The Crocodile Closest to The Boat

Beth Matenaer went from adopted to "a troubled teen" sent off into the mountains of California. Attempting escape, Beth hiked 50 miles to civilization in the middle of the night. Hear the rest of her story as we interview Beth, now a trained trauma therapist working with cult survivors and drug and alcohol addiction. Along with Dr. Janja Lalich, a renowned cult expert, they have constructed classes for those leaving cults and high coercion situations. 

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Hello and welcome to Butterflies and Bravery. I am here today Jemima, your host with whisper. My best friend and we are joined today by Beth. Matenaer she is a trauma therapist that works with Dr. Janja Lalich 

and just recently took their. Course. Called, Raised in a cult. And so we hope you enjoy our conversation today. And we're just going to jump right in.  Those classes that you guys put together are absolutely phenomenal.

 In a way it was a little bit soul crushing.  just realizing all the things that we didn't get to experience developmentally  that part of it for me , just crushed my soul.  That one class where you explained all about the Eric Erickson's .

Stages of development, because I realized we didn't have any of them. We had zero and   we were  talking last week about reparenting ourselves, because that's pretty much what you have to do is find. Those connections and make them for yourself afterwards as an adult. Yeah.

, I've worked with people around this,  redoing those stages,  going back and looking at okay, what are the tasks? So if you're  developing autonomy, what does that look like? Maybe that's having your own point of view or , just, even on small things, like I've talked about like those little pieces of finding self by having opinions and making decisions about things.

And I think you can go back through some of those stages and redo them. That would be really powerful.. That's why I kinda like that concept . Cause you know, mine was definitely during teenage years was completely impaired because of being in a cult program as a teen.

And so there's a piece of like, okay, having to go back and repair that and say, okay, I can redo that stage to get to feels better.  This class we just did with you all was one of the most powerful things I've ever experienced in terms of this work.

That space was so incredible and what you all brought to that was so vulnerable and yeah. And just that kindness for each other and the way that it like leveled the playing field, having everybody from such similar situations was just, I got off every call just like for an hour and just sat and was like, I'm so grateful that I get to be a part of that work.

It was very sad for actually this part, your particular class. I was like really sad.   I wanted to, for you to tell some of our listeners about the zebras and the lions  cause that thing was very I don't know. It was really. Really helpful to see how other things in nature react and like what you were saying about how they released their energy and all of that was through movement. , over the years ended up developing that talk that I would, what we call like the brain talk largely because one I was indoctrinated so heavily by  narcissistic people in my development that trying to find a way to understand trauma that didn't make me feel crazy or broken or different than everybody else was really hard.

That was one of the hardest parts of healing for me was this idea that  I was somehow faulty as a result of what I went through. And then the more that I learned about neuroscience in the brain and just us as an animal and the way that we operate  it was like the most compassionate I could ever be with myself was really going back to some of the science and that's not everything, I don't think neuroscience explains everything about trauma, but I think for sure, there's just this place where it gives us an explanation.

That's not about our brain, but about all brains. And so that's one of the things I like about that talk is that it's okay, this is what brains do under stress , um, animals even do this. They actually have a bit of an easier time, which I explain, because they don't overthink it and they don't predict.

And they reset pretty quickly.  And use like you're saying Jemima, like they use their bodies and they use movement and they use breath and all these things to regulate themselves. Whereas we just have a hell of a time as human    screws us up to such an extent that makes it hard for us ever to go back down to zero or ever reset.

More stressful things. We go through the higher that gets for us. Like our threshold just gets our I always say like our number, our zero to 10, like our numbers keeps inching up. And we don't ever really reset  and I think that when you have really complicated trauma, like we've all been through that's.

One of the challenges is that your normal is operating at a place that's someone else's traumatic level. And I think, it's hard to function that way . I've talked a lot about this with my therapist, cuz she does a somatic healing  and that's a lot of what that is like , moving some of that energy out that you're holding in your body.

There's the famous book that's the much more clinical, which one? The body keeps the score.  The body keeps the score. But I have a friend who was telling me that if you like something really like more  relatable and human, but along that same line as  what my bones know by a Stephanie Fu 

I haven't read that one. I will add that to my list. Trauma world is finally getting a little bit more sophisticated. Like it, there's so much about The way that we understood traumas before was all about like our kind of having to walk back through experiences and relive them and reprocess all of that or that trauma was caused, simply by something being life threatening.

Yeah. And so I think that information about, that huge stress responses come from something being inescapable or that idea of social inclusion and exclusion of getting kicked out of the group for survival. Like it's a really different lens of looking at trauma. And then also looking at like how the nervous system responds to those situations, like Bessel VanDerKolk was one of the first to start saying, okay, there's something that's happening in our bodies.

It's happening in our brains rather than it's happening in our character. And so much of trauma work before was really not incorporating any of that. , and I think we have a long way to go. I don't even think we really totally understand at all. And in terms of how we operate. Yeah. I think so too.

  it's funny. I get in dispute sometimes with other therapists about, even the way that I view trauma, which is a pretty broad lens. I'm looking at like stress response, not just threatening responses. And a lot of therapists are really trained in just this post traumatic stress it's about life or death situations.

It's about acute trauma and not this longer term, like I've talk about this idea of a rubber band being stretched out. Like we're super resilient for a short period of time. But then if we stay stretched out for a long period of time, like you all experience, like if you develop in a place where you're stretched out all the time , it's a very different way that trauma looks.

And I don't think that the field of psychology is really incorporated that in terms of what it really looks like for people. And it's a disservice because to live with that is really hard. And you live with a super high arousal brain that might get triggered in a grocery store or might get overwhelmed in places that are high stimulus.

And, we don't realize that's part of that trauma and that stress response. they were gonna add the C complex PTSD into the the, has that come out. I don't, they, they had major disputes and I think be, I'm not, I could be wrong, but I believe Bessel Vander car was part of that conversation that they really couldn't agree within the field of psychology, about what, to, what to incorporate in this new DSM that they did over the few years.

And they didn't like, they didn't include developmental trauma, which is like people that are maybe born in orphanages or like in that situation, or have really serious neglect or problems the first couple years of life. That's a very different type of trauma. You're not re-experiencing or imagining something you're not going back and having flashbacks, but your nervous system gets wired up in a particular way.

Your attachment stuff gets wired up in a particular way, like you all learned about. Sure. And they don't include so that's not even in the equation in terms of when people are looking at really what our experiences are like as human beings or even prenatal trauma. So like they did an interesting.

Study where they were looking at domestic violence victims and and the fetus, the combination between pregnant women that were in domestic violence situations. And what they found is that the fetus actually responded to the threat faster than the mother did. So the fetus would go into a ball like inside the womb before the mother would even react.

And because that fetus is so wired up to the nervous system of that mother, that it was getting the threat signal louder, or it was getting it first before the person was, and that we don't even talk about that trauma. What does that mean for that baby that's coming out, or, being born in a cult situation.

What does that mean? If you're caregivers under a tremendous amount of stress and they're in their own rubber bands, stretched out period. And you're now being created in that, like it's going to wire you up in a particular way. That has an impact. Yeah, for sure. That makes so much sense. Yeah. So I don't think we figured out the nuance of really how we develop and what that stress response looks like for people over time.

Wow. Yeah. That's that makes so much sense because so many of these kids are born with such high anxiety and you're like, dude, what are you so freaked out about?  yeah, but it's just wired into, like I know my daughter suffers from extreme anxiety. I think whispers children also  I'm I wouldn't be surprised if most of our kids, most of us, they grew up in the cult and had children.

I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of them are, all of them suffer from anxiety. And like you said, it's pre-birth . And that, or even if there's like addictive things in there, or, mental health stuff, like how that gets. Expressed through those experiences, many, which are not within our control So I think the way that we understand it is very linear and it's really not like it's so much more complex and layered than that I feel like we can do better. I bash a lot of my profession. I shouldn't do that. But I, I just feel like we can do better and really understanding human experience.

And, I was like, I was adopted and for so long I was, that's a stressful experience for a child to go through being separated from their birth. You know, The thing that they're used to for eight, nine months, like then all the sudden they're disconnected from that.

That's a big deal for our nervous system and survival system. Much higher rates of like mental health stuff and addictive behaviors within people that are adopted. But so much of what the literature is about abandonment, or that they, they identity and yeah, those are parts of it.

But it's also that you're born really Hotwired to have a lot louder survival response and stress response. And I don't think we incorporate that in terms of our understanding of the way those early experiences impact people. . Yeah, absolutely very true. I had a, one of the things I identified was that what you said, whispers?

So having been adopted, like there was a moment when they pulled my baby out of me, like when I first had my first child and , she was screaming and they put her on my chest and she immediately stopped. And like you had talked about in the class, that idea that you had felt like so much love for your child, but then so much loss and anger at the same time about your own experience.

I had a extremely similar experience. Like I felt the most amount of love I had ever felt for anything. As they later on me, and then I felt the most amount of rage in sadness that I'd ever like, but the same time it was the, like I knocked the breath outta me. Yeah. But I was like, what the hell?

Like I thought I had dealt with this issue, but what I realized, like what was taken from me or what I experienced as a young person, it was just. Incredibly painful to understand that I understood it on a really organic level of what it meant to lose that safety for me.

Yeah. And then to, go through a system where there's some challenges in terms of how they love. There's, when you, like you said, when you have your own kids, you realize wow. There was really something different. And so I, I feel very intense, bittersweet love for my children very often.

Yeah.  Do you mind telling us what kind of like tic situation you grew up in, or was it like a boarding school?  I was adopted and grew up in a family.  I love, I love them, just a very different family than myself in terms of their connectedness or their sensitivity, definitely some traits in there, narcissist debates traits in my family.

And I went through as a young person, I had a lot of loss and went through some experiences where I was, I think I was like 14, 15 where I had been assaulted, like had sexual, like two sexual assaults and then had an additional experience with a close sort of family member.  And all very consolidated within a short period of time.

And so after that happened, like I really spun out, like I got really self destructive. I got into drugs and alcohol, like I was self-harming and I just completely reacted in this huge trauma response. Because of where I came from, it was very much like I was a bad kid, all of a sudden, like I was just this bad disruptive kid and I was troubled.

So I was considered a troubled teenager. And rather than anybody recognizing that I was a traumatized teenager, they ended up sending me. I went to a couple different programs. I was in different boarding schools in wilderness programs and stuff, but I ended up going to a boarding school in California.

That was a Synanon based program. So it came out of CDU. So it was a birth of CDU from that program. Actually started by one of the people that helped found CDU. So it was in a very isolated in the mountains um, tic based systems that used attack that the idea was to use attack therapy, to tear people down, to build them back up.

So it was a lot of verbal aggression, a lot of Celtic structure stuff. And so I was in that program for about two years and then got targeted by one of the Celtic leaders, like main power leaders in that system. Who's a narcissist as a, I was for targeted and groomed throughout that process and then abused for about 10 years after.

By that situation. So I was really vulnerable, was really young. I think I just wanted to be loved and understood. I was very idealistic, like even in all of my destructiveness, I was still a decent human being  but got really pegged. I don't know what they did, you know what you're talking to me before we signed on, definitely got pegged as like this incredibly promiscuous female.

And I was, pegged as being really manipulative and I was a slut and it was so far from the truth of what my experience had been because truly before being assaulted, like I had never been intimate in any way at all. Like I said, maybe kissing somebody, so I went from like a young person that got then a very violated and afraid of sexuality and men and that experience to then being targeted as somehow a really provocative promiscuous female within that cult system.

And that kind of carried on as the way that they managed and dealt with me. And that was really destructive just in terms of my development and understanding myself. , I think I drank that Kool-Aid for a long time in that program, because it's what I had to do, yeah. There was a, certainly a point and I've talked about this. I talk about this a little bit on I did the podcast with Rachel Bernstein, but at one point when the grooming behavior like escalated with that person towards me, I ran away and I I hiked, we were really isolated, so I hiked 50 miles in the woods whoa, by the, in the dark, like I saw a mountain lion.

It was crazy.  wow. How old were you? I was 15. Geez, dang escalated. And I was like, I'm out. Fuck it. I can't do this. I'm out. Yeah. I was in the beginning. I was faking it and flying under the radar for a little bit. And people, I was nice enough and I was Southern and, I could be polite and I was fine unless people crossed me.

And then I was, I would be pretty like a cornered animal. But I ended up that kind of abuse started to escalate. That manipulation started to escalate and I really freaked out and got really scared. And I was 3000 miles away from home. I was on the opposite coast cuz I'm from South Carolina.

So I ended up leaving and hiking out that night because I went left during the day and then hidden the mountains, but hiked out at night because they would drive the, the dirt road up and down looking for you. And so I hiked out by moon. But it was, and it was the middle of winter. It was like the end of November in Northern California.

And so it was really cold. I mean, I have a jacket, didn't have a flashlight. Can't believe I did this. Like I think of my daughter now. And I'm like, I can't imagine her doing that, but that's how freaked out I was. And I ended up getting to town, which was about 50 miles and got picked up by a family and on the road that, that who's this person like walking me.

I always had another person with me who are these kids walking? And we told them the story of what was happening to us at this program. And we told them we were scared to go back and, they were abusing us and that it was, terrible. And so they took us into their house. And I actually the person I was with left after about two days, their, his parents took him and let him come home.

But my parents wouldn't. And so part of what had happened is the person that was grooming me, like really indoctrinated my parents. And yeah. When I would call, he had called them multiple times a day and he had stepped in and was managing my runaway situation with my family.

And they didn't believe anything that I said. And so like the, really the single most traumatic moment for me in that story was when I really realized that my parents, like I had no options, like I was stuck and either I was gonna like hitchhike across the country at 15, which I knew was really dangerous as a female by myself, or I was gonna go back and try to figure out how to get through this program.

But that real moment of realizing like how inescapable that situation was and that I didn't have a voice and I didn't have options. And yeah, I didn't have identity in some ways at that point that I ended up going back. And so when I went back, I really had to cognitively drink the Kool-Aid and really invest because I did, there was no other way to survive what was happening.

And so that was really impactful on me. And I think it took me a while, even after program to undo. Some of that, that had happened, it's like they had saved my life, but really I had saved my life by buying into what happened, because I didn't really have another choice   they sometimes say that it's, it's very retraumatizing too. Have people not believe you. I didn't, I didn't talk about this until about three years ago.  I would tell my husband like fucked up stories of things, which I'm sure you guys experienced where I like, and then this one time I didn't know where I would like verbally vomit, like this one time they dressed us up in costumes and made us do this for 12 hours, it would be like really crazy shit.

And he would just blank out, like what did he, cause it was like really uncomfortable stuff and that's not even those were like events that were really crazy, but just the day to day was traumatizing, just being screwed at multiple times a week or feeling like at any second, the rug was gonna get pulled out from underneath you.

 once in a while I would talk about some of the experience and be like, this is fucked up that they did this to us. But about three years ago I started really thinking about it more. And my daughter started getting older, so she, she's a teenager now.

And I started to think about if people spoke to her that way, like what I would do, right? Yeah. Like how, or her walking through the woods like that holy crap. Like thinking like that, it's just hard to wrap your head around. And and I was watching seduced. I was watching the Oxenberg story and I hadn't quite come to terms with the narcissistic abuse part.

And I had tried to talk about it over the years, but one of the things that the narcissist did that was so impactful is he of stacked people around me that anytime I would try to talk about the abuse they would go, yeah, but he loves you. Or he really cares about you. If you survivors you understand, like you try to come out and there's like this wall of gas lighting around you that makes you think maybe it's you, right? Like maybe you interpreted it wrong. Or and so I was watching seduced and they, there was a scene where India was talking about the way that Keith Renee had of stacked the system around her. Yeah. And there's like old chart and Yaa talks like right after that.

And like my cognitive dissonance shelf just collapsed. Like I had a full 10, a panic attack. My husband was sitting there. He's what's going on? And I just was able to see things in a way that I couldn't unsee them. Yeah. And when that happened, I think it really opened the door that I was finally able to unpack all of the layers of things that had happened.

There had been moments that I talked about, but just of grew my, I. I feel like I had this it's just how I would describe it. I had this big gnarled, like tree stump route inside of me that I had never quite understood what happened, but I built like this incredibly beautiful life around it, but it was still sitting there and I didn't know it.

And then when that shelf collapsed for me, one, it was a good thing that I had that life built around me because it didn't completely tip me over. So I think we get in our recovery, we, the shelf collapses when we're ready to handle the shelf collapsing and I need it all that time to be able to. And I could finally look at what happened, but it was that I was watching it in that moment.

So that was about three years ago.  And then I went through a really acute phase of just freaking out and feeling overwhelmed and feeling lots of pain and finally started to feel some anger. It took me a long time to feel angry. And almost the, actually it was the next day. So my husband screenshotted Yaa on the screen when we were watching the show.

And so he had screenshotted it. So we have the date on it. The next day I reached out to janya and was like, I need to find a cult therapist, like I need to, I need help. And so she had connected me with someone and I started doing some work within a group with someone else. I was a part of that. And that's how I met her was coming through that process.

That's cool. So a long journey, but one, I think that came to a head a few years ago that I finally was able to talk about what happened. It took a long time.  The experience you just were telling, I had something similar happen to me.

And there's one thing to tell your story or whatever. And someone's that did not happen your exaggerating, but to not be believed. But there was this part where we would try to get rescued by our parents. We'd go to our parents and be like, we, I need help. And they're like, go back to the, and that's a little bit of a, almost like a deeper sort of betrayal of not just I don't believe you, but I not only don't believe you, I'm sending you back to the place that you're telling me you're being abused.

so it's. Yeah, I, and that would even started my whole rant about that was like I didn't talk to my family about it until three years ago. And then I finally sat them down. And said, basically you all have been telling this narrative of that I was a fucked up teenager and then I just couldn't get my life together.

And I took me, they spent all this money to help me and that I just struggled for such a long time, because I struggled after program because I had been traumatized and I was continued to be traumatized by this person, for a long time. So it, I did have a hard time.

Like I wasn't perfect. I didn't have it all figured out. And I finally just said I'm not willing to accept that narrative anymore. You need to understand the truth of what I went through and why it impacted me that way. And that I'm. I'm a survivor and I, I deserve respect and I deserve for you to understand that, like I fought my ass off to be able to get to the place that I am in my life, but it has been really hard.

And I it, but it took me 30 years almost to be able to sit down and have that conversation and just say that I wasn't willing to accept this story. That Beth was such a screw up, or that I was such a troubled kid when there was so much trauma that had happened that had never been recogniz.

, it's not even just the not rescuing me. That was really painful. That was like, not believing that I was a good person having a hard time. Yeah. Like it really not believing that I was a capable person that was fighting really hard. It was always this sort of I, she can't get it together.

And that was really hurtful. And even sometimes there's comments that get made like, oh, remember when you were like such a bad teenager and I just wanna scream, screw you. I was just totally traumatized and like blindsided. I was doing my best, so I think there's just a part of me that kind of reached a limit with that, that I wasn't willing to have that story be told anymore in any, in a different way.

And how did your family react to that? I, that in the initial conversation, they were actually very receptive. In terms of, I had to be very direct. Like I need you to sit down and listen for 30 minutes without interrupting me. And I told, walked them through everything. I'd given them some podcasts and things to listen to and books to read about the trouble teen industry.

And they haven't really been able to do any of that. So there was a moment where they listened and then I think there's a moment where they just put their own cognitive dissonance back up. And that's about where we are at this point. And I don't, I think that's, I think they're capable of what they're capable of.

Yeah, God, I have. Other humans in my life that do provide that validation. I don't know that I'll ever get it from them , even some of the stuff that happened when I was younger. I don't know that I'll ever get this agreement that yes, these things happen to you. There's very much that same story whisper.

Like when you're exaggerating, maybe you misinterpreted and it's no, I know what happened. Like I didn't misinterpret someone trying to have sex with me. Like it was really pretty cool. Um, But I think that, I think we come up against that phenomena, that experience a lot as survivors.

. Especially of sexual abuse that, there's this place where it's just so painful for the people around you to accept their piece in that, or to accept that happened, that they just deny that it happens. And I've dealt with that my whole life with different people in my family, which is painful.

Yeah. Painful.  I have a lot of struggles with my family because some of my more painful abusers were my parents  , for whatever reason, I was the one who got the more, the brunt of it more than the rest of the kids didn't have the same experience that it's.

And when I was first starting to like really go through the healing journey, I tried to, of talk to a couple of them about it and got such a horrible reaction that I pulled back. But even now that, like I'm in a place where I'm like so much I feel like I would have so much more a I dunno, strength or just some foundation to to have those conversations with them.

But now there's just, this whole piece of is it is me being able to talk to them and have them. Honor or acknowledge my story. Is that more important than me, like exposing this horrific story to them, of their parents, of their FA like  and I've always, and I've always struggled with that, cuz I, at the end of the day, pretty much for me, I'm just like, I've held it for so long.

Like I'd rather do that than take their parent away from them.  But I don't know if that's healthy, , I don't know how we define healthy, when you're not given options from, when you're given limited options from other people, I think we do the best we can to try to figure out what we need.

But it's tough when you don't control the other half of what you're getting back. mean, I, for me, when I talked to my parents about what I've been through, I very much did that for me. With needing nothing from them.  It was really more about me drawing a line and saying what I needed to say.

Rather, I didn't expect anything back from the conversation. Like I went in mentally, like you got nothing for me. Yeah. And what need is to do this for me? And , I can get disappointed, I don't always get back what I need or I, they don't always have the ability to do those things.

And so that, that's how I came to terms with it. Everybody's different, but I thought about what do I need? That they, and not get having them give that, but me give that to me. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. That makes sense. was a really important thing for me to just say I'm not willing to keep this narrative going inside of myself either.

I don't know that I got this wonderful ending. That was like, you're right. We're so sorry. And we shouldn't have done that. I think more I wish we had known and I think there's probably one part of them that did, I did tell them when I ran away, I did tell them, what was happening and I, they.

And at that point they even said they said, why didn't you tell us more of this over the years? Like, why did you act like this thing was a good thing for you? And I said, because you wouldn't have believed me and my, oh, we had a real moment where my mom stopped and she said, you're right.

We wouldn't have believed you. And I said that, that's why I haven't said anything, but so they did believe me. I think they just don't know what to do with it. And now, life I'm Southern. So you just sweep that shit under the rug.  and then you just move on. It didn't happen. That's the Mo of flight.

Yeah. Southern, and then you put a smile on it and it's all fine. Yeah. And, but you're, but you are right about definitely the speaking for yourself and your own healing. Cuz I did that with my parents, like in that same situation, didn't get anything back, but I've said what  I needed to say.

Yeah. And sometimes it's just I just I feel like I've gotten my needs, just met other places.  Whether it's been friendships. There's been huge amounts of my needs being have been met, like in the survivor community and even doing like there's some places, even in the class that we just did I, I really resonated a lot what you all talked about in terms of this kinda long term place of not getting your needs met or knowing, so even though I wasn't born and raised in a cult, I definitely had places where there was real gaps in nurturing or an attachment.

And and someone in the class had said something about, they always feel like they're, they're the darkest person in the room, or they have this like dark part of them that they're afraid to put out in front of people. And I really identified with that. Like a lot of times. It takes a long time for me to talk.

Like I didn't talk to people about a lot of my experiences because like it's such a heavy thing to put in a room and I always felt like it was something that was just such a dark part of me , and  to be in a room with of people that I didn't feel any of that with, to be in a group of people that I know had their own little sort of dark baggage with them.

Yeah. And leveled it in such a way that I just felt so safe. And it was really. It was a really powerful experience to experience that, I don't feel that at a dinner party, I feel like at a dinner party, I have to pack that away and pretend to have a normal life or,  person.

I don't really wanna be a normal person, so I don't care much about that, but there is of this part that feels alienating, it makes you feel like you're on the outside or you, it's hard to really be in that vulnerable place with people. And it was just really impactful to be able to share space with people that I felt would never judge that or would understand that.

And not even be freaked out by it, like I can say what I'm saying to you and you're not gonna freak out and be like, oh my God, that person's horrible. Or she, she's so messy. So yeah, definitely., I think that's a very common feeling for people to feel like ostracized from society or like they don't fit.

I think almost everybody I've spoken to that has trauma feels that way. Is that like a brain response or is. I think it's probably a sociological kind of cultural thing.  Yeah. I mean, I think we very definitely like in our culture, I'm gonna talk about this sometimes, but United States, for sure.

If you think of all the feelings,  on a spectrum, we like like one section, you know, we like the Instagram section of feelings, happiness and partying and perfection. And like most of life does not exist in that one little section. And so , so many people go through traumatic experiences and like it's hard to not feel alienated because the world around you just wants this one little sliver of your experiences.

Like that's acceptable, that's good experiences. Yeah. You know, Like I have good feelings or bad feelings, they're just feelings. And we just happen to like only a little section of them that make us nice and comfortable. And so I think some of it, you know, gets so alienating is that. When the world around you gets uncomfortable with certain sets of feelings and you have them as a result of things you've been through it, it makes it awkward.

It makes it hard to feel safe to talk about those things and and to carry them.  Yes. So I think it's a bit of a human problem in terms of, but especially particularly our culture I don't know that every culture is quite so compartmentalized about what they wanna deal with, but we're like a happiness based, all this positivity and happiness and your intentions and, and it's that's not what real life looks like for people.

Yeah. So it does end up making feel alienated, or like you have to keep parts of you separate out of, relationships. Yeah. Unless you find other people who have those same parts and it's have at it  yeah. In your friendship, you find people that are like, oh, they have those feelings too.

And it creates a relat good connection because of that. Yes. Sure. The more people I talk to on the podcast and all of that, the more I realize that almost all of us walk around feeling the same way. A lot of the time  everybody's says, oh, I don't wanna go out in public. People are judging me.

And it's but we're all, basically all of us are feeling. I mean, So I'm sure there's some people that aren't, but that's just, cuz they're put it in the background.  There's a yeah. I, that the fishbowl effect  yes. Fish effect. There's the there, so there's this this writer that was in a cult and I found this writing of hers a long time ago and it, when I read it, , it was so profound to be of like, okay, yeah, that's actually my experience.

And this, so this is just the, her first paragraph. She says I'm part of a minority group that I call people with a big story, for lack of a better term. People with big stories, have two things in common. First, something has happened in their lives. That is so outside the range of the ordinary, that it seems unbelievable to most people.

And the second thing is that this unbelievable event impacts their lives so greatly that they cannot keep it private. And I was like, yeah, that's, that's like the dichotomy, or the, the struggle that we go through. It's like when someone says, oh yeah, my dad died in the whole room goes, woo.

That's how you feel. And what happens if you start trying to tell someone like I was grew up in a cult and was like, whoa goes, yeah I'm just trying to get, my peanut butter cakes over here like that.  I definitely like the big story. I, I say, I really, that's why I love doing trauma work and I ended up in this field, but I love those stories.

I feel like that's the most real connected place and human experience, and I feel grateful that I get to spend my day and my work, like in. That play. And I always say like that have this thing. I talk about a lot in my life, but I feel like there's 90% of life. I don't give a shit about I think it's I think it's the use, not in a good use of our time.

It doesn't really connect us. Like it's just going through the motions but there's 10%, like I really care about. And I feel like those big stories happen in that 10%. And so I feel grateful that I get to be in the 10% of the work that I do with people, because it keeps me out of as much of the 90 as I can be.

But it also then makes it weird to be at a dinner party, because for sure, like I end up in the corner while someone's telling me about their father dying or, having those kind of conversations where I'm talking about, the work I do,, and all of a sudden, , but I love that.

I think that's me, some of the most real human connections and vulnerability that we have. So like in that, those vulnerable spaces where we're in those, that stuff, I do think it's, to me that some of the most valuable things about being a human being and I don't find it like. People will ask sometimes do you find it depressing to be a trauma therapist?

And I'm like, no, like I think some of the most incredible pieces of human beings that I've ever observed has been in like really intensive trauma work. And so it makes me hopeful or it makes me just in awe of people doing that work, , because I think we adapt and how we adapt to trauma is to me incredibly fascinating, but  .

It can be incredibly empowering for people. Some of those adaptations suck. They're painful and they don't feel good. So I don't think like trauma makes us better. But I don't think it necessarily makes us worse either. I think it just makes us adapt. . And so I find that in that adaptations, like a lot of that 10%, but I think it's really resilient and incredible in humans.

So it's very hopeful work in a weird way.  And I think that we don't have to always feel that sometimes it's okay to not feel that it's beautiful and that, sometimes it's fine to say that this sucks.

And I don't, I'm not glad things happen to me that happen to me. I don't have any control over it, but I also don't have to walk away and think that I'm damaged because of it. I think I'm adaptive. Like I've had to learn how to undo some of those adaptations. Cuz maybe they're not, know, they don't get me to what I want maybe in relationship or the kind of connectedness I wanna feel.

But I think that there's a place of that. That's so unique in every person, so although there's a level playing field about the brain in terms of ways that we adapt. I also think there's a place that's so unique about how each person finds their way through that. And I always am really interested.

I'll ask people like tell me a time you were really brave. And, of did something that was really hard and I find it so fascinating, the ways that people pull themselves through those really hard experiences, because it's so specific to them, it's like, they're a little fingerprint of resilience and I love to hear that from people.

Yeah, for sure. You can do it there. You can do it other places, but like it's such an incredibly valuable and it's just a really amazing part of what human beings can do. So I, I feel like I just get to sit and hear that all the time, which is, or what they do for each other. Like I was saying to you all, what that group did for each other, in terms of providing that safe space that you just did in the class like that, it was just incredible to watch human beings do that for each other, even though you're sitting in this intense pain, like you said, and that soul crushing kind of pain, there's this other thing that's happening that is so specific in and repetitive in terms of what other human beings are capable for doing, to doing for each other.

Yeah. Yeah. Those classes were absolutely fantastic. It felt very just helped me not to feel so alone. I think a lot of people probably that have been in cults, especially have a really hard time adapting to society in general  and then you tend to feel very isolated, but yeah, that really helped me realize that, we're not alone.

There's so many other people that are going through the same thing. I was listening to a Brene brown podcast and she said the deeper we dig, the more of the human experience, we realized that we all are super connected and we're all like the deeper you go, the more relatable things we're gonna be to other people.

It's what she was saying. And I was like, wow, that's super true. Yeah. It really is. Yeah, I agree. And I love, I ju I do love all of her stuff about vulnerability and her her process of how she got there, which was not a perfect process, but that it's in kind of those messy places that we really find this authentic stuff and this vulnerable stuff.

And without that, I think you're like, that's the 90%  in my mind. You're not really that. Yeah, for sure. Yes. True. What other classes do you have? I took the foundations of recovery. That one was really good.  The raised in a cult class for me was more. I felt more comradery in that one a lot more.

I felt like we had a lot more of a deeper experience. The foundation of recovery was really good, and I loved a lot of the stuff there, but that raised in a cult class was like, woo. So I know there's other courses on the take back your life recovery, right? , there's one on relationships.

Yeah. And we're looking at maybe re maybe redesigning a little bit of that. I think that one thing that really affirmed for me at the raised, in course, that we just did is that it's really important. For that course to continue. There's a place about that, that was community and camaraderie.

That was healing just in itself so that it is important for the people born and raised in cults to have their own space. I think that was like totally clear after that class. , we're still gonna do the foundations of recovery, but I think one of the things we talked about is maybe incorporating like the healthy relationships class into those classes a little bit more, maybe making them a little bit longer.

So every the feedback we always get is people wish the classes were longer, that there was more on that, which we, we struggled with some of that because we don't wanna make it so cost prohibitive. If we do a 10 week course, it just, how do we do that? So that's what we're trying to investigate right now is there a way to.

To maybe make the courses longer. I liked one of the things we did different and the raised in class that we just did is we had more discussion. So originally when we started, we were doing more presentation style and just information, cuz we really believe that psychoeducation is important to recovery.

Like you need the information, you need the words for it. You need the terminology. The brain stuff is helpful. Understanding different types of trauma, all that is a piece of that. And that education is empowering that it's not just about somebody. Know fixing you, but like you getting information that helps you deal with your own adaptations and understand what's happening to you.

And so I think that what we are looking at doing is trying to make the classes a little bit longer and add more discussion and process time so that people can integrate the information. Cause it's a little bit of a fire hose of information, coming at you. . Yeah. And so maybe pause and give a little bit more time to integrate that.

So that's been a work in progress, we've been doing these classes for a little bit over a year with the idea that we were gonna do 'em and learn and do 'em and learn and keep, keep readjusting that we, everything that we can. So we we asked for feedback from all the classes and we really listened.

So we really trying to take that feedback, incorporate it. So I think we'll still be doing. Some version of that intro class, which the foundation's class and are raised in class and kind of keeping it a little bit longer. And then we've done a couple, like one off classes that I, we haven't decided what we're gonna do next year.

Like I taught a class on narcissism that I really liked. That was a shorter course specifically about recovery from narcissistic abuse. Yeah. And I do wanna incorporate pieces of that in as well, cuz I think there's definitely so if a cult is by extension narcissistic abuse, right?

So you have a cult system based around a narcissist very similarly to the way people experience that in families or one on one narcissistic abuse is you really do get that self critical self shaming, self hating, like tearing yourself down piece. And so I think that part of that narcissistic recovery.

I feel pretty passionate about is helping people understand that part of their trauma response is because this part is abusing them all the time internally, there's piece of them, that's pretty emotionally abusive to themselves. And we learned how to do that. Myself included, right? Like I like terrible narcissistic abuser inside my head.

And it triggered me a lot. I had to learn that part of what was keeping my brain so activated and triggering me all the time was that I was essentially being abused still. Like it was still happening inside my own head in the ways that I dealt with myself or the ways that I spoke to myself or the things that I would say to myself that I would never say to another person or expectations I placed on myself around perfectionism.

So there's pieces of that I think are really important about narcissistic recovery for survivors to understand. And then the main piece that we, we talk a lot about in the narcissism course. That's a little different, we do. Some of it in the other courses is what we talked about, which is the fond response, that idea, fight flight freeze, but we also have fond.

Yeah. And fond being that if the lion's not going anywhere, if the zebra knows the lion isn't going anywhere, the lion is your caregiver, your cult leader, your partner, like you end up wanting to please and keep that lion happy  and you end up doing that. That type of attachment and bonding to the lion.

That's to me was really helpful in recovery from narcissistic abuse, because it helped me understand like, why the hell, why was I okay with that? Or why didn't like, people will say if it was so bad, you would just leave. So one of the things my dad had actually said is if it was so bad, why didn't you just go?

And it's because that's not the way that the brain works. That's not what actually happens to human beings. And so I think those, so I wanna make sure that those pieces, if we don't teach those that like narcissism course, those pieces are added, make sure they're in those courses too.

and then we did another one on forgiveness of self that was about moral injury, which is that idea of the type of trauma you go through when you've either done things that you feel shame about, or, as part of the culture of the system or what you've witnessed happening. So it's a very particular type of trauma around self shame.

And self-loathing, that has to do with kind of your morals being an extension of a narcissist and that they get shifted because of that and how we understand our behavior when that happens. So I think the plan is to take all of those pieces and put them in a longer class 

we'll see. That would be great. That's yeah. , those are fantastic classes. I very highly recommend them to anybody that's been in a high coercion or cult, so like type situation, because. Sometimes you just, you come out of it, not even understanding yourself or not really knowing who you are. And then  having to rebuild.

But for me, finding out a lot of those things was very comforting. Like the fight or flight response that you don't choose to me that was like, wait, what? Like I thought I was choosing these things and then to realize that it's just my brain reacting and that I can actually stop it and do something was like a huge turn on the light for me type of moment.

 Yeah.   I would say that I, I talk about one of the biggest impacts that I see from trauma from people is they lose not just trust in the world. It's not just about your trust in the world, that's impacted, but about your trust in yourself.

And so why I think the education part, even though I'm a therapist, like I really believe in psychoeducation. And part of that is because it gives you answers about yourself. That helps you trust yourself more . So that, that loss of self or loss of trust in yourself is such a huge part of what keeps it keeps you triggered and keeps you having, a difficulty finding that self for not being absorbed in those trauma responses.

And so as we get that information, it's oh, there's an explanation for this. There's a name for this yeah. Or something other than my failing as a human or my, being damaged and destroyed, that actually explains why I respond this way or what's happened to me. I think that helps gives you that sense of self and trust back in yourself.

Yeah. . And that's paramount to healing is learning to trust yourself.  Yeah. And that's one of the reasons too, for me, that I'm pretty , I'm pretty anti the whole , manifesting, if you just imagine yourself heal, you're gonna be healed a thing, because all it is it's creating this, this state of victim blaming again, and it puts you in a place because your brain is responding in these ways  and you're trying to unlearn it.

 And you're like, okay obviously I'm off because I couldn't manifest my , my happiness or whatever it was.  there's this writer, Jeff Brown, that I'm a super big fan of. And I remember reading one of the things he said was,   stop telling everybody that they can get, that everybody has to be healed from trauma.

, there's gonna be some people that's, whatever happened to them was so profound that there's actually not a space for them to, recover, but that's okay. And we can still love them in those spaces.   when he said that, I was just like, oh my God.

Cause so much of the message that we get right. Is fix, fix, fix yourself, do better change better when sometimes it's like, Hey, it's okay. To it's okay. To not be okay. Yeah, I think I look more towards understanding yourself.  Like that under that understanding and figuring out how to interact with yourself after you've been through trauma is it's not about fixing it.

Like it is in my mind, this is just my opinion, but it is what it is. Like you adapt the way you adapt and that, and I, before you understand yourself and how you've adapted the less, you're like a passenger in that, so that you're not getting hijacked by it all the time. And I think that there's the place that.

I think we blame it, but again, that idea that we only wanna feel good feelings and unless we feel good feelings, then we're not healed. If you had really significant loss and you've been exploited and people have harmed you, I don't know that you ever should feel good about that.

That's, it's not okay. It's not in experience that any human wants so that you're supposed to somehow feel grateful for that or good about that to me is bullshit. Like I, I think it, and it does make the victim feel like if they're not there and they still have pain or they still have this loss that somehow they're doing something wrong.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think there's anything wrong with that. I think we gotta be able to have all those feelings now. We don't wanna be in it all the time. Like it's hard to function in regular life if you're in that response so much, or you're overwhelmed by it all the time. It's figuring out how to help yourself when that's happening.

And I think so much of that is about like our relationships. I think like my view about therapy, and I say this I'm a therapist that like hates going to therapy and I was traumatized in the therapy cult essentially. So I'm not a huge fan of what happens in a lot of therapy.

But I think that there's a place, like when I, as a therapist, like it's my job to work myself out of a job. Like it's not my job to have someone come to me to do something for them. I can give them information. I can hold space and listen and be present and help them maybe frame things in a way that's more self-compassionate for them, but really it's about giving them tools or understanding about how to help themselves so that they're doing the adjustments that they wanna make, not the ones I think that they need to make, but the ones that they actually wanna choose to make are the ones that they want to be different.

And I just think a lot of that. The positive psychology stuff or some of the things that even happen in my profession, it's pretty empathic to the actual experience of what a survivor feels like.  What a person feels like when they're carrying those feelings. And it's ultimately that person's own process about how they're gonna get what they want that to look like for them.

But it's, there's nothing wrong with the way that it looks like for them. Yeah, absolutely. So I'm a pretty, I'm with you. I don't like people let's manifest happiness and it's so it's, it is so culty though. It really is this idea and if you're not doing it right, it's cuz you're failing and you're not working hard enough.

It's like maybe like I'm just experiencing trauma response because of painful, horrible things that happened to me. Exactly.  you can understand from my story, like it's also of that idea that we call teenagers troubled, like they're bad kids or they're like troubled teenagers.

It's like they're traumatized teenagers. And, and to call them troubled rather than look at maybe there's a reason why someone's struggling with that. Like that. I feel like it just misses the point of what's happening with people. Yeah. Yes. Very true. I agree with you though. The more you understand yourself, the more you can help yourself.

The more I figure out about why I am the way I am and all of that, the psychoeducational stuff makes a huge difference.  Like information is a huge tool in your. Fight for sanity.  yeah. And I think, I think even part of my real belief about that personally is I don't like going to therapy because I don't like the expectation that I'm supposed to trust someone to be in my vulnerable space when that space has been exploited so badly.

But that doesn't mean that somebody can't help me or that it can't be helpful, but I don't like that. There's this expectation that walking through the door, you're supposed to be vulnerable in a particular way, that isn't really safe. Especially if you've been exploding, you don't know who you're walking through a door with.

Like I tell people like, you don't have to trust me. I don't expect that from you walking. Even in a class, like we tell you all, like you take it or leave it, listen to the information that we're providing. If it's something useful to you, you, if you think it's something useful, take it and use it for yourself.

If you don't let it go, you're not doing anything wrong. Like you get to pick and choose like a buffet, you get to pick and choose what you think is gonna help you in that understanding of yourself. And I don't think we do a lot of A lot of empowerment based help in that way, we do a lot of kind of relying on expertise of others or someone else controlling that process.

And so I really believe that it's, it should be an equal space where you're getting information and you get to choose what you wanna do with that. And it's part of why, I've walked in the therapies op therapists office, and they've treated me in a way that like, if I disagree with them, that I'm being resistant, I'm out.

I'm like, that's not safe. I'm not doing that. You know what I mean? Like I'll take or leave. What I think is gonna be useful that, and I'm not being resistant. I'm actually trying to take care of myself and figure out my own way through it, rather than somebody telling me what I'm supposed to do.

Yeah, absolutely.  is funny that I became a therapist, but I try to be pretty in that one.   have some feelings about it.

I got really lucky with my therapist. When I found her I'd been through, I think like at that point, like four or five already where I was just like, this is not working. And  right away,  I was like, this is a whole new experience and it wasn't until a couple years in that she ended up telling me that she actually had been in a cult and I was like, oh, okay,  that explains everything.

  So I definitely got lucky in that sense, but yeah, she did the same thing. She was like, I, I wanna help other people, figure out the things that I had to figure out and, it's a lot of work to become a therapist.

So know I sure appreciate you guys.  I think that there's a place where like, when you're really working with complicated kind of nuanced trauma, like you just have to be. Pretty power aware. There's a power dynamic that happens in the room. And, if somebody has been through being really exploited or traumatized in that complex kind of way like that's something you feel right?

And I'm not perfect. Like I've absolutely run over people's lines with that before. And I've, done things that outta my own fear or like anxiety that might make me control someone else's space or have a reaction like a knee jerk reaction at that. So by no means, am I like the perfect therapist or teacher or anything?

But I think that piece of somebody be really being aware of like how you're sharing that space with someone about that. What makes somebody feel safe is you're awareness of yourself, right? Your ability to make a mistake, your ability to own your mistakes, your ability to not be the expert, your ability to be collaborative with your client.

, when I'm working with people about how do you do that kind of trauma work, it's really about your awareness of power. And your awareness of relationship with that person. And some people are just naturally better at that. So if your therapist had been through a cult experience, she's naturally gonna be better at that because she's gonna be empathetic to what it feels like to you on the other side of the room.

Yeah. And I don't know that that's ingrained to everybody that becomes a clinician. That is something that is of part of who you are and how you relate to people. . And I tell people, we talk about finding a therapist, how you feel with your therapist is really important.

If something doesn't feel right to you or you don't agree with something, or you challenge the suggestion and they teach, treat you like you're being resistant and you need to pay attention to how you feel, what that person , that's what you're feeling is am I safe in relationship? And are they aware of themselves in relationship to me?

Are they having empathy from my experience? And , when we go through the kind of situations that we've been through, . Our radar for that is like a superpower. We can, we feel that a hundred percent. So yeah, we may feel it's don't like that person. I didn't like that.

And something fell off, but there's a real reason why it feels off. That's not about being pathological. It's about that. You're super sensitive to it, which is a good thing. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of times I think the problem is that because we've been through trauma, we assume that it's because we're defective that's happening or we assume it's because we're overreacting or we're a big deal about something.

And I just tell people like, listen to your radar and your gut about it. If something doesn't feel right. There's a good reason for that. It's not because you've had trauma it's, maybe cuz you're sensitive cause you've had trauma, but that's still indicating something there that doesn't feel right to you, or to talk to someone about it.

So if somebody does something in therapy and you don't like it and you tell them and they listen. And they go, oh my God, I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have done that. Like I you're. I wasn't aware of that. And I didn't mean to hurt you that way, but I won't do it again.

Okay. Then you're in a good working space, but if they're not that way. And, that's not a safe space. And I hear, I just hear horror stories from people all the time. Laura Zucker talks about it on her podcast as ship therapists.  Gosh. But experience, there's so many cult survivors that go into treatment and like these egregious, like Janja, and I hear it all the time, just really egregious things that happen where people just go that's no big deal.

It seemed like it really helped your life. Or let's talk about your mom and dad. And they just skip over it. Or they wanna know about like the intricacies of exploitation, like their own curiosity know, like it's, which is just so unsafe for people. Yeah. Or they think they wanna you as a case study or something.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then it's so like tinkering your pain for their own documentary rather than doing work with you. So I think, people have had a lot of experiences that don't feel good. Yeah. That happened to me twice. Did it? What happened? Yep. Two different therapists. I just went to them and they just, I got absolutely zero therapy.

It was just what happened next. Oh, and then what happened? But they just wanted to hear my salacious story.   It was just, that was it. I did need to talk and tell my story, but I was like in a really bad place when I first went to therapy where I was like, trying to kill myself and all that and ended up in the crazy house for a minute and then got out because that made it worse.

Like that being in an institution like that made me feel like I was back in the call and I couldn't do anything.  I was just like, freaking. Because we had to have scheduled meals and then they'd like, lock me in my room at night. And I'm like, oh, this isn't working. 

Yeah. So I begged to be let out, they didn't wanna let me out because I was highly suicidal. So they let me out. But I was only like my friend and my husband had to sign, they're gonna watch me and blah, blah, blah. And I was under like suicide watch for a couple weeks after that. Yeah.

And then that's when I started going to the therapist and she just want was so shocked by my stores. I had never heard of anything like this, cuz they're just used to dealing with people that are like, mostly abusive parents or abusive partners or, things like that. Not like I grew up in a sex cult.

  Yeah. And then the second therapist. Almost every time I met her, she'd be like, I learned so much from you every time I talk to you and I'm sitting there going, I thought I was but wait, what's going on here? You're okay. That's great. I'm supposed to be li I don't really feel like I learned that much.

Yeah. But she cheated

, I think in some ways, like in the spaces that we're, we tell our stories Depending on where you are emotionally like sometimes to retelling our stories can retraumatize us. And that's a process, like understanding, like one of the things we teach about, like that post cult adjustment, like understanding that you have to regulate your nervous system and kind of take care of this practical need and get yourself some stability before you launch in to let's go through every detail of every painful moment.

If somebody doesn't know that, they talk about, know, sometimes within some of the trauma therapists, like Bessel, Vander Coke, and those guys, they talk about if the door is hot, Don't open it. You know what I mean?  And sometimes therapists, like they want to go to the hottest store and open it and tell me that piece.

And it's like, well, if you don't have all that stability around you, like it's really destabilizes you in a way that you start to spin out or you start to feel really unsafe. And yeah, it's not the point, so even just giving you information about, okay, we'll get there, but we gotta build up some of these skills around you, or we gotta make sure you have these practical things handled.

I Especially for people coming out of Colts or people that were, born and raised in, and they're just coming into adulthood, like the practical stuff is really important. This security housing sustaining yourself, how you're gonna live. All of that is really, it's not not therapy stuff.

It's really important. Yeah, absolutely. The foundation that everything sits on. And I think that, that piece, sometimes people miss that, because they're going to trauma without remembering what's happening. I call it and I do work with people. I call it the crocodile closest to the boat.

That's my method, which is figuring out like, what's actually the thing that's gonna tip you over first before going to these other, really, and these other ones may be really large. They may look really scary, but they're actually like far enough away from the  that we have to deal with. It's funny.

So I do, I also, and I work at a drug and alcohol treatment center. Like I do trauma work. I've been creating this trauma program with the drug and alcohol treatment center here, our substance use disorder center here, which is really about creating non-coercive treatment for people in recovery.

Cause there's a lot of culty base in the recovery world that is not empowering and is very coercive. And so I've gotten involved in this center that really wants to do something different. It's called Lantana recovery, great place. Anyway, but we talk about, okay, addiction is probably the crocodile that's in the boat.

So we'll deal with that first.  the next crocodile, we need to figure out what's our next place. And so that method to me is how I frame it in my.  And sometimes that's even kinda your life when you're triggered, right? What's the thing closest to the boat right now. What's tipping the boat over deal with that first.

Yeah, absolutely. Rather than trying to go back to the thing, that's immediately triggering you. So it might be okay, I'm over tired. I haven't eaten, I'm stressed out. I am in a loud place that I need to get some stimulus reduced. That's what's the most immediate thing to deal with before I go deal with this other thing that's causing me a problem.

Yeah. Very smart. Yeah, definitely. Absolutely. And I did, I sure did spiral out after that. I right after that is when I started using meth and I was drinking from morning till night and yeah, it was not a good situation. How many people? So even in this treatment center that I'm working in, like how much trauma is related to what's going on, that there's so many people that have really complex trauma.

That, they're maybe in a program for substance use disorder because they've gotten to a place that they have to do something about their recovery, cuz crocodile's in the boat. But like that, just even trying to bring awareness to like how much it's not just the acute trauma people. And there's some people that are coming in with maybe like acute trauma, like car accidents or that kind of PTSD step, but there's a lot of people that we work with that it's really more of that longer term stretched out, definitely abuse survivors.

, I teach a class, I teach the brain talk and some trauma and attachment stuff there too. And when I tell them that I do cult recovery work, they're always like really fascinated. But when I explain like it's so similar to abuse, recovery, coercion, recovery, teen programs.

So so many of them have been in like, Five or six treatment centers where they've been like done, had very coercive things done to them, or they're always getting threatened to get kicked out or they're, they're there under kind of coercive circumstances or they went as teenagers.

They were, forced into treatment by their parents. There's so many of the same patterns that are happening in that world too. And a lot of the methods that they use are very much about tearing people down and trying to tear, tear them down to build them back up, which is all Synanon based stuff.

Yeah. You on a tangent about, there's a minority report that I found that's about. It's written with an AA about some of the therapeutic communities in recovery world and Sy like how it all came from Syon and how that developed over time. So it's so as strange as it seems to be doing cult work and also like substance use disorder work, there's actually a lot of overlap in terms of trying to get people to reframe.

How they're treating people with addiction, because so much of that is that very shame based can't trust yourself.  You have this bad part in you that needs to be controlled. Yeah. Yeah. I've listened to Dr. Gamont a lot on addiction. 

Oh my God. His he's like the best. He's so amazing. , and even though I had been a drug addict, I was being condescending towards other drug addicts.  After I, cuz I recovered myself on my own. I didn't use any programs or anything like that. I just stopped and moved and I just had the support of my family and that was pretty much.

and so I was always like if I can do it, you can do it. And you all should be cleaning up your life because I cleaned up my life and that was my attitude.  I know it's bad. And then I watched his thing about, about homeless people and about addiction. And I was just like, oh my God, I've had such a bad attitude.

How can I be like this? An asshole?  Even towards homeless people though, I was like, I had the kind of a, don't give it to 'em, they're just gonna use it for drugs, attitude when it's you know what, nobody ch nobody wants to be homeless. Do you really think the person there's choosing to be homeless?

So what if they have drugs and alcohol? That's probably how they're just surviving and getting wouldn't you, would you wanna be on drugs if you were homeless? Yeah. Probably no. I But yeah that's that whole, you've not you're not choosing happiness. You're choosing to be an addict, you're choosing to, you're choosing to not request your happiness, yeah. And people say that, oh, there's so there's plenty of jobs. If they wanted a job, they could just go get one.  You don't know their life circumstance. Maybe they don't have clothes.

Maybe they don't have anything. You don't know where they came from. You don't know what kind of situation they were in. Yeah. So he changed my perspective completely on that. I have a lot more compassion than I did before. And it's true. You should just never judge. Yeah he's brought a lot of compassion into the recovery world and a lot of ideas about like attachment and connection and what addiction really is like what people are looking for in that rather than just high and feel good.

There's really a lot of nuanced layers to what's going on in that. And a lot of that is related to trauma. And so I think that's another place where the conversation about how trauma really impacts our lives. Like what it really looks like for us is so different than the lens that we're seeing it in terms of just that PTSD world.

Like it's so much more complicated than that, and how we go through the human experience and what we do in suffering and what we do in lack of connection and what we do when our brains need something. And so I think there's that whole field is trying to evolve into a more compassionate place too, but it is definitely not a compassionate field in terms of the way that we treated people with substance use disorders and addictions, historically, it's been awful. Yeah. Definitely a moral failing, there's a little bit more brain stuff that's gotten added into that. Over the past years that's gotten better, but still there's still.

And what addicts do to themselves internally in terms of that self hatred and yeah. Lack of compassion for themselves and having to not trust themselves and, or be so embedded in a recovery program that they can't ever leave it because if they do, they're gonna fail. So there's, very much those elements of, I think AA is very helpful for people in early recovery, but what do you do 10 years in?

Do you still have to go to four meetings a week? Like at what point are you able to say I understand myself enough that I can manage what's going on with me. I think that there's not a lot of people and people in cult recovery for sure. Have a tough time. Yeah. Going into, to AA based programs, because there's so much of that structure and system and, there's that, go those places that feel very familiar.

. And I think that can be really hard for people in cult recovery to, to get sober, because whether it's going stuck in treatment somewhere being treated in this particular way or being in a system like AA, that all of it is really triggering. ,  that's one of the steps that they say is I'm, I have to acknowledge I'm powerless against my addiction.

, I don't wanna feel like I wanna feel empowered, not powerless. So  we have really your difficult places in our culture.  For people to be able to. Healing from addiction. It's just, it's interesting too. If you read the big book in AA, like it's actually pretty empowering, like the message of what's written , but so much of how it's applied is the part that ends up feeling very culty or unsafe or disempowering for you.

Yeah. So the ways that humans apply those concepts look very different than if you just read the word on the page. So word on the page actually makes some good sense. It some really but how that gets applied in these little sponsor clusters or in the way that looks in community for people ends up being, yeah.

Something that could, eventually people struggle with staying in that the longer they're in it, because either you're a hundred percent devoted to that, and you're like a devotee and you have to give service back. And that's your, a big part of your life and your recovery? Or you're.

Not in it, and now you're doing something bad, like you've gone against the system. And I think that could be really confusing, especially for sure people inter Cove situations to try to buy into any of that, because it does feel like you're giving up so much of your autonomy or so much of your empowerment, which you really need to keep.

So if you're in recovery for yourself emotionally with trauma and with coercion and abuse, you need to keep that autonomy and, identity. It's hard to give that powerlessness up to anything when you've fought so hard to get it. Yeah. Very true. Yeah. I quit alcohol by myself too.

That's and pills. Yeah. I cycled through all the drugs and alcohol and cigarettes and I did quit all of them though. I call myself the queen of quits, cuz I've quit like eight evictions.  very good intrinsic map around how to quit something. You're a little like unique fingerprint of resilience is obviously very good about quitting something.

Yeah. I believe that, I got myself into it. I can get myself out of it right now.  No,  yeah. Everybody's different with that. There's so many, there's so many factors that make it complicated about why that's different for every person. It's fascinating to watch these people that I'm working with as they find their own way through recovery, it's really interesting to watch how different it is for every person.

There's not one right way, but it's finding that personal way that you do it. So whatever you found, as you figured that out about yourself, like that's your way that you did it. Yeah. And that they mean that somebody else could do it that way. So I think what we've been trying to do is help people understand their own process for that and provide a model that is really empowering for them, that they can learn about themselves and trust themselves and figure out their own path in that.

And that's different. It's unique. That's why I think it's, that's why I got involved that I thought it was interesting. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. I Even timing plays a factor, like what someone can do six months from now is gonna, would be different. What they're doing today. Like it's a timing has a lot to do with it too.

And we never know where someone is on that process. Like I talk a lot With the staff that I work with there, but we always want the outcome to be a certain thing. We want that people to get sober and stay sober and but that's not always where they are in that process.

But the process itself is really valuable and how someone treats you during that process, what you learn about yourself. Like all of that adds up, but like you said, they six months from now, they may be able to do that, but they can't do it right now. So as those pieces evolve, I think we get so black and white or we get that moralistic kind of failure, that all, nothing sort of thing that we forget that, everybody has their process.

Like you're even saying UMMA, like this idea that you get into a cycle and you figure out how to get yourself out of the cycle. That cycle is part of your process.  That gets you there. We're just, so I think so quick to judge in it when, I think there's probably some value for it and most of it, yeah.

Agree. It's hard not to judge, but. You have to realize that everybody's different and it's gonna be different for everybody. Humans are by nature, very judgey  we judge things we're afraid of we're, we definitely, that's why I really like some of the sociology stuff. I think it's so amazing what janya brings to the table.

 Is just that human behavior. Part of like how we behave in groups and how we behave with power and how we behave with things. We're afraid of. It's a fascinating piece even of our own recoveries to understand that and understand how humans behave rather than sort of something being completely right or wrong in terms of, what someone's doing.

Certainly there are things that are wrong, I'm not gonna give any, I'm not gonna give any gray area to a cult leader. Like they,  I got nothing for them. But that the rest of us, as we get influenced by stuff, it does get gray because we're impacted by these human behaviors and sort of social systems that have a big impact on the way that we adapt and interact.

Good stuff. Thank you so much, Beth. It's amazing. Yeah. Thank you so much for coming and joining us intense. Yeah. I have a that's tough, intense. I get a little passioned by these things. That's good. Yeah, we do too.  yeah. Yes. Healing is never linear, right? Yep.

You never. No, , it would be great if it was, but maybe not. I don't know. It's never linear and I think it's always, and it's, there's never one right way to do it. That's why, it's kinda even like telling my story about how I process things over the years. I don't know that it's everybody has their own process.

I don't think there's ever a right or one or a bad one. It's just how you come to terms with that as a person.  I don't know that I've ever gotten to a place where I think I have everything figured out. And even if I have moments where I think I've got some things figured out it's a temporary state, and there's always something new that crops up.

So yeah. I try to enjoy the process and learn from it and not get too hung up on what that looks like. Yes. During the process is a huge, yeah. What I don't it's part of it never had there's some destination I reach and I'm like, oh, now I'm there. And everything feels okay. I thought I would, I don't like even becoming an adult.

I don't know if you all feel like an adult, but I still am a Marvel and I'm a 47 years old. I'm like, what am I supposed to feel like at 47 years old? Like I thought I would feel different. Like I thought I would be like totally secure in the adulting world. And I'm still like, I don't really wanna adult much and no  feels like I'm like 14, so I thought I would reach someplace that would go away, but it doesn't really go away. Yes. I agree on that. . I love meeting. It's great to meet adults that like, like yya is a good example. I talk a lot about yya, but like that are just their own human, and so there's no way that's supposed to look at 76 years old.

Like she just is who she is. And so I don't know if you ever get this sense that it's all figured out and understood and complete it's, it's an ongoing process, always for sure.  I so appreciate you all, like being a part of that, letting us be part of that process and helping other people in their process as well.

Oh yeah, you guys have been wonderful. Yeah, it's amazing. I very highly recommend that weren't raised in a cult course to anybody that was raised in a cult  or a high coercion or high control situation, because the effects on your psyche are very similar. Very similar. Yeah, for sure. And I, yeah I'm hoping that, that there can start being things, more things that we can do, even just helping with the scholarships, Florida and stuff cuz you know yeah.

And anything you all, we are always open to survivors, working with us and doing things to help and be part of what we're doing. Like it's an, I think it could be really helpful for people like you all are great. Like we think what you all are doing with your podcast and what you bring into the world is incredible and impactful and powerful.

So we're always open to partnering and collaborating together cuz it takes so many of us like it's no one wanna be the one expert on anything. So I think that, know, we certainly are open to that and would love to stay connected with you and oh yeah, absolutely.  yes, for sure. We down  for sure. Awesome.

Thank you so much, Beth. You're so amazing. Yeah. Thank you for taking your time with us and I'm sure our listeners are gonna love listening to your beautiful brightness. I'm gonna try to not go into a little like panic mode of oh my God, I disclosed all that stuff about myself.  It's just funny. I think it's a survivor reaction. I would wonder how many of your other guests have that reaction, but you get talking about this and I'm like, oh, and then this happened and this happened. And then it's Like every time I do a podcast, I get off and I'm like, holy shit. I just totally just put all that out in the world.

It's empowering, but also terrifying you the same thing. Yeah. I read a chapter for a collaborative book. That's gonna come out and I spent about two weeks, like completely panicking after I sent it in. Finally. And I have that experience sometimes when I like have a really intense conversation with someone too, where I'm like, oh, I cannot believe that.

I just disclosed all of that, whatever, now I'm happy to do it. And if it just, if my story helps anybody feel less alone or learn something or understand something about themselves, I'm happy to do it. Whatever. Yeah. As part of the 10%,  we appreciate these conversations so much.

Yes. I love it. See, you have 10% club.

so sick of the 10%. They're like, I know Beth, but you have to go to the middle school parent meeting. I'm like, oh my God, full pressure. 90%. They're like you have do these things. I'm like, but do I really . I dunno that my kids are getting ready to start school. So I'm like loaded up with 90% things right now of school supplies and meetings and oh gosh.

Some I'm like, ah, it's soul pressuring. I just want talk about trauma and recovery and Yeah. That's awesome.   I'm actually really glad that it worked out timing wise that I got to finish class with you before we talk too. Like it just made yeah. True. Yeah. With you. I think you're both I have such respect for you and connected with you so much in the classes. So please don't like disconnect.

Like I would always love to hear how you're doing or if there's anything I could ever help you with or anything in your survivor communities that you need. Like I'm totally open to it. Thank you so much. That means a lot