Just Another Cult Kid

Special guest Eli Honeycutt of OdysseyLifeAdventures shares his experience growing up Jehovah's Witness while coming to terms with his sexuality and the estrangement following his separation from the cult.

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SPEAKER_02 0:01

The following is a big complete media production.

SPEAKER_01 0:19

All right, and today is Monday, September the 13th. Welcome to When the Bell Breaks Podcast. I'm your host, Alexis Erlin, and our guest today is Eli Honeycat. Eli, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself? You kind of have an exciting story.

SPEAKER_00 0:35

Ah, thanks, Alexis, for having me on. Where do I start? Well, I mean, really just a cult kid that just another cult kid. Just another cult kid running around uh trying to figure out life and uh and coming to a place of really understanding um, you know, myself and and really what happened to me and how I moved through all of that. And so, you know, I grew up in a blended family. So um my mother uh had my mother and father had both been married previously and had children from both of those marriages, and my mom um chose into the Jehovah's Witness belief system, and then uh met my father through her older brother, and she brought him into the Jehovah's Witness, you know, belief system, and then I was their first child, and I have two more siblings behind, um, you know, just beneath me. So there's eight of us. So kind of a you know, large family, blended family, and primarily I call New Mexico's really where I feel like I grew, you know, like that's where my heart really kind of grew up. I was born in Texas, but you know, really raised and grew up in in New Mexico. And um yeah, a lot to to talk about because it sounds like there's a lot in there. Yeah, yeah, there's a lot, but I think that the biggest piece about my story and like when the bow breaks and my understanding of sort of the trajectory of like the show or the theme of it is these moments when we start to really I look at ourselves and what maybe we've gone through. And you know, for a long time I had a lot of um attachment to my story, and especially coming out queer and then being kicked out of the community and losing family. You know, it was a great story to tell. And we love stories, humans love stories, everything is a story, um, but we can get really attached to them, and I found that I was really attached to it from far more of a victim standpoint, and really the other piece that was so fascinating to me as I started to really look at my personal development stuff and spiritual was that one of the hardest things for me, and I think many people who have left religious systems of belief and mind control and manipulation have really like who are they outside of those structures, but more importantly, how did that impact how you're showing up in life? And although I thought it was really well adjusted and did really well, you know, and kind of pulled myself up, um it was really started to impact me, especially in relationships and close relationships, um, because I didn't I was so unaware of uh things that I was doing and the way that I was behaving, and almost like the fear of really intimacy, and then like a big, big thing for me is like was being secret, you know, or keeping like having nobody else in my shit. So it's really interesting. I'm on a ton of podcasts, you know. I've had podcasts, I've shared really vulnerably, but that took quite a bit of time to come to a place of understanding the impact of that programming and mind control and shifting from victims to shifting the story from it happening to me and being stuck in it, which can really bog us down and also impact our lives and the way that we're showing up in life, to harnessing it and understanding the gifts in it, but also how that really created was creating my reality and was really impacting my life.

SPEAKER_01 4:52

And so I have I have a question. When did you first start to feel like this isn't quite right? Were you little or were you a teenager or were you an adult? When did you start to feel like this doesn't feel right?

SPEAKER_00 5:10

I'll answer that. You know, what my answer is gonna come from where I stand right now and the way that I look back at it.

SPEAKER_02 5:16

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 5:16

You know, the way that I look at we have to peel this onion back of all the the the maybe the ways that we look at lives and the lenses that we have on. Now, the way I look at it and being able to to stand back with a little bit of wisdom, I don't think I ever really bought into it. It's boring as and I cuss a lot, but it was so boring.

SPEAKER_02 5:40

Go for it.

SPEAKER_00 5:41

But in Job's with Jehovah's Witnesses, what's really insidious is that when you look at so you know, our brains are so malleable between zero and seven, and we're taking on so much, and that's really when we're in our creating like our survival mode, like how do we get our needs met based on food, feeling secure, feeling loved. And so, you know, I was brought up in a family that had a lot of kind of chaos because there was a lot of kids. My parents made a cross-country move, my dad went from having a job to being a business owner. You know, that's a lot of chaos, yeah, big changes. And for a little kid to take that in, now I understand, like, oh, like he was, and I referred to it in kind of a third person, but like he really had to go through a lot, and not only on top of that, Jehovah's Witnesses really teach a lot of fear and removal of self. So the thing about their uh what do I want to say? My way that they control is to remove the sense of self and they keep you hyper-vigilant because you're always looking at yourself as if you're wrong, right?

SPEAKER_01 7:01

Yeah, you're always second-guessing yourself, always, yep.

SPEAKER_00 7:05

But I didn't realize that that that's where had got inculcated into me when I was really young. And so when I look back, what I really have become aware of was that I learned that in order to be safe and have my needs met, because my other siblings were kind of all over the place, and I could sense that there were issues, even though maybe consciously that as a child I didn't know. But my next oldest brother, who is 10 years older, was like a rebel, and so what I do really, yeah. So what I took on was this like I could see how it impacted my parents, and so it's like, well, I don't want to be that, I want to be successful and or and to be the good boy because we all want to be the good boy, we don't want to be the bad boy or the good girl, not the bad boy, bad girl. And so I don't think I ever bought into it, but I think I learned that playing this role and creating this character that could play into it was will keep me safe, and it would keep me what I thought was love, right?

SPEAKER_01 8:17

Yeah, my kid said something really interesting, interesting to me one day. I was talking with my son, and one day he he told me when we were talking about, oh, remember when we used to go to this church and remember when we used to do that, and my son said something really funny. He said, I always knew it was bullshit, mom. But the funny thing was is that I always kind of knew it was bullshit too. But you know, the uh the idea that you have to keep your safe yourself safe is so much bigger, and you learn that very early on. I grew up very much the same way, very fear-based, uh, very scary religion. And so you learn at a very young age, you have to adapt because this is what keeps you safe, or you think it's what's keeping you safe. Yeah, you think this group is you you don't believe it, but also at the same time, you still believe a lot of the things that you've been conditioned to believe, especially when you're a kid. There's still a lot of it you do believe, even though there's some of it you don't. Um, so yeah, it's a very confusing time for a kid, I assume.

SPEAKER_00 9:24

Yeah, because you're getting these mixed messages, you know, and then I went to school and I was the weirdo, you know, because I had to I had to step up and be like, at the time, you know, you still saluted the flat, you know, did the pledge of allegiance in school, and we we were Jehovah's Witnesses remain neutral so they don't pledge of allegiance. So at five years old, you know, I had to take a stance and be like, because my parents were like, you have to do this, because what I heard was pledge of allegiance, death. Yeah, you know, basically, like that's the messaging. And so it's like, well, I can't do that because then I'm dead. And and the same around birthdays and all that stuff. So you're totally confused, and then you move into this next stage. So that the next stage when I really knew something was off was you know, for between about eight and 14 is when a lot of things start to happen for us, and we puberty and our awareness of ourselves, our body, others' bodies, those type of things. And I knew that I was different. I didn't have the wording, or I just knew that I had a different perspective than a lot of other people because I didn't like girls. I had a lot of it wasn't that they didn't have cooties, I thought that they were great to be friends with, but it was, you know, that awareness started to come about, but it was so clear also because you know, I heard the messaging all the time that this was evil and wrong, and that it's a choice and that you shouldn't live like that.

SPEAKER_01 10:58

And yeah, yeah, same, same. So can you walk me through a little bit about your like how your relationship with your parents is like or what it was like back then, maybe?

SPEAKER_00 11:12

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, I I the sad, I think the really sad part of it is and what I I find sad for a lot of humanity is the loss of you know, the inability for us to have vulnerable conversations and real real conversations that speak truth with family, especially. And I know there's a lot of people that have great relationships, but I didn't know my parents, you know, as as individuals, I knew them as authority figures, the rule makers, you know. Um they I the adults in the house, you know, yeah, the adults in the house, the ones who are supposed to feed you and care for you. But I when I really think about it, like um I ended up being a lot of emotional support for my mom, which um, you know, now that I'm really aware of, I'm like, I understand that part that was that was that role that kind of was playing out. But I wouldn't say I really knew them as individuals at all because they were as they they would not talk about their past life, you know, their previous lives before Jehovah's Witnesses. And we were really removed and isolated from our extended families. So I didn't grow up around, I didn't know the stories. Um, and I think the whole time, especially as a teenager, I got my driver's license very early on, and I started working, and I just did anything to not be in the house or be around them.

SPEAKER_01 12:51

Anything too, yeah. Same.

SPEAKER_00 12:53

It's like, you know, and I wasn't a bad kid, I didn't really do a lot of anything really crazy because I still had that fear of like God. But um, but I didn't know them, and and in fact, um, I think the what I look back and it's it is what it is, you know. My now that my dad, my dad has been gone, I think almost 10 years. Um and I when I found out he was passing away, I had not seen him in probably like like 13 years. And um, you know, I got a half an hour with him totally alone. He was at home in hospice and he was in mentally, you know, like we could have a really good conversation. And he I was going on a six-week trip that I had already planned to New Zealand, and I was gonna be gone when he would pass. Like we knew, like we knew that he was gonna go. And I told him, I'm like, I can, you know, I can cancel, I can be here with mom, you know, I can you know, I'll do any of those kind of things that you need. And and he looked at me and he told me to have a seat, and he's like, nah, he's like, I want you to go live your life. Go, go live. I love you. He's like, I'm at peace. Um and then we got to have, I really asked him some questions about his youth and like him because he actually was a really cool dude. Um, and he worked really hard, and so I have built a very different relationship with him now because I see his wisdom and I see what he was teaching us, and I just didn't have the capacity to want to fucking listen to him when I was a kid.

SPEAKER_01 14:37

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 14:38

And and I think it was also skewed by the way that it was delivered, but I think he was doing his best to teach us some real truths.

SPEAKER_01 14:48

And if you'd like to be a guest, send us an email, wtbb podcast at gmail.com. Back to the show.

SPEAKER_00 14:57

But you know, my mom and I had been estranged for better part of now, I mean what uh like since I'm gonna go. Yeah, I don't even know. And we had a conversation maybe three years ago where she really opened up for the first time, you know, and she's like, I I really apologize. There was a pretty major event that happened when I was 14 that was really awful, and it dealt with the Jehovah's Witnesses and some of the elders in the congregation, you know, and she's like, I look back at that, she's like, I think I'll live with that the rest of my life. And she's like, when that happened, I I couldn't be a mother to you. Um, and I'm so sorry because she's like, I didn't know how to handle my own emotions and I didn't know how to be there for you. And she's like, and you know, I want you to know your father kept telling me to leave you alone and just let you be. And I I stopped and I was like, What can you tell me what you're saying? Like, what is that actually?

SPEAKER_01 15:59

Yeah, what does that mean?

SPEAKER_00 16:01

And she's like, Well, I he was he was telling me to just let you live your life to be gay, because he we both knew you were gay from the time you were a baby. We knew it wasn't a choice, we knew it was you, we had always known it. She's like, but I couldn't let it go. And he kept telling me to, and I think that really impacted their marriage because things really changed, and I just wasn't aware of all that stuff. So, you know, they had to deal with a lot of those burdens. And fortunately, you know, I think we're in a place where I believe where, you know, as we reveal who we are and we do this personal development and we get to know ourselves, we can really heal ourselves, not just uh through the mind, but through the energetics in our body to move that trauma out of our body and to reshape the story and to be in a far more empowered, compassionate, unconditional loving of myself first, and then unconditional love of them, right? And like your mother or my mother, or anybody else that's listening to this, you're dealing with their seven-year-old. Yeah, for the most part, their seven-year-old was raising you because the 50% of our brains, uh, the way we look at things, belief structures, even the way we see color, the way we hear, the way we taste, everything is kind of programmed in between zero and seven. And so we're looking at generations of passed down beliefs where ultimately, like your mom, my mom, did not have the capacity to heal or understand that seven-year-old, right, in their relationship. So for your mom or mine, what I realized was that it had nothing to do with that she didn't love me. Right. What was triggering for her was that in her body and in her mind, that is if she accepted me, that was death to her.

SPEAKER_01 18:00

Yeah, or death to me. Yeah, or death to you, right? Yeah, it's just fear.

SPEAKER_00 18:05

Yeah, and so then it's like, oh I how do I deal with this? And I don't know how to deal with this because their whole world would crumble for the most part, right?

SPEAKER_01 18:14

Yep, yep. I knew what I yeah, I struggled with cutting it off from my family, and I knew what I what it was going to. I mean, I still had no idea because I hadn't actually gone through it, but I knew that it was gonna be rough for everyone.

SPEAKER_00 18:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:30

So it's when you cut things off, was it kind of like uh was there sort of like an incident that kicked kicked it off, or was it sort of a gradual thing? How did that kind of happen?

SPEAKER_00 18:43

Oh, I was dragging my feet. The and the universe made it happen to be honest. Like I looked back on like, I it's like sometimes that happens, right? It kind of has to blow up in our face to to actually make the change. But uh there's really two big things that that happened for me was that um and I had struggled with trying to live out the character of being this good Jehovah's Witness boy, um, while just also living a double life because I just it it was just inevitable. Um, but there really came a time where I felt a crossroads and I could feel it. Like it was just I really felt like I only had two choices. It was either choose to be a Jehovah's Witness and totally cut that part off, you know, cut myself off, get married, and just go with it, or accept that I was gay. And I had always known I was gay, but there's something really different when you finally accept it within yourself and you really look at it, um, or queer, whatever. Yeah, and um I when I chose That and I was just like it was on a trampoline in South Dakota in the Black Hills. I still remember, and I'm just like looking up at the stars, and yeah, I was at a Jehovah's Witness like get together with some friends, and I couldn't do it, and I was laying out there, and it was like you have a choice, and I'm like, I can't do this anymore. I did that's I can't. And when I accepted that, life really started to change for me. But what happened was I got outed because some Jehovah's Witness Jehovah's Witnesses were everywhere, they knew me. And um oddly enough, the first guy that I really met and dated was an ex-Job's Witness. And it just got found out really quickly. And so, like that really just short sort of ended everything because then my parents found out, and the elders and the congregation and all it just blew up.

SPEAKER_01 20:57

So, did they sort of excommunicate you like formally, or did you just sort of walk step back from them?

SPEAKER_00 21:04

I refused to go in, I knew what was going to happen.

SPEAKER_01 21:08

So you basically got invited to to an excommunication. You're like, nah, I think I'll today.

SPEAKER_00 21:13

I'm gonna opt out of that.

SPEAKER_01 21:15

Like bother, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:18

Not today. Um, yeah, that's cute. I really appreciate it. Thanks for the invite, but uh, I'm not available. Um and so then that really just set my life on a whole different course because I lost all community and I really had no friends outside of Joe's Witnesses. So it was like, I didn't know who I was.

SPEAKER_01 21:41

You are listening to When the Bow Breaks podcast. To support the show, visit buymeacoffee.com slash WTB pod. You can buy us a cup of coffee or two or ten. Ten cups of coffee sponsors an entire WTB episode. So if you'd like to support the show, visit buymeacoffee.com slash WTB pod. Back to the show. Did you feel misunderstood by the mainstream? You're like, first I feel misunderstood by my religion. Now I'm away from my religion. Now I feel misunderstood by the mainstream because I'm was I grew up Christian and I felt very awkward, you know, socially. Did you feel like that as a cult kid?

SPEAKER_00 22:24

Yeah, yeah, because I wasn't really big in into I was not a big drinker, you know, I didn't really drink, I had never done drugs. Um, I never celebrated birthdays, I had never done holidays, and so like I was trying them out and for in fact, like the first Christmas I did, it was so overwhelming that ever since I've just don't do it.

SPEAKER_01 22:47

Rarely. Yeah, because that is a big thing. If you're not familiar with Christmas, it's a it's a big thing. No, it was exhausting.

SPEAKER_00 22:55

It was I didn't like it. Um, and it felt it felt forced, and that was a big thing for me. Is I'm like, this just doesn't feel natural. I don't care about the the biblical beliefs or any of those kind of things, it just felt forced, it didn't feel real to me. Um, but I think the big things were I didn't know how to be in relationship, I didn't know how to make like friends, but you know, we we uh look, there's a lot of non-ethical cults, and there's a lot of cults.

SPEAKER_01 23:25

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 23:25

Yeah, cult is basically shared language, you know, shared kind of community. So you could take, I live in Denver, so I look I always equate this like Denver Broncos, a diehard Denver Bronco fan, but it's a cult, they have things they talk about, it's not bad, right? But um, you know, moving into the queer community, then it was like, okay, well, we these are the things we do, and this is how you be queer. And I was so used to adapting that I suddenly was like, Well, I guess this is how you're supposed to be. So I'm gonna get on board with this shit and I'm gonna do it really well. And I did it really well. Um, but it it still didn't feel aligned, and I always felt just like, how many labels am I gonna have to stick on myself before I find out who I am? Yeah, I hated it. Yeah. Um, and then that kind of blew apart too.

SPEAKER_01 24:17

So yeah, right. Yeah. Did you have did you kind of implode your sense of self a little bit? Did you have a little bit of an identity crisis? Did you really struggle?

SPEAKER_00 24:26

Yeah, it was really hard because I didn't. Well, one of the things in relationships, like Jehovah's Witnesses always taught that like when you date, like if you date, like if you're going on dates, that actually means that you're on the path to engagement to marriage.

SPEAKER_01 24:44

Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:45

So the poor guy that I first dated, not the first real boyfriend that I got at it with, but I went on a couple of dates with this guy, and I feel I look back and I'm like, oh my God, Eli. Like, no wonder he ran. Because I was just like, he, I really liked him, and then he liked me, and we went on, you know, it had been, I don't know, I don't can't even remember how long, but I was like, This is my boyfriend, this is who I'm gonna marry, and like this is great.

SPEAKER_01 25:10

I'm like super excited, and then he was like, I'm out, and I'm like, It's like so yeah, did you feel like you were overprepared for for or think you were over prepared for marriage? I guess a young adult because of your face, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, that's funny. Uh, because yeah, it's same. I I won't uh disclose too much about myself, but yeah, you get because you know we're groomed and we're conditioned to be a certain way from a very young age. And then when we hit those certain, you know, milestones in our personal lives, it's we have this incentive to go and do the thing that we were told we had to do.

SPEAKER_02 25:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:49

And but it's not always the best thing for us.

SPEAKER_02 25:54

No.

SPEAKER_01 25:54

So can you tell me a little bit about what you do now? What's your life like now? Like how long has it been since you've been out of the cold? I'm I'm guessing like 15, 20 years about maybe.

SPEAKER_00 26:06

I think it was probably really probably 20 plus years now. Yeah. I built a really successful career in banking and finance, and then that just was also, I was starting to look around, and this was a little bit past when my dad had passed. Um, and I just was like, what am I doing? Like, this doesn't feel I looked at all my peers, right? And I was one of the younger ones in the job at the time, like I had gotten it really young, a pretty high position. And so as I looked at all my peers, all my peers were 15 years plus and had been doing this job for like you know, like a long time. Yeah, and I'm like, I've been doing this job 10 years, and I am cannot fucking do this. Like, I just started looking at them and I'm like, this can't be life. And I started questioning, and I had really started to dive into more of like how I had been impacted. So, like, I had gone to a cult recovery therapist, started really my personal development uncovering, and that just led me through a whole different landscape of coming to really know myself and um asking myself, like for the first time, like, who am I? Who who am I really outside of all these characters and beliefs and all that stuff? And as I started to really get down to that, I started to be able to heal, but also reveal parts of me where I'm like, this is more of who I really am. And this, these are the things that I enjoy, and this is how my life, these are the things I'm really good at. So I now I do um public speaking, so I speak a lot about lenses and perspectives. Um, and I talk about and help organizations or um groups really be able to take a very um humanistic approach. So everything I do is really like based on like very human, very real, but also helping people understand and start to peel back and get curious about who they are. So I do that through public speaking. Um I work with um a lot, I work with men um specifically, and oftentimes queer men, but a lot of men, and just helping them to understand masculinity, um, understand how to feel. So a lot of my stuff, uh, the work that I also do is all around just helping people learn how to feel, how to understand their emotions, because the primary language that we were never taught was our energetic language. The vibe we talk about the vibe, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:57

People say aura, you know, whatever.

SPEAKER_00 28:59

Yeah, it doesn't feel good. You know, we we use these comments, the these thoughts, but for the most part, um, yeah, I help people feel back the layers and reveal who they are so that they can really start to not only heal themselves, but build a relationship with themselves where they can see that like I don't have to carry these stories, I don't have to carry this trauma. I don't need to like I can let go of it, but it's it's not easy. And so, yeah, I do public speaking, I do men's work, I work one-on-one with people, I do use plant-based medicines um in a way that helps. Um, I don't just use that, it is like a I look at that as one tool to help a person kind of open up and be able to see themselves from a different perspective. And um, I find that really valuable. And that was very helpful in my own journey to be able to kind of crack the codes and to be able to start to move the energy out of my body. So yeah, that's a that's a lot of what I do. I want to work with seven-year-olds, right? Yeah, on a playground.

SPEAKER_01 30:14

Basically, yeah. Uh yeah, that's good stuff. That's very unique. And I feel like it's definitely a service that is needed, uh, especially in this day and age, um, when we're all dealing with our ours and our ancestors, past traumas and and having to uh step out of religion for the first time. Some of us are first generation atheists, and you know, it's a big, big change for us. But if if someone wanted to get a hold of you and contact you, uh, how would they do that?

SPEAKER_00 30:44

Right now, I mean, like Instagram is probably the easiest. Um, and that's where I do a lot of things. I don't like to do things the way everybody tells you to do. So, you know, like my just it doesn't work that way. And quite honestly, most of my clients either come from my speaking or referrals. I work with like a lot of execs and a lot of therapists. Oddly, I have a lot of therapists. Um so, but Instagram is a really easy way right now. Um cool. As I'm navigating, like exploring how I want to express myself in business and and how I attract. And so, yeah, that's how you can get a hold of me. It's um go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 31:29

Yeah, go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 31:30

I was gonna say, yeah, it's Odyssey life adventures. So that's my handle. Um because life is an odyssey, and I think when we really I know for me now, when I if we can look at it as an adventure and we can really harness the fun within the the difficulty, uh the difficult work, we we can find more joy and typically we'll find more peace.

SPEAKER_01 31:59

Good stuff. Well, thank you, Eli, for coming on the show. This was really good. Thank you for sharing your story and things that you've discovered and sharing your work with us. I really appreciate you coming on the show.

SPEAKER_00 32:12

Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me. I mean, I think to the more people we can have that give voice to healing their relationships with religion, family, but most importantly themselves andor God. Um, you know, and like overcoming that those we have to do this one by one. And the more that we each take this on, I it is um I just have a deep respect of humans and what we're going through right now. And it and I think it just takes shows like this and so many different individuals to help other people take control of their lives and to be empowered and to find a sense of love.

SPEAKER_01 32:59

I like that. That's true. We all need it.

SPEAKER_00 33:03

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 33:05

Well, thanks, Z Life, for coming on the show. You are listening to and watching One the Valperts Podcast. See you soon. This episode was produced by Baker Peak Media Productions. For more information, visit bakerpeakmedia.com.