38 - Q&A Session #3

[00:00:01] Hi everyone, welcome to The Cult I Left Behind podcast.

[00:00:05] I'm your host, Amanda Briggs, and I'm here to tell you my stories of growing up in the

[00:00:11] IBLP cult which you might know from the Duggar family.

[00:00:15] And I'm your other host, Kyle Briggs.

[00:00:17] I am Amanda's husband and I have not heard most of these stories before so stay tuned

[00:00:22] and we'll all get traumatized together.

[00:00:32] To the next episode, we're on the move.

[00:00:35] We are in an Airbnb today so...

[00:00:37] I'm so tired.

[00:00:39] We took a very long multi-day drive to get here.

[00:00:43] We're in an Airbnb so if it sounds a little different or not as good as it only does...

[00:00:50] Welcome to our new reality.

[00:00:51] We are in the middle of a cross-country move and we are relocating from the middle

[00:00:58] of nowhere where the background noise is going to be foxes or elk to suburbia where

[00:01:07] there is noise.

[00:01:08] Again, I'm adjusting.

[00:01:10] There are humans here, Kyle.

[00:01:12] I look outside and there are humans instead of deer.

[00:01:16] Yep so bear with us and if you hear noises in the background that is why.

[00:01:21] And if the episodes are a little shorter this weekend next it's because we're moving.

[00:01:28] With that being said we are going to do a Q&A episode.

[00:01:33] Because we have a backlog of like 50 questions.

[00:01:37] Yes there's a lot of questions so this is just a small number of them and we'll keep

[00:01:41] trying to turn through those but if you want to send in a question you can do that on

[00:01:47] the website.

[00:01:48] I think there's a contact tab there and then if you want you can also drop us

[00:01:54] a line.

[00:01:55] There should be a link in the description that says text the show.

[00:01:59] That is one way.

[00:02:00] Yes.

[00:02:01] So just be aware of that.

[00:02:02] Oh there was someone who reached out.

[00:02:04] Someone reached out via the fan mail option about ATI and IDLP curriculum.

[00:02:10] Yes, we would love to connect with you but we can't text you back on that.

[00:02:15] So if you could send us a DM on social media or send us a message through the

[00:02:22] website Coltyleffbehind.com.

[00:02:24] We would love to connect with you further on this matter.

[00:02:28] I think it was someone from North Carolina so yeah just hit us up on the

[00:02:31] website and we'll see if we can get a hold of those Colt materials and then

[00:02:36] review them on the podcast.

[00:02:40] So with all that being said let's jump into this.

[00:02:44] We have a question from Paula.

[00:02:47] She wanted to know if you've ever read Educated by Tara Westover.

[00:02:52] Yes I love it.

[00:02:54] I find a lot of similarities in our stories.

[00:03:01] Also we're both nerds.

[00:03:03] I think that that is something that just happens when you love to learn and

[00:03:09] you grow up in an environment where that is not encouraged and it's kind of

[00:03:15] starved so yeah she went on and got her PhD.

[00:03:20] We're moving because I'm starting my PhD and yeah I think

[00:03:24] you just fall in love with opportunities to learn when well I don't

[00:03:29] think you have to grow up in a cult to have that experience but I think a lot

[00:03:33] like the author of Educated I just want every bit of education I can

[00:03:40] possibly get now.

[00:03:41] So another book that I adore it might be my favorite book ever.

[00:03:48] It's called Uncultured by Daniella Mastinak Young.

[00:03:52] It is probably the most powerful memoir I've read.

[00:04:01] She grew up in a cult as well.

[00:04:05] It is graphic you need to know that going in it is probably one of the most

[00:04:11] graphic accounts of sexual assault that I've read in a memoir

[00:04:16] but that book it's so freaking powerful

[00:04:19] and my story is very similar to hers as well.

[00:04:23] We both ended up in the military and the way that book ends some of the

[00:04:29] closing lines like I was just sobbing for like an hour after I finished the

[00:04:34] book and anytime I thought about it for like the next

[00:04:37] month I cried it's um it's the way it ends is so

[00:04:43] powerful and so beautiful and I can't recommend it enough.

[00:04:47] Someone actually messaged in and said oh you should try to get her on the show.

[00:04:51] I would love that. I would love that. That would be incredible but

[00:04:55] yeah if you're if you're looking for really great memoirs about

[00:05:00] folks who left cults educated is great one.

[00:05:05] Uncultured is probably my favorite and I'm currently reading

[00:05:08] I think it's called a billion year contract about

[00:05:13] someone who left Scientology. Let me just double check that.

[00:05:18] Oh a billion years my escape from a life in the highest ranks of Scientology by

[00:05:23] Mike Reinder. I am not done with it yet but it is

[00:05:27] also very interesting it's from the male perspective this time

[00:05:31] and just the interesting thing with Daniela and Tara and Mike and my

[00:05:36] story is the amount of control and manipulation and just intense

[00:05:42] like storytelling that goes into cults to try to maintain their followership

[00:05:48] and also how the people at the top don't have to live by the same rules as

[00:05:52] everyone else and you know just normal cult

[00:05:55] shit but those are some books I can recommend if you're

[00:06:00] if you want to read up on what it's like to escape a cult.

[00:06:05] I haven't read any of those books so I I don't have any context there but

[00:06:08] we can drop a link into the episode descriptions.

[00:06:13] Yeah yeah for all of them. Yep in case anybody else is curious.

[00:06:18] And when we're through the move I know we've said this before but like truly

[00:06:21] this move has been a lot there are a lot of moving parts and pieces

[00:06:27] because we are going all the way from the west side of the country to the

[00:06:30] east side of the US and that that's a lot of work as it turns out

[00:06:36] but we are still planning to do some significant updates to our website

[00:06:43] eventually and put a lot of resources and one thing I would love to do is

[00:06:48] cultivate a reading list because nerd.

[00:06:52] And it will it'll be more than Harry Potter books from this maybe

[00:06:56] but I think it would be cool to put all those the memoirs like as I complete

[00:07:00] them and yeah I think that would be

[00:07:04] cool so coming someday when when we have energy in life

[00:07:08] after this move should be soon hopefully it'll calm down soon.

[00:07:14] So next we've got a question from Ren

[00:07:19] and it says hey guys love the show I grew up in a community

[00:07:23] slash church that was heavily influenced by

[00:07:26] iBLP even if my family was not in it so that high-control religious group

[00:07:31] trauma is very familiar to me for a Q&A episode

[00:07:35] Amanda you have mentioned being sick all throughout your life

[00:07:39] and more recently as someone who is chronically ill and disabled myself I

[00:07:43] frequently experience feeling like my disease is a

[00:07:47] punishment for my sins because this is what I was taught

[00:07:50] and ingrained in me from a young age and despite long having left religion

[00:07:56] this is one intrusive thought I cannot shake

[00:07:59] is this something you still have experienced even after you moved on from

[00:08:03] the cult teachings if at all and if so what worked for you

[00:08:10] as an aside I have just found a therapist trained in

[00:08:16] handling religious trauma so I'm about to be on a roller coaster

[00:08:20] thank you for all you do and know that all your work is important in

[00:08:24] spreading awareness of just how harmful these teachings are matters

[00:08:27] so much well first of all run good for you

[00:08:32] going to therapy uh yes it will probably be a roller coaster

[00:08:37] um I hope you have a lot of love and support

[00:08:41] around you for this and I'm rooting for you and wishing you all the best as

[00:08:47] you embark on that journey I think it's important and a worthwhile

[00:08:51] cause okay so

[00:08:56] yes the bottom line is yes I used to think this was all a punishment from god

[00:09:00] because that was what I was told so I've had a lot of medical

[00:09:05] issues my whole life and there is data to demonstrate

[00:09:11] that individuals who survive particularly childhood trauma

[00:09:17] um and the the numbers I've looked at more specifically are childhood

[00:09:21] sexual trauma it it does wreak havoc on your body on your

[00:09:27] nervous system on your immune system and I do think that some of the

[00:09:34] conditions I have um like I found out in my 30s I was actually

[00:09:39] born with and and that was just going to be what it was going to be

[00:09:43] another a set of my medical issues I developed in the military

[00:09:48] just due to military stuff and then uh there there's like

[00:09:55] everything else around that from when I was a child when I was a young adult

[00:09:59] before PTSD treatment and then I think personally and I'm not a medical

[00:10:04] doctor so this is just my opinion living in my body

[00:10:08] I think that everything I've experienced even the stuff I was born with

[00:10:14] even the stuff that happened in the military was probably amplified

[00:10:19] by lingering effects from the trauma like I do think that

[00:10:23] it weakened my immune system significantly as a child I do think it

[00:10:27] it severely dysregulated my nervous system which is something I only

[00:10:31] found out about and started working on in I think I was in my early 30s for

[00:10:36] that um and I'm 36 now so I think that the

[00:10:41] trauma has amplified it caused some of the stuff when I was younger it

[00:10:45] caused everything when I was younger but it it amplified everything I have

[00:10:49] going on now that isn't specifically tied to the trauma

[00:10:53] is that making sense so far Kyle? Okay so

[00:10:57] and that's you know there there are studies that back that up that folks

[00:11:01] who survive childhood trauma just tend to struggle more

[00:11:06] medically period dot and

[00:11:11] so I was told as a young person that that was my bitterness about my brother

[00:11:18] raping me uh and that I like that was God's punishment for

[00:11:25] my bitterness which Kyle your face again

[00:11:30] bitterness no they'll always the bitterness always gets me

[00:11:34] it's a funny concept to me yeah don't don't dare be angry that someone

[00:11:38] raped you how could you how could you sarcasm by the way

[00:11:45] but how so yes I have experienced that how have I worked through that

[00:11:52] let me let me ponder this for a moment because I think it happens so slowly I

[00:11:56] don't think it was one big aha moment where I just shed that old belief

[00:12:01] system and pressed forward in my new power of you know this

[00:12:05] isn't God's hatred of me um I think I think it was just

[00:12:11] slow it was okay so the way my brain works it was probably a lot of data

[00:12:17] over time I am I am very much a run to the data person

[00:12:23] I like the studies I like the research and that if I am presented with

[00:12:31] documentation and ethical research I can change my mind pretty fast and pretty

[00:12:37] easily so I think as I started working in the

[00:12:41] field of gender-based violence prevention and

[00:12:44] response I had a lot of opportunities to interact with

[00:12:48] data that educated me about myself basically and

[00:12:52] and the impacts of the long-term impacts of surviving childhood trauma

[00:12:57] and I started to see okay this isn't just me

[00:13:01] this is statistically medical doctors expect this in patients who have

[00:13:08] survived childhood trauma it changed how I talked to my

[00:13:12] doctors it changed the extent of the details I gave them

[00:13:16] about how I grew up I started sharing a lot more

[00:13:20] around that because more and more medical doctors are being trained around

[00:13:24] these things so I've just I've just started sharing like the whole laundry

[00:13:29] list with my doctors uh so I think for me it really was just

[00:13:34] just recognizing okay this isn't this isn't random and weird I'm not an

[00:13:39] anomaly in in the sense that I've

[00:13:43] experienced a lot of medical issues as someone who

[00:13:46] survived a lot of trauma in my life I'm in really good company

[00:13:51] unfortunately and I think understanding the long-term effects

[00:13:57] just slowly over time taught me that this isn't this isn't

[00:14:03] god in religion my health issues aren't god in religion my health issues are

[00:14:07] just you know some I was born with some developed in the

[00:14:10] military some were entirely related to PTSD when

[00:14:14] I was younger um and some were surgical

[00:14:19] some were surgical complications um

[00:14:23] and that it's likely they were all amplified

[00:14:30] by just the whole trauma took on my body I didn't enter adulthood with the

[00:14:35] same you know medical resilience that someone who

[00:14:42] hasn't survived childhood trauma probably showed up to young adulthood

[00:14:46] with I try not to use it as like something I'm super concerned about

[00:14:51] um it's something I acknowledge it's something I recognize now as I as I go

[00:14:55] into medical appointments as I move forward through my life I recognize that

[00:14:59] okay there's a there's a possibility that this is

[00:15:02] gonna hit me harder than someone who hasn't experienced a lot of trauma

[00:15:07] uh but I guess I don't I don't spend too much time

[00:15:13] thinking about that I'm just like all right what do I have to do

[00:15:15] what's the next step how do I feel the best I possibly can under the

[00:15:19] circumstances and I would say that's a very not

[00:15:23] bitter reaction just as an aside but I think I've been able to fully let go

[00:15:28] of you know the whole cosmic side of this is this god is this punishment

[00:15:34] is this bitterness because I just I I think that's

[00:15:37] bullshit I just yeah because it's like if everybody

[00:15:41] sins if you you know if you're if you believe in the bible and you know or

[00:15:47] whatever your religion is and they've got like you know here's the things that

[00:15:51] are good and here's the bads here's the sins here's the not sins

[00:15:55] like everybody's gonna stumble and mess up on something

[00:15:58] and then of course it was like a child you're gonna be like oh you know you

[00:16:02] talked back to your parents that's a sin and then if your parents turn around

[00:16:06] and use that as like okay well now you're sick it's because you were

[00:16:09] talking back to me I mean that's so much manipulation yeah like that's

[00:16:14] and so easy to do because everybody like nobody's perfect everybody sins and

[00:16:20] kids you know don't have control over their body sometimes or their mouth

[00:16:25] um and so it's very easy I guess to fall into that if

[00:16:29] your parents are manipulative so and I guess another

[00:16:34] part of this is because of the trauma do you did you find it

[00:16:42] impacted when you were going to the doctor and they were trying to help you

[00:16:46] with a disease how did it impact your overall

[00:16:54] healthcare if you weren't telling them about the

[00:16:59] trauma you had gone through because us how like how did that play out for you

[00:17:03] I mean it delayed it delayed diagnosis so much when I was younger because

[00:17:08] there was a period of time definitely in my teens in my early 20s where I was

[00:17:13] still under Rick and Chris's thumb I was not telling anyone anything that had

[00:17:16] happened but I was presenting with issues with

[00:17:19] my heart my kidneys my liver all this stuff I

[00:17:23] got sick constantly my immune system was shot I mean I've been

[00:17:26] going to the doctor way more than a normal person since I was a child

[00:17:31] I've mentioned in the past you know like the UTIs from rape and all that stuff

[00:17:36] um and they there was a lot of head scratching and a lot of passing me

[00:17:41] around from specialist to specialist after I started getting help

[00:17:46] in college that is when I started telling my

[00:17:49] doctors oh and also I'm a childhood sexual assault

[00:17:53] survivor and this was a long time ago this was

[00:17:57] almost half my lifetime ago and back then there wasn't a whole lot that doctors

[00:18:02] did with that data trauma informed medical care is a

[00:18:08] newer-ish concept I would say in the last 10 years but maybe also like two

[00:18:14] years but also like technically 10 to 12 years

[00:18:17] you just kind of have to find the right people you have to find the

[00:18:22] right doctors who care about that stuff and you know get

[00:18:25] continuing education and that kind of stuff which is which is becoming more

[00:18:29] common but definitely wasn't half my lifetime ago when I started

[00:18:33] talking about this stuff with my doctors and when when I started sharing

[00:18:40] that it changed the specialists they brought in

[00:18:44] so I was having severe neurological symptoms

[00:18:48] from PTSD so my neurologist brought in

[00:18:51] neuropsychologists who then diagnosed me with

[00:18:55] severe complex PTSD from incest and the rest of the sexual assault

[00:19:01] so I guess it changed everything when I found a doctor who knew what to do

[00:19:09] with my disclosure of being a survivor of childhood sexual assault

[00:19:14] I think that's way more common now if if I were

[00:19:18] you know 22 today and talking about this with my doctor

[00:19:23] I mean this is what I do professionally I train doctors to know what resources to

[00:19:29] direct their patients to and then you know to know all right here are the

[00:19:33] potential implications for a childhood sexual assault

[00:19:37] survivor with adult medical issues and how they're

[00:19:40] manifesting like I teach that now so that's very

[00:19:43] fulfilling but these days I think doctors would have

[00:19:48] a much quicker reaction of okay here's what we need to do here some of the

[00:19:51] things we need to look at is this person getting

[00:19:54] high quality mental health care from someone who is

[00:19:57] qualified to handle the complexity level of their or

[00:20:01] the complexity level and the specific type of trauma

[00:20:04] etc etc so yeah it took a long time I think that was

[00:20:09] you know when I was 22 that was doctor number 30 something

[00:20:15] in my adult in my young adulthood so not counting all the childhood doctors

[00:20:19] just the ones I had been to as a young adult like college age

[00:20:23] he was 30 something and he was the first one to take the whole picture and go

[00:20:29] okay there's something a lot bigger going on

[00:20:32] I'm gonna check her for all this stuff like I was having brain scans and

[00:20:36] heart scans and all of the scans and the

[00:20:39] I was basically a blood bank I just gave them all my blood for blood tests

[00:20:43] all the time but it was the neuropsychologists he brought in who were

[00:20:48] actually able to make the accurate diagnosis and then as I got treatment

[00:20:52] for PTSD all the neurological issues started going away the

[00:20:56] heart issues the kidney issues the liver issues

[00:21:00] all went away so I mean you had some pretty

[00:21:04] scary diagnosed misdiagnosis around you know

[00:21:08] Lupiz I was on I was actually on life support drugs

[00:21:12] from a rheumatologist who did not know what to do with me

[00:21:16] um but everyone like all my other specialists had said like this has got to

[00:21:20] be something autoimmune we don't know go to rheumatology he ran all these tests

[00:21:24] he was like I think you probably have all these

[00:21:27] horrible things they're just not showing up in your blood yet which we

[00:21:30] see sometimes like we see onset of symptoms before the

[00:21:33] blood work catches up so he had me on life support

[00:21:36] drugs for everything that was going on for like the organs that were failing

[00:21:40] uh and I was able to come off all those medications within

[00:21:44] a couple months of starting treatment for PTSD

[00:21:48] so it was significant improvement so the first time you told a doctor about

[00:21:56] your childhood sexual assault did you bring that up or did someone

[00:22:01] oh no I brought it up these days these days doctor screen for it if they're not

[00:22:08] they should be um and that's hard because you know we also

[00:22:12] know that you're gonna you're gonna have to ask someone who's never disclosed

[00:22:16] their sexual assault usually multiple times before

[00:22:21] they are ready to disclose so you'll notice if you go and you're a new

[00:22:26] patient somewhere you're probably gonna have the tech screen you and then

[00:22:30] the nurse will screen you and then the doctor or the nurse practitioner or

[00:22:34] physician assistant whoever is you know going to be in charge of your care

[00:22:37] they're gonna screen you and the hope is that over the course of

[00:22:41] of time they'll build enough rapport with you

[00:22:44] that if you are a survivor of trauma be it sexual domestic violence and a partner

[00:22:49] of violence you know whatever it is you grow up in a cold

[00:22:52] um eventually you will feel safe enough to disclose and then they're

[00:22:56] supposed to know how to connect you with the right resources

[00:22:59] therapy the local crisis center all of those things

[00:23:03] um but back then I think maybe they were asking me if I felt safe at home

[00:23:08] which at that point I wasn't living with the rapist anymore so I would say yes

[00:23:15] because in my mind with that question they were asking me if I had experience

[00:23:19] or if I was currently experiencing domestic violence

[00:23:22] not are you a childhood sexual assault survivor so I was actually the

[00:23:26] first one to bring it up with a doctor for the first time um it was my

[00:23:30] first like well woman exam I'd ever had in my life

[00:23:34] uh and I was really scared because it was going to include a pelvic exam

[00:23:39] and I just this was pre treatment for PTSD or

[00:23:46] anything I was I was freaking out so I told the doctor she she was horrible

[00:23:50] she was terrible she did not know what to do with me she just like awkwardly

[00:23:54] stood there like okay and then like almost ran from the room

[00:24:01] the nurse god freaking blessed nurses I fucking love them

[00:24:06] um she was the sweet like she held my hand through the whole thing I was I was

[00:24:11] crying I was so traumatized she just held my hand I think she like stroked

[00:24:15] my forehead and just kept telling me you're gonna be okay you're doing great

[00:24:19] um fucking love nurses if you're a nurse

[00:24:23] thank you for what you do like I have a couple doctors

[00:24:27] that I look back on very fondly and I'm like I really appreciate this person

[00:24:31] I probably have like dozens and dozens of nurses where I'm like well if they

[00:24:36] ever needed to go to war no questions asked I would

[00:24:39] I would follow them off a cliff let's just let's go

[00:24:43] so yeah I mean it's such a that's such a hard

[00:24:47] predicament for both you and the doctor that you come in there and you're

[00:24:52] presenting with all these symptoms and they're looking at it from like a

[00:24:57] logical technical perspective of like here's what normally causes all these

[00:25:01] things and I guess if they're not taught that like

[00:25:03] hey there's a wild card out there manifests yeah

[00:25:06] in somatic expression right like they're not taught to ask that question

[00:25:11] you can go on this wild roller coaster of like

[00:25:14] misdiagnoses and that leads to new medications they present new symptoms

[00:25:21] or I was diagnosed with non-epileptic seizures because my panic attacks

[00:25:28] went so hard in like a neurological direction

[00:25:33] that like that is how I ended up seeing a neurologist

[00:25:38] I was somewhere along the line diagnosed with non-epileptic seizures

[00:25:44] and they ended up like uh the psychologist who treated my PTSD

[00:25:49] he would have called those severe panic attacks but it like

[00:25:53] I would go catatonic I couldn't I had trouble breathing

[00:25:57] I would freeze and it was like the the reason

[00:26:01] my doctors went down the neurology lane instead of the

[00:26:06] oh what about PTSD psychology lane even though they knew about my trauma

[00:26:11] um at that point was because it would just fucking happen I mean I

[00:26:17] would be sitting there doing nothing not thinking about trauma

[00:26:21] feeling okay watching a you know perfectly happy movie

[00:26:26] surrounded by people where I felt safe in my own home

[00:26:29] and I would have these episodes so that's that's how I ended up in

[00:26:35] neurology with again the the doctor who took the whole thing so seriously

[00:26:40] and and listened and did not stop until he had an answer in a solution

[00:26:47] and a way forward for me and he was the one who connected me with the

[00:26:50] psychologist who treated um the PTSD I had back then so

[00:26:56] yeah there there is a wild card and if you're struggling

[00:26:59] significantly with your health or if you are a medical provider even

[00:27:02] better if you're a medical provider and you have patients who are presenting with

[00:27:06] just complex weird shit if they haven't already told you

[00:27:11] about their trauma try to build the rapport necessary try to get the

[00:27:14] safety net for them to to be able to share with

[00:27:19] you if they do have trauma in their past because that can be such

[00:27:24] that's the medical wild card for a lot of trauma survivors they will

[00:27:28] experience severe and unexplained medical conditions for

[00:27:32] instance fibromyalgia if you look at the studies on that now granted I haven't

[00:27:36] checked in a couple years but the the data I saw

[00:27:40] granted several years ago just an insane number of women diagnosed with

[00:27:46] fibromyalgia are sexual assault survivors so there are people who argue

[00:27:51] and I'm not making an argue for again it's just just to be clear but there

[00:27:54] are people who argue fibromyalgia isn't even a diagnosis

[00:27:58] it shouldn't even be a medical diagnosis it should

[00:28:01] it's just a physical manifestation of primarily sexual trauma

[00:28:06] so again I don't really have an opinion on that

[00:28:10] I'm not advocating one way or the other but if you have a fibromyalgia diagnosis

[00:28:14] and you are a sexual assault survivor there is a possibility

[00:28:17] I know for me I had a fibromyalgia diagnosis

[00:28:20] that completely went away after my PTSD was treated

[00:28:24] all that pain just completely dissipated and it was it was severe agonizing pain

[00:28:29] like it is some real shit but it was a somatic expression of the trauma

[00:28:36] so that like yeah fibromyalgia lupus celiac disease there there were a bunch

[00:28:41] like I had so many labels that just disappeared from my medical charts

[00:28:47] after getting appropriate treatment for PTSD

[00:28:50] yeah that that was always so wild to me just like hear your story and like

[00:28:58] you know you went through a lot of it just now but I there's more to it and that's a longer

[00:29:05] yeah it's a long story um but it was always wild to me like how many diagnosis you got

[00:29:11] and how many doctors you went to and like how many diseases you got labeled with

[00:29:17] and at the end of the day it was PTSD it was none of them it was PTSD and it just went away

[00:29:24] and it's just crazy that the body can even like manifest all of those issues

[00:29:30] and you know when I talk about trauma finds its way out I'm not saying you're going to have

[00:29:36] a mental breakdown and like you know go tearing down the street without wearing any clothes

[00:29:41] screaming cuss words at your neighbors like I guess that's one way it can manifest but

[00:29:46] a lot of times the way trauma comes out of people is like their health their bodies it's your body

[00:29:52] screaming that it needs you to address the trauma which is scary and hard but it's like my opinion

[00:30:04] having done both is it's it's less scary and it's less hard than dealing with the physical

[00:30:10] manifestations like I would rather do the hard therapy and grapple with the hard things in my

[00:30:16] past than live with the pain that was diagnosed as fibromyalgia like that was fucking awful

[00:30:21] or beyond a medication that you it's not gonna actually help anything and I recognize we've

[00:30:26] like deviated away from the question which was more about the religious side of things but

[00:30:32] this is where my educator side comes on it's like but also if you're a provider please

[00:30:37] pay attention because that trauma wildcard is real and if you are someone who has a lot of

[00:30:42] trauma and you have a lot of medical like unexplained or you know just catch all diagnosed medical

[00:30:50] conditions please consider treatment for your trauma mental health care for your trauma because

[00:30:58] I'm not the only person I know whose medical symptoms improved with addressing the trauma

[00:31:04] but back to the question yes I used to think it was God's punishment no I don't anymore

[00:31:11] and the process for me was slow over time very data driven until I realized that you know I'm not

[00:31:19] alone in this this is very common for trauma survivors it's very common for trauma survivors

[00:31:25] to experience a lot of medical issues and route to healing and now I just know whatever

[00:31:31] medical issues I have might be amplified because my body arrived to adulthood in a weekend state

[00:31:40] and I don't let that mess with me mentally too much I don't think about it I don't dwell on it

[00:31:45] it's just it's just something that's there that I've kind of pondered and accepted and

[00:31:54] it is what it is and I'll just keep doing my best to take care of myself yeah

[00:32:01] and I guess the other part of the question me I think we kind of touched on it but

[00:32:05] in relation to all the rest of it with the PTSD like now you've got you know people coming in there

[00:32:12] that are showing symptoms of diseases that they don't actually have and they're caused by you

[00:32:18] know sexual assault trauma then you've got another wild card which is they just think that this

[00:32:27] is happening because of their sins because that's what they were told like there's some

[00:32:33] religious the religious trauma yeah so I don't know how much of that plays into that but I mean

[00:32:38] that's another question you can let that one go I give you permission now God does not hate you

[00:32:46] and God is not punishing you by making you sick yeah I that never crossed my mind until

[00:32:54] I heard you say that and I've heard other people say that we get questions or like this and

[00:32:58] like it was just mind-blowing to me that a child was taught that they're sick because God's yeah

[00:33:06] because God's mad at them and and yeah I mean I've shared you know when I had jaw issues it was

[00:33:12] God punishing or it was my bitterness I don't think they said God was punishing me my bitterness

[00:33:16] had caused that that's what they said which I can imagine leads you not to tell a medical

[00:33:22] professional either right right because there's shame associated with that like if you think you

[00:33:28] made yourself do it by being a bad person or you think God's punishing you because God hates you

[00:33:33] and thinks you're a bad person or God thinks you need judgment I mean there's a layer of shame

[00:33:39] that's just automatically associated with that so no I encourage you to just drop that shit

[00:33:47] don't worry about it it's it is so not true God drop it and run away drop it and run leave

[00:33:53] that shit behind your trauma might have caused medical stuff for you um that's statistically

[00:34:01] normal but there isn't there isn't like a cosmic component of that like bodies or bodies bodies

[00:34:12] get sick bodies struggle when they're under significant stress for significant periods of time

[00:34:18] and there are medical scientific explanations for all of that that are logical and sound that do not

[00:34:26] include God is punishing you so I hope I hope that helps I hope you leave that shit behind

[00:34:32] because it's some shit drop it all right well that wraps up our questions for today um but

[00:34:39] by all means please keep sending them in you can do that on the website you can do that with the

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[00:34:49] a link in the episode descriptions for that and if we will keep moving ourselves and we will be

[00:34:56] back next week um we've got some exciting stuff coming up yeah we've got some really cool stuff

[00:35:02] in the works um conversations are being had so we're excited for things to settle down I'm

[00:35:09] really excited for some episodes we've got coming up they'll be fun it'll be good and we'll be

[00:35:14] back next Monday thanks for listening to another episode of the cult I left behind

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