Episode 023 – Narcissists & Psychopaths in Church (Leadership Part 2)

27 August 2021

Find this episode on your usual podcast player,  on YouTube, or listen here.

This transcript has been edited for clarity.

 

B: Gidday T, here we are, episode 23 – that’s episode 3 of season 2. 

T: It’s exciting to be here on episode 3, because that rock & roll music just gets me going. I just love it, brilliant.

B: It is pretty brilliant, I do love it as well. As we’ve said before, I think it suits us, so we might stick with it for a while.

T: Yeah, a couple of old rockers, although I think we’ve given the impression that that’s all we like, but we have quite eclectic tastes, don’t we. We like different sounding music. I’ve certainly liked my old dancy stuff from the 90s as much as I like my heavy thumping stuff. But hey, I just want to remind people about Red Bubble, our brand is out there, people are buying t-shirts and mugs, and it’s really cool. Feel free to keep buying that, we get a very small percentage of what you buy so it’s more about you than it is about us, but we take that 20% and put it back into the podcast, which leads us onto our second announcement.

B: You would have seen this on the Facebook page. We put something up about Patreon. Patreon is something that enables you to become a patron of the podcast, and contribute to it. As we said in the post, this is something we wrestled with a little bit, because we didn’t want to make it feel like an offering, even though it does feel and look a bit like an offering, but it’s to contribute to the running costs, production costs – all those things associated with the podcast that we didn’t anticipate. It’s super helpful in being able to get the word out there, get some advertising, help us with the hardware and software, all that stuff that goes into making the podcast, so I want to thank everyone who’s signed up and contributed. Every little bit counts, and helps out, particularly helps us run our advertising campaigns, so THANK YOU.

T: Yeah, and we’ll be praying for those who have contributed, we’ll be praying over them for a ten-fold return.

B: Only ten?

T: Well let’s go hundred-fold. (TV evangelist style) Ask for The Hundred-Fold! 

B: Go straight to the top. This ten-fold rubbish – who are you? Pfft.

T: Yeah, sorry, sorry. Where does that come from. The other thing is the Facebook group, so please remember that’s still going if you want to come along and interact with other people, or even interact with us, you’re welcome to jump into the Facebook group. It’s close to 200 people, we want to keep building that up just for the sake of community.

B: And it’s been awesome. We’ve seen examples of that, people jumping in and offering help, saying hey send me a private message, more than happy to chat and help you work through stuff. It’s been awesome, that building of community. Don’t forget also, on your favourite podcast platforms, to rate and review us. That pushes us up a list, I guess, for when people do searches and for when it pops into people’s feeds or whatever. That helps to get it out there, and works alongside our advertising campaigns.  Even if you just leave a few stars rather than writing anything, everything helps. Two minutes spent on that would be hugely appreciated.

T: Yeah cool. So, today’s topic. Narcissists and Psychopaths. I think if there’s one thing that my experience of Pentecostalism shows, bibles, music, and narcissists and psychopaths. These were the three or four things that were most commonly found in my experience in Pentecostalism, and I daresay there was even a little bit of that rubbed off on me, at times. I think this is a really important topic that we need to unpack, because a lot of people especially in the Facebook group have used the word narcissist when talking about their experience in Pentecostalism. 

B: Absolutely. I 100% was guilty of it rubbing off on me too. That self-importance and the elitism was something that drove that narcissistic nature of some people within the fold, for sure.

T: I think a lot of people, when they leave Pentecostalism, that’s one of the first things that really stands out to them. We all know it’s there when we’re in there, but we kind of push it aside or excuse it, but then when you leave and you don’t have that emotional (or financial – God help you) investment anymore, you walk away and go actually, they were fucking crazy ass people that were telling me how to live my life, and telling me what to do, and I was looking up to them – there’s no doubt that it’s rampant.

B: Yeah, absolutely. I’ve worked in organisations, particularly large companies that have those psychopaths and sociopaths at the helm – you get that, but you shouldn’t see that within the church. You shouldn’t see it within any organisation, but particularly within the church. Frighteningly, it is rampant, as you said.

T: Yeah. So we’ve got a couple of articles and we’ll put those in the show notes. One is an article from the Mayo Clinic, and the other is an article from Psychology Today. These are good little descriptors around narcissistic personality disorder, and also around psychopathology. We’re going to make those available to you, but we’re going to use them as our launching point for the conversation. So what I thought we’d do B, is go through this first Mayo Clinic article on narcissism. I’m going to read through the different descriptor points, because there’s quite a few that are in there, in terms of symptoms. The first one is narcissists have an exaggerated sense of self-importance, they have a sense of entitlement and require constant excessive admiration – already I want to stop and talk about these. They expect to be recognised as superior, even without achievements that warrant it. They exaggerate achievements and talents. They are preoccupied with fantasies about success, power, brilliance, beauty or the perfect mate. They believe they are superior and can only associate with equally special people. They monopolise conversations and belittle or look down on people they perceive as inferior. They expect special favours and unquestioning compliance with their expectations. They take advantage of others to get what they want. They have an inability or unwillingness to recognise the needs and feelings of others. They’re envious of others and believe others envy them. They behave in an arrogant or haughty manner, coming across as conceited, boastful and pretentious. They insist on having the best of everything – for instance, the best car or the best office. And it says, at the same time people with narcissistic personality disorder have trouble handling anything they perceive as criticism, and then it goes on with another list, but we can come back to that in a minute. Now, again – I’m reading that and just going dude, that’s like the whole frickin movement. 

B: I personally don’t know anyone like that!

(laughter)

T: You’re just trying to dominate the conversation. I’m gonna watch you now. If I talk over the top of you I’m gonna go sorry. I’m sorry. 

B: No, it’s interesting isn’t it. It ticks so many of those boxes. Some of those key leaders that were driving our lives, essentially, they embodied just about everything there, didn’t they.

T: I know, it’s crazy. The thing about this is, this is Narcissist Personality Disorder. That’s what we’ve described there. That’s not just narcissistic traits, this is a full on personality disorder that needs to be treated. Let’s start with the first one. Have an exaggerated sense of self-importance.

B: Well, the fact that quite often they build a stage for them to stand on… it starts with that.

T: And the thrones.

B: Yes, absolutely. The self-importance, even the stuff you heard about servanthood, you’ve got to make sure you serve your leaders, that sort of thing. Not the leaders serving the congregation. No, you’ve got to serve your leaders.

T: When I was the youth pastor of country town AOG, the pastor I served with, one day we were talking and he said these people would die for me. You know that, right? They’d die for me. Then there was this sort of silence, because he knew that my response wasn’t what he was hoping for. I just looked at him, and in my mind was I can’t believe you just said that, because actually the Christian message is you’re supposed to die for them, motherfucker. Right? You lay down your life. Greater love has no man, or the shepherd that lays down his life for the sheep. Duh. But no joke, just unequivocally – these people would die for me. And he was really happy to believe that.

B: It’s good, isn’t it! It’s good there’s just no self-importance there at all.

T: Yeah. A sense of entitlement, and require constant, excessive admiration. 

B: Yeah, I think that sort of feeds into the first really, as well doesn’t it. That constant admiration – people really wanted it and it fed into their self-importance. It was a beast that kept feeding itself.

T: Yeah, exactly right. All right, we’ll go to the next one then. Expect to be recognised as superior, even without achievements that warrant it.

B: That’s right. Some of the things people would do and expect to be the superior, and talk about their achievements – what did those achievements often mean in the real world? Not a great deal.

T: That’s right. I remember a joke that went around once about Pastor L. The old joke was what do you call someone with no talent who hangs around with musicians? A drummer. But someone said talking about Youth Alive, what do you call someone who hangs around with musicians who has no talent? And someone went Pastor L. And we all laughed, because this person couldn’t sing, they couldn’t play an instrument, because of their office they had the microphone, and they would stand up at the front of these events and basically run the show. It wasn’t necessarily about being the most talented person. I don’t know what a lot of these people did, either. They’d speak, they’d maybe lead songs.

B: Yeah but they were very important. Just ask them.

T: They were very important, but so were we. Do you remember there was one guy in particular, when we were doing a lot of that street team stuff, who would come along when the cameras were there. So if a television station was doing something, all of a sudden this person would turn up and pretend that they were out there every week. Or if someone was writing a newspaper article they were there to be interviewed. But actually, in the day to day working with street kids, they weren’t there. They had nothing to do with it. 

B: That’s right, they were too busy hobnobbing with all the sponsors and all the pastors. 

T: They are superior, and can only associate with equally special people. They didn’t want to hang around with the street kids. They didn’t want to hang around with us.

B: Well, you know, that might hinder us really serving their vision, mightn’t it, being their servant. 

T: One of the things about a psychopath, that we’ll have a look at later, is that they’ll claim the merit or achievements of others as their own. I can remember there was one guy in particular who was involved with the street team and stuff that we were doing who was very humble, and who was really doing all the work, and they were often overlooked because you had the whole pastor brigade with their 90s suits and paisley ties. For a while there they were Bugs Bunny ties. I don’t know if you remember that. 

B: Oh, I do remember it. I had one.

T: So did I actually. I think I had a Daffy Duck, but still. Same shit different bucket. But they’ll exaggerate their achievements and talents. 

B: Yep.

T: Preoccupied with fantasies about success, power, brilliance, beauty or the perfect mate.

B: Well you know, exaggerate achievements. How many people got saved tonight? Thirty seven? There was four. That happened all the time.

T: The irony of that is they don’t save people. Even the theology says it’s an act of God, that Jesus was saving them, but you’re right they would still count them, and even if they over exaggerated nevertheless it was still about how many did you get. And look, can we flip that over. I can remember when I was doing sermons and evangelistic outreaches, I wouldn’t get the numbers some of these people would get. And I really wore that – it was like what am I doing wrong? The message is right, I’m speaking well, why am I not bringing 30 people up? Why am I only getting one or two?

B: It was very much about the numbers. I recall similar things, having spoken at different events and different rallies and places. The more people that came forward, the more you felt valued. There was no doubt about that. You’re right, it’s not about you, but it’s all about you when you’re in that space.

T: The narcissistic expects – and this is a really good one – expects special favours and unquestioning compliance with their expectations.

B: Mmm. It’s their vision. Comes back to that too, doesn’t it. I don’t know how many times you heard that, but even with bible college I would hear that if a leader has a vision, your job is to help them deliver that vision. Don’t question it. 

T: You would serve their vision, was the actual language they would use. They would say you would have to serve someone else’s vision for a of time. So yeah 100%. But I’m thinking about the special favours. All the things that people will do for the pastors. Often times I think from a narcissistic perspective it becomes an expectation. And often times these people are on decent salaries. I know at Great Big AOG at the church we went to, it was basically on a teacher’s salary scale. So X amount of years as a pastor you’d be paid the same as X amount of years as a teacher. And in Australia, teachers are paid quite well, compared to the US and places like that. So these guys were actually on some decent money, and as we’ve talked before they had nice cars, they had nice McMansions out in the suburbs, but people would still feel obliged to give them gifts and watch their children for free, or mow their lawns or whatever.

B: Yeah it’s true. I remember quite often when you’d watch the pastors speak at different events or groups, they’d get some sort of gift, or there’d be a love offering which was above all the other offerings, to give them a bit of a cash bonus for it. It would happen all the time, so there’s some good perks in it, that’s for sure. And it was expected. Even though you could bet that if you asked them they’d say it wasn’t expected, but it was 100% expected. Otherwise they could say hey, you know what? I won’t take it. 

T: Hm, yeah. Here’s a good one. They have an inability or unwillingness to recognise the needs and feelings of others. In other words, they lack empathy. What do you reckon about that one?

B: Yes. That’s very evident. A lot of their responses were quite often, repent. There wasn’t an effort to walk beside you when you were in trouble. There was a judgement if you brought something to someone in leadership. Rather than them empathising with you and going oh shit this must be a real tough time, you were judged. Empathy was really lacking.

T: I think back to the story that you told in the Mission and Evangelism one, where the pastor took that money back from you. So if you don’t know that one, please go back and listen to our Mission and Evangelism episode, B told a story where the pastor said that he felt God told him to give B this money, and then when B went home early, the pastor took the money back and basically left you skint with nothing, in a foreign country, foreign language, the whole bit. There was absolutely zero empathy in that moment. 

B: Absolutely zero. Not to mention they were back-flipping in that one minute God told them to give me the money and the next minute they were taking it back. It was an interesting time. Whether this is associated or not, the Prime Minister of Australia, which we’ve spoken about many times now, is a stark raving mad Pentecostal, and he has had to have empathy training because it was quite evident that he significantly lacked empathy. Is it a coincidence? I dunno.

T: Well, let’s put a pin in that question because we can come back to that in a minute. Let’s look next at psychopaths because we can  talk about narcissists and say yes there definitely were some, but the next stage is the psychopaths, and they’re much worse than that. So the first symptom of a psychopath is pathological lying and manipulation. Did you see any of that?

B: Yes absolutely. A lot of it on reflection though, I think I bought into it so much that I don’t think I would have ever questioned and thought it was lying and manipulation; it’s only on reflection when you look back and go oh my God, that was incredibly manipulative and quite often it smelled of bullshit, but you couldn’t smell it because there was too much cover up. How about you?

T: Well, you weren’t allowed to smell it either, otherwise you were going against God’s chosen person. No, but there was definitely a time where my girlfriend at the time and I, we knew our pastor was lying to us. This when we were on the way out, and it’s not that we intentionally set a trap, but he separated us and talked to me first, then went and talked to her. I don’t know what he was thinking, that we weren’t going to come back and compare stories? But he told me A, which is what he thought I wanted to hear, and then he told her B, which was totally contradictory. I’m not saying there were subtle nuances to the same story, they were complete lies. One or both of those stories were an absolute lie. We came back together and I said, so, did he lie? And she said yep, because she already knew what he’d told me, because we’d talked about it. I wondered at the time, doesn’t he know? Doesn’t he know that we talk? And that’s where it speaks to that pathological lying and manipulation. 

B: That is truly frightening. 

T: Yeah, for sure. Lack of morality and rule breaking. In other words, the rules – they apply to you, but they don’t apply to me.

B: Well, how many times have we seen that, when the televangelists and such hit the news, or high profile ministers, in Australia and other countries when they’re up there and preaching about morality, and they’re talking about the expectations of you, if you are to become a Christian, and they’re outed as having affairs, or having a drug habit, or having whatever. That is rife. 

T: What blows me away is how many of them get caught with hookers, and multiple hookers. They’re not just drunk and falling, or even falling in love with someone and having an ongoing affair, it’s hardcore hookers and porn and all that kind of stuff. You hear that in the US, but you also hear it in Australia too.

B: I think that they think they can lurk in the shadows and not get caught, and they probably justify it by going well, I’m not hurting anyone else, I’m just having sex with someone who does it as a job. I think there’s ways that people justify it.

T: Fair enough. Number three is a lack of empathy and cold-heartedness. We’ve kind of done that one, we covered it under narcissism. But the next one is actually narcissism and false superiority complex, so there’s an overlap here. We can see that both narcissists and psychopaths have some of the same traits. But the one I thought was really interesting was the gas lighting and psychological bullying. It says “When someone constantly puts you down, leaves you feeling like you can’t do anything right, or makes you feel worthless and bad about yourself in general… it’s emotional abuse.” Do you remember when I told the story when I said when I wanted to join the other youth group and the pastor came to me and said no, you don’t understand, and basically undermined my own ability to make my own decisions. I think that’s definitely something that happened both in the Revival Centre and also in the AOG, was this constant undermining of my individuality and my ability to reason and make choices for myself. I was constantly doubting my ability, because they knew the bible better, or they had more of God or the Holy Spirit, or however we spelled it out. But basically, they were up there, and I was down here. That happened to me a lot.

B: Then there’s the ultimate Christian gas lighting, which is delivering a word for somebody, and completely undermining their sense of self by going hey, you may think you know, but I actually know because God told me, and you get the word. It’s that subtle brainwashing, that subtle control – or not so subtle on many occasions, but it’s certainly something that’s ongoing and it happens a lot. We had this question in our Q&A, do you think it’s malicious that people use these control mechanisms – some people do. Some people maybe just do it because it’s learned behaviour, but I think with those in higher leadership, maybe by the time you get there if you don’t know by then what you’re doing, then it’s a real worry.

T: Well, the next point it brings up is there’s a lack of contrition and self-serving victimhood. In other words, when they do get busted or when someone points it out to them, they don’t think they’ve done anything wrong. And I think that’s really telling, right across the whole Pentecostal scene. Unless someone is actually caught in the act, it’s very, very rare that people will actually apologise – and it’s often times the people that start to walk away that will approach people and apologise. I mean, I told you I wrote letters to people, and I know I’m not the only one that’s walked away from this and gone back to people and said I’m really sorry.

B: That shows a lot of character. I know many people that have walked away, and have been manipulative, and have been full time pastors, and certainly haven’t revisited that or ever accepted fault for anything they may have done, that certainly fits this profile.

T: Hmm. Very much. Okay, I’ve got a question for you then, B. Are psychopaths and narcissists attracted to the church, or are they made in the church?

B: Yeah, that’s interesting. Before this episode I was reflecting on this and going I dunno. I think the environment of the church definitely fosters it, and particularly in the mega church setting, I do think it fosters it. I think people who have narcissistic or sociopathic or psychopathic traits, come into that space quite often because they’re more confident, quite often they’re a bit more charismatic they’re noticed a lot more, and as we know they’re often selected for leadership. So if you’ve got those traits, rather than knocking those traits off you, they build them up and make them something that’s seen in a more positive light in the church, rather than seeing it for what it really is. I think it’s a product of the dysfunctional environment. What do you think?

T: I think there are definite psychopaths and definite narcissists, personality disorders that exist in the church. They take charge, they take control, and weaker personalities – and I don’t mean weaker as in people are weak, I mean less intense, less controlling sort of personalities will defer to these people, so they naturally rise to the surface. But then I think what happens is that becomes the norm, because the people that are in control, the people that are setting the culture of the organisation – and this is true not just in church, right? But we’ll come back to that in a minute – but they set the culture and tone, and that becomes what we start to aspire to. It also become behaviours that we say are ok, that we’re taught are ok, and we start to accept it and think this is just the norm. So I think it’s both, I really do. Some people are born psychopaths, some people very early in their lives become psychopaths or narcissists, and then within the church that’s fostered. It’s fed. But I think there’s other people that come into the church and whilst they’re in there, they start to go okay I’m going to serve God. They want to do the right thing by God, and they learn to play the game. So I think some people do genuinely become full blown narcissists, full blown psychopaths, and they weren’t before they joined the church. Then it’s that old thing – take away the number you first started with, and the answer is psychopath! Meaning that the system now is what it is, and this is what it creates in people. We know that’s not just true of church, we hear that Scott Morrison gets called a narcissist – all our leaders within politics get called narcissists and psychopaths all the time, because I think politics also attracts this kind of person. It’s about the power, the control, the status. You’re having lunch with the president of this country, and dinner with the chancellor that country. It attracts that kind of people. But I saw it working in the workplace – you can buy books about the workplace psychopath. This is not something that just happens in church. Now I feel like I’m dominating the conversation and maybe I should stop.

B: No, no, keep going I’m just taking some case notes as we speak, for my therapist.

T: But I think the difference with church is – and here’s the big difference – when I go and get a job, I’m getting a salary, I’m taking the good with the bad, and if someone’s being a psychopath, that’s ok, I go home, I cut them off, or I find a new job. When you give your life to Christ, and you commit your life to following Jesus, and you commit yourself into this system, it’s not so easy to escape. I think it’s much easier to be entwined into that whole environment, because you’ve got the ultimate authority, which is God. And these men, and sometimes women, they have taken this authority and start to control you, and you’ve made a commitment to that very authority – that God. That’s why I think it’s so much more impacting. I have walked away from an employment situation where I had a psychopath as a boss. It was very painful, don’t get me wrong. It was extremely destructive, and a lot of people were damaged by this person, but ultimately you walk away and you go well, that was that. Whereas when you leave church, or when you’ve been manipulated in what they call spiritual abuse, which ultimately is just another tagline for psychological abuse, you have made yourself so much more vulnerable. And that’s why I think it’s so much more impacting and so much more destructive.

B: 100%. I think it’s harder to leave a church – usually your life revolves around it. If you’re fully involved, you’re in home group, you’re in different groups, you’re going to the church, your friendship groups are there and it’s very difficult to leave, so you can get caught up in it. I too have recently left a job where it was very sociopathic in the leadership, and it was one of the reasons that drove me to leave it and go into my new job. But it’s very difficult to do that when it’s a church. There’s so many other pulls there.

T: Yes, you’re enmeshed. It’s not just one part of your life like work, often times it’s your family, it’s your friends, if you’re in ministry, it’s also your job, it’s extended family. It’s so much more than just your work life.

B: Totally. I’m sure that this is something that has driven a lot people away from the church when they see it, and see the effects of it. On the Facebook group we do see people talking about that, and I’m sure this episode will spur more of this conversation, and probably bring stuff up for people that really got to them while they were part of the fold.

T: For sure. There’s certain names that come up – apologies to our international members who look at this and go who the hell are you talking about – but there’s certain names, that as soon as they’re mentioned, there’s a buzz and all of a sudden all these people in our group are triggered. It doesn’t matter if you’re from New South Wales and one of the New South Welsh names of a pastor comes up and bang, everybody starts to go off, or a Victorian name and everyone starts to buzz. You see different parts of the country, people are triggered in the same ways by these similar characters. They seem to be tied to different parts of the country because that’s where they were, but a lot of people are damaged. We’re not going to name them, but you know who you are.

B: You do! Although if you know who you are, you’re probably not listening to us. 

T: Or the other thing is, if you know who you are, you probably don’t think you’re a narcissist or psychopath because that’s not what narcissists and psychopaths do.

B: This is true, but we know who you are, and we are wary of you. It’s frightening – it’s all about control and influence, manipulation, and fucking you over.

T: Exactly. So I’ve got a question for you, B. Can you give us a time where you felt you did something like this, that you can look back on? This is my psychopath and narcissist test for you, right. Were there times you can look back and say actually yeah, I did this.

B: Yeah, I think I spoke about it in one episode, where I delivered a word to somebody because I felt I had a word to deliver to them, and I felt a real power speaking into their life, even though I knew that what I was saying was so generalist it could be applied to anybody, but I did feel an incredible self-importance with that. But also the times I spoke at larger events I felt incredibly bolstered by the fact that I knew people were looking at me going – well I thought people were looking at me going – wow, he’s pretty important up there. 

T: He’s the one.

B: Yeah. He’s speaking this and speaking that, gee, he must be important. How about you? Tell me about your narcissist moments?

T: Well there was a lot of them. I think coming from the Revival Centre where it was the hero pastor, and then coming into Great Big AOG where it was again the hero pastor, I was quite happy to go along with that at times. When I was the youth pastor of country town AOG I had a chat with my youth leadership team who were just a bunch of dudes from the country – and I don’t say just as in bad, I mean they were just people, and I told them how to dress. 

B: Oh God.

T: I said guys, you need to start to dress like this on Sunday mornings, you need to start to wear this, I told them, because that was the expectation. I was told how I needed to dress, so I happily passed that on. And there was certain expectations that I put on them, so there was a lot of control. I can definitely say that was something that I had to do a lot of soul searching and lot of turning away from in myself, because I was quick to grab on to that control. When my son came to me, he was invited to go to a Pentecostal church by someone at school, and he came back to me and said dad I’ve been invited to this church, can I go, and I was like no fucking way. I’m not letting you anywhere near these sons of bitches. 

B: Not dressed like that!

T: Yeah, not dressed like that – where’s your Daffy Duck tie. I would happily go along with him and sit there and then just be in his goddammed ear the whole time – see that, see the way they did that, what do you think about that – 100% I would. But there’s no way I was going to let him going along by himself because I am convinced that it’s mostly a toxic environment and mostly not good for people. We always look for the positives, right, so I’m going to ask you B – because I don’t know if I can come back from where I am right now, and bring the positives. What’s fucking positive about this?

B: For me – not much. But you can look into any situation and you know the signs now. You know the things to look out for, you have been immersed in a culture which breeds this, and not only breeds it but values it so strongly. So I think you can see it. For me what I just said about having to leave my job reasonably recently – well, not having to leave, I chose to leave – was because I recognised a toxic environment when I saw it. I recognised something that only valued things that were definitely negatively impacting my workplace, and certainly my own wellbeing, and the wellbeing of those around me. I don’t know if I would recognise that if I hadn’t had such exposure to unhealthy places before, and I’ve been part of creating those unhealthy places, being in leadership in Great Big AOG as well, so I think the ability to self reflect on that and identify it is incredibly valuable. It does bring up shit sometimes, but I think all in all, that’s probably the only positive I could pull from it. No wait, I reckon I could pull another one – the reality of being thrown up in that self-importance for public speaking and preaching and that sort of thing, helped me hone my public speaking and my ability to communicate. I’ve had to use it for the powers of good now, rather than powers of manipulation of course, but I think it helped me hone that skill, and helped me identify some of my strengths and some areas that need improvement. You don’t think you can find any positives?

T: Probably not, no. but thinking about what we said in another episode, that A to B is not a straight line, and we are who we are. We look back and think oh I wish I had it better, but the reality is if you had it better, you wouldn’t be who you are today. Like you said, we’ve learned. But I do have to stop a moment and remember that a lot of people that have come out of this environment are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Coming out of abusive relationships is very much like coming out of a physically or emotionally abusive relationship. I’m talking a romantic relationship, or a parent child relationship, because there’s this uneven order of power and control. I think that’s something I have become aware of, and I do want to suggest that if you’re listening to this, and this has triggered you a lot, that it’s probably really wise to investigate counselling and understanding those power dynamics and understanding what it took to walk away. You are very strong, you are the victor in your ability to walk away, and that’s what I do for myself as well. So I guess that is a positive, I look at that now and say like you, I can see the bullshit, but also I was resilient. I bounced back from this. I can listen to my Christian music and not trigger, but I won’t pretend at the same time that it wasn’t really, really hard. Maybe we need to think about another episode down the track on how to get past this, because we’ve certainly opened the Pandora’s box of this is the damage that was done, or this is how the damage was done. Maybe we need another episode of how to bounce back, or how to overcome.

B: I think we should talk to someone who specialises in responding to people who do have PTSD through these environments. I definitely identified post-traumatic stuff in my life that I didn’t have the skills to deal with at the time, but I fumbled my way through it. The great thing about living in Australia is we have fantastic healthcare. Go to your GP, get a mental health plan, get six sessions that are heavily subsidised to go see a psychologist, and then because of COVID you can go and get a boost and get another four sessions added onto your plan. Not for everyone, but those who do enjoy talking therapies and different ways to work through it, I encourage you to access that help where you can.

T: Also, I want to invite people in our Facebook group that if you have found a psychologist or a psychiatrist or counsellor of some sort that is skilled in this, in specifically leaving fundamentalism, please pop that person’s name and contact number, or links to their web page into the group. It’s sometimes really hard to find someone that understands. If you go to them and go I left church, they go oh did you? So why are you here. We need specialists.

B: Definitely. It’s a niche no doubt. So chuck them in the group.

T: Next week B, we’re going to talk about healing and miracles. 

B: Queue music.

T: And we’ll see you next week on I was a Teenage Fundamentalist podcast.