victim is in what most people would consider the high trust phase. So basically that's just going to be an opportunity for me to kind of tell you a little bit about myself and and how I got into that that phase, that high trust phase. Here's something that that'll circle back around to. When I was a kid, uh elementary school, I uh during career day, right, everybody has to write down what they wanted to be when they grew up, right? You've got the the typical uh police, fireman, construction worker, doctor. Ironically, I spent a good handful of years on my local fire department, and that didn't make my my list of what I wanted to be when I grew up. Believe it or not, I said that I wanted to be a priest. Uh I I I can remember even drawing pictures of of myself and what that would look like. Really doubled down. I taught religious formation uh when I was in college at a at a Catholic university. Uh I went into town and uh on Wednesday nights and I I taught religious formation. I was a member of the church council at my parish um shortly after I got married as a lector during high school and uh into adulthood. And for my entire life, uh I we absolutely went to Mass on Sundays. Uh once I uh started going to private school, um that was actually two days a week, every week during school, and then we had our Sunday. So simple math to tell you that I attended Mass three times a week for just about seven full years, and just for some bonus points, one of those masses was a Latin High Mass, and regrettably I could still probably recite that entire mass in Latin to you. What what faith was to me was it it was more than than a goal. To me, faith was my sense of community, uh safety. It was it was it was fed to me as a child, uh obviously as far back as I can remember, so clearly it was it was even before that. But it didn't just have a meaning. It was it was you know it was part of my identity. All the friends that I had were either met through um Catholicism or were you know the the the kids of my parents' friends, and of course their screening process was much the same, so just by default, uh any of my childhood friends were also in the in the church. Um and and it's important I think to point this out because I'm I'm I'm trying to paint that picture of you know just how robust this was in my life. It wasn't it wasn't a uh like an important thing. It was quite literally my my foundation. Everything was built up from there. As as a kid, I was uh I was often with my with my mom. I was certainly, I guess you would say the I was certainly a mama's boy, and uh the the baby of the family. So it was always kind of um mom and myself, right? And my mother was very religious as well, and so we we went to a lot of church functions, a lot of um just lectures by priests, um Bible study, um evening mass, th things things like that. Uh so priests were were proven to me to be um very trustworthy uh and and honestly more human than than than human. They were they were the mouth of God, they were handpicked, um, and I was even convinced that that priest was handpicked to be in my moment at that time, right? His his mission was was me. So that that it really kind of backs up a little bit of how how highly w with what high regard um my family held held clergymen. But to start down the path of deconstruction, you have to have a a catalyst, right? Um for myself, it was uh a little more difficult to see um in in hindsight because it was a it was a very slow um and methodical and and and well well thought out uh grooming process. Um it did, I think like like many, it ended in a very specific and a singular act. Um I am quite happy to say that that was the last time I saw him alive, uh, and there's obviously a little to that too. Taking this this trauma that happened to me and and I say I guess I would say going public with it, something that really just absolutely absolutely struck me deeply was when I did come forward with it, the level of gaslighting that I experienced uh from the church. Um that ever happened. Um that was said to me, that was said to the adult who who accused on my behalf. Um that was actually said to me by the diocese that this that this priest was a part of. Uh I was told that I was overreacting, I had I had misinterpreted um what had happened, or or at least what the intention was. Uh I was told that I was misremembering and that he quote never said that or absolutely never did that. Um the level of gaslighting was really was really disheartening. It's kind of an overplayed story. I guess we we've all heard this. The priest was not held accountable uh immediately, and in fact, uh he was relocated. Uh he was not relocated once, he was relocated twice. Um it finally legally caught up to him at his second reassignment, and uh he actually ended his life once he realized that was the gig was up. So there has to be that turning point, right? What what makes somebody go from experiencing this and being a victim of this to saying something? And for me it was pretty simple, um, and it was one very specific thing. I do recall that in my time um in the grooming process, there was a family uh that was very close to the church, and uh they had uh they had a son that was a handful of years younger than me. And this priest spent a lot of time over at their house, and it hit me one day that as horrible as it was that I was living with this, there might be a chance that this hasn't happened to him yet. Uh, and if it hadn't, it I was convinced absolutely would. I had to say something that point, and I'm and I'm very glad that I did. I don't see deconstruction as losing my faith. When I look back at it, I see it as being accountable to myself and finally being honest with myself. During this entire process, uh I was really the only one that was bringing honesty into it. The the church did everything in their power to make it go away, so far as offering to cover all of my therapy bills and reached out with some financial compensation if I signed a non-disclosure agreement, which really came into play very heavily further on into my deconstruction process. The second part of this episode I'm gonna refer to as the logic of the numb. Um, and I think that this is a really important part of the story because it's gonna bridge the gap between what the external trauma was and the internal coping. And my internal coping was uh alcohol abuse. Unfortunately, I think that this is something that we see quite often in in victims is trying to find a way, just trying to find a way to to live with this. Um for me it was really kind of an off-switch once this entire thing went to court, and this was actually a national story, and I will um include some some links in my notes on this episode if you would like to dig further into it. This is much less, in my opinion, about the sexual abuse itself and much more about my deconstruction. Uh, but it's it's it could be seen as pertinent information if if you're interested. Um I was really worried that I'd be at a disappointment. Um my entire network was very religious, as I said. My my parents, my friends, my heck, I went to a a Catholic high school, a Catholic college. Many of my instructors were either ordained or uh were were nuns. So it was really as deeply rooted as as anything. My entire network was very religious. With that came a lot of guilt. All I'd really ever known uh what was a faith filter, right? Everything you you see through those eyes. Um but then I started experiencing flashbacks, and everything at times really seemed like a like a reminder and and a trigger. Think about how far you could drive down any road, I mean city, country, does it doesn't matter, without passing a church, or without seeing a coworker or stranger wearing a crucifix or sneezing and somebody says, God bless you, it we we we've been really desensitized to um just how ingrained in in our society it is. Alcohol for me was really my my first relief. I took more of a medicinal approach to it. Um obviously, you know, I I I enjoyed uh the the feelings of of intoxication, but for me it really was medicine. During my grooming phase, alcohol was a a large factor. Um this this priest um always provided me with the alcohol. Uh so an undeveloped mind. Um you know you've got a young priest, fun, you know, really charismatic, uh, enjoyed having a few drinks, and and it was the first time I'd experienced the enhancement effects of alcohol. So alcohol became a very important tool for him during my my grooming process. So it was pretty logical, uh, understanding that I was uncomfortable during many of these situations, but the alcohol helped that, and now here I am in the aftermath, and alcohol's kind of become my old friend at that point. The the problem with that is the double life that you have to live. Um, and for me it almost felt like a triple life. I'm this I have to be this normal functioning person. I have to be a employable human being, but I still have to be religious enough or at least say the right things so that I'm not disappointing my family. Looking back at my childhood and the the indoctrination, um shame. Shame is such a common a common word. Shame comes up so so often, um and it it's kind of a shame spiral. We talk about the irony of feeling sinful while drinking, but this holy institution was was the source of the pain. So the guilt that I was programmed to feel was because I was disappointing God uh and I was disappointing all people of faith. I was disappointing the church, yet my experiences with that church and a representative of that God and a childhood worth of indoctrination was why I was finding myself in a position where I had to drink. Um shame spiral. I'm I'm ashamed of what I'm doing, but I'm ashamed of why I have to do it. But there was even shame involved with feeling I had to be this way. You know, I was drinking to forget what happened, um what happened at the hands of the church, what happened at the hands of this man, uh, but the church's voice was the one that was telling me that I was a failure for for drinking. A concept that's kind of interesting to think about would be um you know, alcohol as a replacement for theology, right? Control, chaos, I can control myself by by drinking. That's something in my control. The chaos is where I'm not drinking. And it's not a perceived chaos, it's chaos, it's it's it's factual. It was the chaos that that I had to deal with because of what happened. Now the shame is always there, but if it was due to my drinking, then then I'm the source of that. I'm I'm not the victim. You know, I'm I'm the I'm the aggressor. Looking back, clearly not a healthy situation to be in. I eventually hit a breaking point, I think like like many, like many alcoholics do, where it wasn't necessarily that I was looking for a solution, much to her credit, my fiance at the time, currently wife, of almost twenty years, had finally had enough and basically said it's t it's time to grow up. It was it was perfect timing. I was arrested for a DUI twice in one week. And I know what you're thinking, why aren't you in jail and why wasn't it a felony? I'd mentioned that I live in western Wisconsin. I'm about fifteen minutes f away from the state line with Minnesota. One DUI was in Minnesota, and just a few days later the other one was in Wisconsin. The court system was so efficient that I ended up going to court twice in one week in different states. It was explained to me by the ADA um during the sentencing of my second DUI. Uh this is a quote and it'll live with me. He looked over at me and said, I want you to understand that you are getting the deal of the day right now. Being tried for your first DUI twice. It was made very clear to me at that point that I didn't have any more grace from the courts uh and within hours of that realized I did not have any more grace from my wife either. I do think it's really important to say that addiction is often often a normal response to abnormal trauma. It isn't a moral failing, uh it's a survival mechanism. The lizard brain, right? Our old ug and grug. Its primary goal is to keep us alive. Any threat that it perceives as serious enough, it's gonna do what it has to do to help you survive. As I look back on my drinking, I wasn't I wasn't drinking to chase happiness or try to find joy. I was I was chasing a life that wasn't exploding. I I was I was chasing the notion of not having to deal with this pain. If you're still with me, then thank you. This isn't an easy uh topic to talk about, uh not an easy topic to hear about, and I I hope against all hope that nobody listening to this has been through uh the sexual abuse side of it that I have. But again, this podcast isn't about that, it's about deconstruction. But I felt it was it was best to kind of paint my personal picture so that people wouldn't think I just woke up one day and said, you know what, this faith thing isn't for me, so screw it. Thankfully, I ended up finding myself in therapy. This is years later. And it actually provided for me for the first time a safe space where I could question God and it wasn't seen as a sin. I wasn't told that we just believe that, Nick, you don't get to ask that question. It was it was a blasphemy safe zone, you know. It was the permission to ask. So in the church doubt is often seen as a spiritual attack. If I'm doubting and teaching, not only am I wrong, but I need help because I am being attacked by evil, by Satan. He is putting these thoughts in my head that God is anything other than perfect. I actually had a trusted adult in therapy that accepted me and didn't see me as less than. Asking questions that were difficult wasn't a sign of weakness, it was a sign of curiosity and growth. In the trailer of this show, I ended it by saying stay curious, and that's gonna be something that we come back to really often because it is very important to stay curious. Continue to ask why. And when something doesn't add up, don't just say, Yeah, okay, well somebody smarter than me or somebody I trust told me that, so it's gotta be right. Challenge it and and ask, and when you are convinced, then perhaps you've reached a point where where you can consider that fact. You know, from a clinical side. So the DSM 5 doesn't recognize this as a as an official diagnosis, um, but it has come a long way very recently, um, and I think it's a matter of time until it does. There's a concept called RTS, the religious trauma syndrome. So I'm gonna take just a few minutes to kind of dive a little deeper into RTS. RTS religious trauma syndrome isn't currently a formal diagnosis in the DSM V. It's easier if you think of it as a more specialized form of complex PTSD. It occurs when someone struggles to leave a high-intensity group, be it a religious group, could be a cult, could be an extremely traumatic, closed off to the world family, or is just dealing with the the really shitty aftermath of being in one. There are three kind of criteria um of of RTS. You've got your I guess the first stage we would call it maybe like the uh the the breaking point. It's when you first realize that somebody's belief system is inconsistent, be that my belief system or the priest who is teaching me or my parents, it's inconsistent, it's harmful. Uh that might you might just think, well that's bullshit. And when you get to that point and you have a safe place, you have an ear that will listen without damning you for it, it really feels like you're you're shattering something, you're you're breaking through something. Next would be leaving, kind of the the the beginning of the the leaving process, exiting, the physical act of of leaving, not going to church anymore, just not stepping foot in a church, or cutting ties with the social aspect of it. For me it wasn't just oh, well, this is an old friend who I know still says the rosary, so we can't be friends anymore. That it certain certainly wasn't that because I I never lost sight of the humanity of of people. But sometimes it is the loss of your entire circle. Sometimes it's you know, being cut off from your family. One of the aspects of deconstruction that is so difficult is what it will do to your family relationships. Um my my mother passed away about ten years ago, uh and she was certainly the most fervently religious, so that's not an aspect of my deconstruction that I'll that all ever experience. I do still have a a sibling who is who is very religious. We have yet to have this conversation, and if I'm being completely truthful, uh there's still a good part of me that is absolutely mortified of it. And if I'm doubling down on that honesty, it's for multiple reasons. Mainly, uh he's clearly not gonna not gonna see eye to eye with me on it, but there's going to be a fear of disappointing. Whether I feel that's a justified fear or not, it's ingrained in us. You don't you don't want to let your family down. You don't want to disappoint your family. The other part that I know is going to be difficult, and I imagine many people who are further along in the deconstruction process than I am have dealt with this, and that is that in a perfect world we would sit down with our family and our friends and say, listen, this is the this is the journey I'm on right now. I'm not asking permission, I'm just explaining to all of you what I'm what I'm I'm experiencing right now. And they would say, Oh, well, that's not for us, but okay, we respect your decision. Obviously, I'm laughing, but I I imagine there's a a minimum of a smirk on your face too. The fears that when I do say this, it's gonna immediately turn into apologetics 101. I will be told why I'm wrong. I will be told that the devil is tempting me. I will be told that I am the one turning my back on the truth. And frankly, that's that is something that that I'm afraid of. Religious trauma, you're losing your you're losing your world view. Those, like I'd said earlier, those are the lenses that I looked through for my entire life. Everything, everything was through those lenses, because if you didn't have faith, if you didn't live your day trying to please God, then you were sinning, then then you you had to go to confession, you had to pray about it, you had to fast about it, you had to show that you were ashamed. Again, shame, deep shame in deep religion. I found when I was leaving the Catholicism, which I I would consider a restrictive faith, um, it's not like I just lost a hobby, right? Or I was I was giving up on golfing. Um I was stepping away from how I answered every question I couldn't. How's the universe work? How does our body work this way, right? How does how does my hand know what it's touching when I'm not looking at it right now, looking into a microphone? But I know what my hand's touching. Well, I can't explain that. So clearly it has to be God. And this is such an old, old argument with with uh with faith, and a really common one for for people who are leaving the faith. As as scary as the exiting process is, and and I don't love the word in this situation, but I'm gonna say it because it it it really is this the the aftermath. Now when we think aftermath, we always think of that, you know, post-apocalyptic, you know, zombie movie and it's you know destroyed buildings and you you name it. But the aftermath for me in this is that I'm I'm learning to see things without those that faith filter on. I'm starting to see what I call the the real world, the world that was always there, and that people who were not indoctrinated were not abused physically, psychologically, have always seen that. It was one of those aha moments where one day I just kind of asked myself, fuck, is this is this really how everybody sees the world? Alright, welcome back. I hope you enjoyed that that jam. They're really generic, but I really I don't know, that was a foot tapper to me. Um so we'll just talk about some of my stages of of deconstruction, which are I mean, there's no there's no blueprint to it. I am just just trying to map out how I got here. So we've we've talked about that that catalyst, right? For me, it was the realization of a grooming process, which culminated in an atrocious act. The feeling that came up with that was the the anxiety, what what do I do? Every every fiber in my brain tells me that God can't be the problem. Um we talk about gaslighting. I I grew up in a family of four, two parents, a sibling. All three of those people reminded me that God did not commit this act, and man did. And when he did it, that man wasn't acting on behalf of God. And without me asking, because I certainly wasn't wasn't going to, I was just trying my hardest not to look as devastated and hurt as I felt, they double down and continue to explain to me as if I had never heard this concept before, that God gives everyone free will. But what everybody always conveniently leaves out is the free will of the victim. So this man was not acting on behalf of God, right? But his free will allowed him to do something this horrible. But I also had free will. I didn't willingly choose to be victimized. So then that asks the question who who determines whose free will is the one that wins out. One really important moment in my deconstruction, and I I vividly remember I I felt like I was doing something wrong when I had the realization. And so I brought it up with my therapist and she informed me that this isn't a Nick original, right? It's the all-knowing, all powerful, and all good. So if God is willing but not able to stop evil, then he isn't all powerful. But if he's able to and isn't willing, then he's not all good. And these two things are an absolute ironclad given to the devoutly religious. He is both. And it's not possible. It it isn't possible. So when I was able to sit with that and not shut myself off for doing what I thought was just blasphemy, that sure opened my eyes, and that sure opened some doors. And I'm not sure where you are in your deconstruction process, but if you haven't sat with that for a few minutes, that I encourage you to, um, and I will assure you that you're not doing anything wrong by asking this. At one point I was still so entrenched in this that I thought, well, it must be god it must be God's will that I'm asking this. And there's a obviously acute and very popular biblical story about the temptation. Um so I'm gonna I'm gonna say it one more time. If God is willing but not able to stop evil, then he is not all powerful. If he's able but he isn't willing, then he's not all good. The end result of my deconstruction process was a realization that I'm building a new worldview, and I'm making my decisions, I'm raising my children, I'm making retirement plans based on personal values, empathy, compassion, and evidence, and not some authority, not some external force saying this is how you have to do it and this is how it has to be or you're doing it wrong. Deconstruction for me isn't just changing my mind. It was beginning to feel confident again, not being afraid. The Catholicism that I was taught was one hundred percent fear based conditioning. Look at the Ten Commandments. These aren't ten suggestions, these aren't ten ideas on how to live a righteous life. These aren't a roadmap to being as good and godly as our Creator intended us to be. They are literally ten things you can't do or you're gonna piss off this all loving and all good God because any of those ten are preventing you from doing what your primary purpose was to do, and that was praise and honor. And what an incredibly, incredibly insecure concept. I'm a parent. I obviously want to hear my kids tell me that they love me. I want to hear my daughters thank me for A, B, and C. But at the end of the day if they don't, but I know that they're healthy and that they have a future and that they seem happy, then as a father I have outpunted my coverage. I have overperformed what I thought possible. I don't need their honor, and I don't need their praise. I need their health, and that's what a father is. That's what a parent is. I have had plenty of disagreements with my daughters. I have never looked them in the eye and said, Why aren't you thanking me? Why aren't you trying to convince me that I am the best father you could possibly have? Something that I had to differentiate in my mind during my process was the in my case very thin line between humility and shame. The very fine line between pride and arrogance. I do a lot of journaling. It's a great way for me to put my thoughts down, sometimes just vomit all over that page, right? Turn the page to the next one, and go back at a different time and just read this absolute hot mess that you scribbled in, scribbled into a book. And I realized when looking back at it that so many of my early journal entries were just black and white, there was no gray. It was really frustrating to me because I thought that I was better than that. I thought that I was more open-minded than that. But it kind of checks if you think about it, Ten Commandments. I mean just the word command, right? Do this or don't do this or heaven, hell, good, evil, black and white. There's absolutely no room for gray. And I feel the reason I was never taught any gray area or any tolerance for people who do tolerate a gray area is because the gray area includes a lot of questioning, a lot of curiosity. If you can just keep your head down and say this is what I believe because this is what I was taught, then you are gonna be an incredible soldier for God. But if you're a human, the way religious people want you to believe you were created, in his image, of course, he was obviously allowed to question. I feel like there are quite a few biblical verses about him basically looking up and saying, I don't fucking want this. Why? Why is this what you have to have done? Why is this what you want for me? That's a question. But we're not allowed to ask that. We're not allowed to ask why. We're not allowed to show that we don't necessarily completely understand, because if we do, then it's going to be interpreted as us just not believing. What I'd like to do now is is end the episode with one of my favorite quotes. I'm not an inherently scientific person. I am a boiler operator and a fire inspector. So intellectually, um well, draw your own conclusion there. I'm not exactly writing books. Uh hell I can't even record a decent podcast. Neil deGrasse Tyson, um, anybody who has explored the possibility of deconstructing or trying to prove that considering that there might not be a god is acceptable, is very familiar with the name. And he has hundreds upon hundreds of audio clips and interviews, and every one of them is worth watching because you will absolutely learn something in every one of them. But he was asked a couple times, uh the the one that I saw was on a CBS morning show, but I I know he would he was asked that other times as well. He was asked whether or not he believes in God, which I imagine is probably the most popular question he gets. And he says, Well, does it mean that if you don't understand something, and the community of physicists don't understand it, that that means God did it? He said that's okay, but if that's how you want to invoke your evidence of God, then God is an ever receding pocket of scientific ignorance that's getting smaller and smaller and smaller as time moves on. I do not imagine I'm gonna be alive the day where they can finally convince even the most devout that hey, there's some chinks in your armor here. But I love the fact that over the course of just a handful of years, I've gotten to a point where hearing that out loud, I don't feel like I have to confess it. I really appreciate you joining me for this episode. Moving forward our episodes will be much more about deconstruction and less about my personal abuse story. I won't say that it's not going to be about sensitive subjects because faith and God, your relationship with uh and the the deconstruction of is a very sensitive subject and very closely linked to trauma for a lot of people. Please continue to check back for my next episode. My goal is to release one every two weeks. Um and maybe once I see that I have, you know, the whopping number of like, well, let's see, I have two daughters and a wife, so once I hit listener number four, then maybe I'll consider releasing one a week. Anyway, thank you so much for for hanging in there with me. And until next time, stay curious.