The Former 'Good Christian Girl'

00:18 - Sam (Host)

I would like to begin by acknowledging the traditional custodians of the land on which I live and work the Gundagara land and people. I pay my respects to their elders past, present and emerging and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. I also want to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the lands on which you, our listeners, are joining us from today. I recognise the deep connection that First Nations people have to this land, their enduring culture and their commitment to the preservation and care for their country. This land was never ceded and it always was, and always will be, aboriginal land.

00:58

Hey there and welcome to Beyond the Surface, the podcast where we explore the stories of people who have survived religious trauma, left high control or cult communities and are deconstructing their faith. I'm your host, sam, and each week I'll talk with individuals who have taken the brave step to start shifting their beliefs that might have once controlled and defined their lives. Join us as we dig into their experiences, the challenges they've faced and the insights they've gained. Whether you're on a similar journey or you're just curious about these powerful stories, you're in the right place. This is Beyond the Surface. Welcome, elise. Thanks for joining me.

01:43 - Elise (Guest)

Thank you so much for inviting me to join you.

01:50 - Sam (Host)

It is going to be a really, really great conversation. I can just feel it already We've. I always enjoy the ones where I sort of go OK, we need to hit record before we keep talking and and none of it is is recorded for the actual podcast. I always think that's a really good sign recorded for the actual podcast.

02:09 - Elise (Guest)

So I always think that's a really good sign. Okay, so where does your story?

02:15 - Sam (Host)

start.

02:15 - Elise (Guest)

Elise, my story probably starts when I was born. To be honest, I grew up going to church from, I think, the week after I was born. Okay, so went to a, always, always gone to a Pentecostal church with my parents and my sister. Um, so grew up in that environment. It was pretty much all that I knew. The church was very much a part of our, our daily, weekly lives for as long as I can remember. Yeah, that's probably where my story starts.

02:51 - Sam (Host)

What is it like growing up in a Pentecostal family? What does that look like?

02:57 - Elise (Guest)

um, well, I guess to me it just felt normal, yeah, because it's what I had always known. It was very much, you know, every Sunday it was just church. It was a non-negotiable. It's what we did I remember from, maybe you know, just toddler age. We would sometimes be there all day, so we'd do a morning service, maybe come home in the afternoon, go back for an evening service. My dad was involved in the worship team so he would be playing keyboard. My mom was usually involved in different areas as well.

03:41

Um, yeah, I, and I remember I remember church being, you know something that I generally enjoyed going to, um, always part of the, you know, going off to children's church or or youth when I was a bit older, um, yeah, and then at home it would be, you know, midweek, going to connect groups or small groups, those kind of gatherings. I don't really remember connecting much with anyone outside of the church. So it was just a lot of everything is either church or connecting with people from church. So that was kind of just a very small community that I grew up in.

04:26 - Sam (Host)

It was a very bubble lifestyle. It sounds like.

04:30 - Elise (Guest)

Yes, although I did go to. I went to a public primary school and high school again, especially in teenage years, though that was because of the influence of church. It was very much. You know, you're kind of you're at, you're kind of you're at school. Yes, you're in a public school. What a great chance to tell other people about Jesus. It's an evangelistic opportunity, evangelistic opportunity.

04:53 - Sam (Host)

Yes.

04:54 - Elise (Guest)

Yeah, which was never pushed by my parents. So I never felt that pressure in my everyday, just home life, but definitely from the church, which was really hard for me because I didn't fit in at school. I didn't have many friends, there was a lot of rejection there, so it was kind of like going to school with these different weights that I was holding.

05:20 - Sam (Host)

So on one hand.

05:21 - Elise (Guest)

I'm like I just want to fit in, I just want to belong, like I just want one friend. Just one friend would be amazing, but then also having this other pressure of going. But if you have that one friend, like you need to be bringing them to you or you need to be talking to them about Jesus. So there's this constant battle between what do I talk to them about Jesus and risk losing like the only person that wants to hang out with me yeah or do I?

05:46

yeah, do I not? And I have a friend, but then I have all this guilt of well, I'm not trying to save them it's so much pressure on a young person's shoulders right yeah, it is a lot of pressure, especially around the age where you're just trying to belong. And just trying to make it through the day, exactly yes, I can just get through the day. That's amazing.

06:12 - Sam (Host)

Yeah, I mean, like I'm thinking back to, like, high school. For me, School is hard enough as it is for teenagers, right, you know? Let alone putting on this pressure that, um, not only do you need to go and learn about algebra, but you need to tell people about jesus in the same day. That's, that's too much. Algebra is hard enough, but yeah oh, it's just, I mean it.

06:42

It's just a lot, a lot of pressure for, for young people who don't even, um know who they are, let alone trying to to lead people, um, you know, to to church and to a different belief system. Um, what was, what was it like for you, you know, growing up in a very Christian home, but what was that like for you on a personal faith journey?

07:15 - Elise (Guest)

Yeah, where do I start? There's one really key part for me that I didn't so, going through my teenage years I didn't realize that. This was kind of a real driving force in the background for me until, to be honest, probably the last five years. But a really key thing that happened for me was when I was in children's church, and it's kind of one of those memories that it's so vivid.

07:45

I can remember what he drew on the whiteboard. I would have been about eight or nine and there was I don't know, it was quite a large church, so maybe it would have been 50 kids in this room and he was essentially giving us the typical Pentecostal gospel message. Yeah, but I remember it so vividly because there was so much fear involved. So he drew a picture. Essentially, he kind of split the whiteboard in half. Half was hell, the other half was heaven, and the message message was if you don't choose jesus today, this is where you're gonna go, but your parents are gonna be here. Oh, and so you, if you don't choose jesus, you will be not only eternally tormented but you will also be separated from the ones that you love. So and I remember that that was the day, you know, I put my hand up like, yes, I'll accept Jesus. There was a big celebration in my family because that's a really, you know, a really key thing. But knowing what I know now, not just as an adult human being but also in the therapy space, yeah, going. I don't think there was any other choice I could have made in that moment when I was being told that all of my safety would be taken away, all of my safe attachments would be taken away, if I didn't choose that. And I just wanted to bring that up because I've discovered that that fear of separation, the fear of not pleasing God, has been a major driving force for everything that I've done in church, in ministry.

09:41

So then, growing up as a teenager, I also think that that was playing a part, because I was always pushing to make sure that I was keeping God happy, that I was keeping the church happy. I just wanted to keep everyone happy. So I was a major people pleaser because I didn't, you know, I didn't want people to reject me, I wanted to be safe. So my faith growing up as a teenager was very intense. So there's a lot of pressure that I would put on myself to be reading my Bible every day. I was studying the Bible even as a young teenager, making sure that I had quiet time, that I was praying and at the same time that parallels I was having a real struggle with my mental health from the age of about 15.

10:31

So, depression, anxiety, but not having the awareness, and also just being at a time in our society where there wasn't really an awareness of mental health either. A lot of the responses when I would try and reach out to help was the have faith, pray more so. I would, yeah, um, and it would get worse, uh. So, yeah, my faith was pretty intense, yeah, growing up personally, because I felt like my life depended on it, literally yeah, literally yeah.

11:08 - Sam (Host)

And my eternity depended on it, yeah, and I think that that's one of the things that a lot of people who are not raised I was not raised with a Christian home and so but I think people who have never really been a part of you know, a church institution or organized religion don't really quite understand how that choice as a child is really taken away from you, because it's not really a choice. When you present a fear-based option in front of someone, it's like well, you either choose Jesus or, like you said, you lose everything that is safe to you, including your parents, for eternity and you spend eternity in eternal torture all the time.

12:07

You know that's not a choice, that's not a choice um and and so I think, um, you know I got a bit of flack when I said that, you know, childhood indoctrination is essentially emotional abuse, but it is because that's not, that's not a choice, um and um. Yeah, I think, um, it is the spiritual bypassing that you see, when it comes to mental health, the church does not do mental health well, even today. I don't think, sadly, um, as as an institution, I mean, even as a teenager, you are not to know how to navigate that anyway, to essentially just be told, you know, just have more faith, pray more, be more devoted, read your Bible more. All of those sorts of things like stand um is is not helpful for somebody who is, you know, going through depression and anxiety. Um, what was that? What was that like? To just be continually bypassed?

13:17 - Elise (Guest)

um, it really added to that that sense of hopelessness, but also really develop this internal narrative of personal failure that I wasn't doing enough and that somehow I had the power to make it better. And so then I must've been doing something wrong. And I really kept it to myself for a long time until I got to the point I wasn't sleeping, I wasn't eating, I was really struggling at school just with being there, and just one night when I really I just I wasn't coping with it, and it was the first time that I had really felt like there is no way out. And that really frightened me more than the thought of, well, what are people going to think if I say something? And I remember getting out of my bed at night and going to the kitchen. It must have been quite late, but my mum was still up just unpacking the dishwasher, dishwasher, and that was the first time that I told her that I was feeling this way.

14:30

Um, and she, she's still my absolute rock um, and we've had amazing conversations about all of this, so I know she won't mind me yeah, um, and again, she didn't have the knowledge of what to do. It wasn't even a time when you would go well, let's go see a GP? Um, but what she did do was stay with me, and she was always present. She would, yes, she would, sit on my bed and pray for me, but I never felt like her prayers were a a message for me to do better or for me to change something. Um, so for months and months, she would just sit on the end of my bed every night and just be there till I fell asleep, because I was convinced that if I, if I went to sleep, I was not going to wake up so so I'd really struggled to get to sleep, yeah, so I felt like I had that kind of safety of my mum's presence through that.

15:33

But the messages that I was getting from youth groups, from youth leaders, was that they're very much well, essentially we don't know what to do, so we're going to tell you to do all these things and try and fix it yourself, which, yeah, just, I think, pushed me further into that lifestyle of work harder. Yeah, do more for God, be better, um, and it'll all somehow fix itself. God will eventually hear me and fix it for me. Yeah.

16:10 - Sam (Host)

And I think that there is this undercurrent. Well, it's probably not even undercurrent.

16:17

I'm probably underestimating that a little bit, but there is this notion that suffering is godly, almost that you know to. You know, oh gosh, I remember there being a song and I used to play it all the time when I was struggling, and it was. You know what if your blessings come through raindrops, what if your healing comes through tears, and what if your blessings are God's mercy in disguise? And so it's like this concept that your struggles are godly in some way and are, you know, the um, the way for for god to teach you something or something like that?

17:06 - Elise (Guest)

and so, um, it's this real, like, um, it's almost like in a torture yeah, yeah, it is a message that I would hear quite often and, to be honest, it's probably one that I've said to others at one point, or probably more is that whole notion that God gives his toughest battles to his strongest soldiers. And you know, you kind of say there's so many cliches now that I just I look at and go, gosh, that is so damaging, um, and I don't think it's giving an accurate picture of God. But yeah, I just think that is not a God that I want anything to do with.

17:50

Would you do that to your own children? No, of course you wouldn't. And there was actually look, I jot down random things all the time when I hear something that I'm like, ah, like, uh, it kind of it's what I would have thought sounds great a few years ago. But now I'm like I don't, I don't understand that, but it's someone had just posted I think it was on Instagram I don't even remember who it is, it's not someone that I follow but they had written essentially that God allows hurt so that you can grow. Yeah, and I just read that and I thought but there's, there is a difference between God allowing hurt and suffering and God being unable to prevent it. Yeah, and so it's kind of that, that difference that people don't seem to be able to sit with. Well, yeah, it's just easier to say well, there's a plan in there, so god must be, god must have either allowed it or caused it.

18:57

Um, and, yeah, I, I grew up with that all my life, I as a you know, as a young adult. It was very much. If you're, if you're suffering, if you're finding things hard, if things are too much, what a great opportunity for God to grow you. Yeah, instead of. Maybe we need to look at rest and something here is not working. Yeah, it was almost.

19:25 - Sam (Host)

If it was too easy, then it wasn't God yeah, there's always um this, you know, it's an opportunity for for God to teach you, or an opportunity for growth, or or. On the flip side, I would also hear that you know, well, god gives us free will, and so that's just our inherent sinful nature. And so, again, you're the problem. I feel like quoting Taylor Swift here in that moment where she goes, it's me, hi, I'm the problem. And that's kind of like the slogan like you know, regardless of whether it is you know God causing it, not causing it. Your, you know, regardless of whether it is you know god causing it, not causing it, your, you know sin or whatever, um, you're the problem. God won't give you more than you can handle. So if you can't handle it, that's you, that's not god, that's you. And it's just this vicious. Like you really, really, really, really suck and you're really, really, really failing at life. And when you are getting that all the time, who is not going to start to believe that?

20:35 - Elise (Guest)

Yeah, yeah. And who is not eventually going to crumble under that pressure?

20:38 - Sam (Host)

Yeah, absolutely so. Now I know that you transitioned from going to church just because your family went to church to going to church on your own free will. So how does that happen?

20:54 - Elise (Guest)

yes, um, I feel like, again, it's never.

20:58

It's never been something that I have considered that I have the freedom not to do.

21:09

So I do believe there were choices that I made, but again it was either that I feel like it was almost the impossible choice of community connection, everything you've ever believed, or you are walking out on everything and you're now going to that place that you have feared your whole life. Yeah, um, but for me that when I began to go to church for myself, um, was when my parents and my sister left the church that we were currently in. They moved to a different church, but at that time my then boyfriend, who I knew was about to propose to me, was going to that church, and he's not a Christian, hasn't grown up a Christian, and so that was his. That was the only church that he had ever known, um, so we stayed there, um, and that's where I have had been ever since. So I've never moved churches.

22:16

The church has kind of changed around me a few times um, changed names, changed ownership, whatever you want to call it. Yeah, um, but yeah, I've essentially never, never moved from the church that I grew up in yeah, and so what was church life like for you without your family around?

22:40

um, I feel like it stayed fairly much the same for me. I was already really involved from the age of 13. I was already volunteering in our kids program. Um, I went from volunteering in the kids program to being a youth leader as soon as I finished youth. I was then teaching bible studies. So when I left high school so I got engaged at just before I finished year 12. So I got married when I was 19.

23:14 - Sam (Host)

Christians love to get married young, right, we do, yeah, we do so I got married at 19.

23:21 - Elise (Guest)

Then you know, first year out of out of high school, got a full-time job and was then doing bible college at night. Um.

23:30

I mean, you are kicking goals with the good christian girl there yes, except what most people didn't know at that time I mean, a lot of people know now, um is that I would go to bible college at night, which was about a 40 minute drive from where I lived, and then I would cry the whole way home because I was so depressed and I was really just struggling with life um, to the point where I had to take I had to take 12 months off Bible college because it was unsafe for me to drive and cry, but I had to stop. But yeah, from the outside it's like what an amazing faithful Christian working, doing youth leadership on Friday nights, midweek events, studying at night so that I could, you know, fulfil my calling to get into full-time ministry. But, like my insert, my inside world was just falling apart yeah and it and it fell apart for a long time yeah, yeah.

24:38 - Sam (Host)

how did that impact um your new marriage? I mean, a new marriage is hard as it is, and to be doing that at 19, um is even harder.

24:54 - Elise (Guest)

Yeah, it was really hard, Just even trying to figure out how do you live with someone else, and more so for me, probably. How do I live away from my parents and my mum, who was my best friend friend? Um, yeah, how do you live away from that? And now trying to navigate at the age of 19? Um, yeah, living on, you know, away from my parents for the first time, living with my husband for the first time, working full-time for the first time like that's a big thing on its own, yeah, and then transition into full-time work um, yeah, it was. It was really. It was really hard because we didn't have great communication. Um, we were still trying to figure a lot of stuff out, and then there was just all this pressure of all this, all the stuff that I was trying to hold. Yeah, so it was a lot. It was lots of nights of just me just crying and him just sitting with me trying his best.

26:05 - Sam (Host)

Yeah, yeah, oh. And so what was, what was Bible college like for you?

26:13 - Elise (Guest)

I I loved Bible college. I felt like I was very much again. For most of my life. Up until the last few years I was very much a black and white thinker. It was very much there is truth and there is lies and I loved Bible college because I felt like I was learning the truth and that was going to help me live the best life that I could yeah um, and I love learning, so I really, I really liked the learning side of it, um, which is probably why I'm still studying, but with a lot very different intentions.

27:00 - Sam (Host)

Yeah.

27:01 - Elise (Guest)

Yeah.

27:01 - Sam (Host)

I find that people that I've spoken to whenever they've gone to, you know, bible college or seminary or something like that, fall into two categories. Either it just reinforces the binary black and white thinking or it crumbles that black and white thinking um, or, uh, it crumbles that black and white thinking and and that's sort of the beginning of of the, the end almost um. But it sounds like Bible College for you reinforced that and was almost um reinforced the comfort of that black and white thinking and certainty yeah, and I think I knew that it was going to because I very specifically went to a Pentecostal Bible college.

27:43 - Elise (Guest)

So I already knew that what they were going to teach me in more depth was what I'd already been taught, was what I was already comfortable with, as in it, didn't you know? It wasn't anything I hadn't heard of before. Um, yeah, so it's only recently when I've been. So I'm about to, I'm about to graduate my Bachelor of Arts with a major in Biblical Studies and a minor in Chaplaincy, but again, a lot of that was, you know, pre my deconstruction. But the subjects that I've done since I have specifically gone into them, still at a Pentecostal Bible college, but I've specifically gone into them going. I am going to look at every single perspective except Pentecostalism. Wow, um, which has been frightening and amazing.

28:37 - Sam (Host)

Yeah, yeah I'm thinking um. Overwhelming and terrifying are the two things that come up straight away as being like the automatics. Um, yeah, goodness, I mean even to just continue those studies whilst deconstructing is um, I think is a an effort.

29:00 - Elise (Guest)

I took a big break yeah, I'm thinking that's tough, yeah, and, to be fair, when I did go back um which was only last year um to finish it, because I still don't like leaving things unfinished. And I have some other motives, because I really need my degree so I can do some further studying with my counselling, yeah, yeah, so going back, I was actually still at a place where I wasn't comfortable reading the Bible. I wasn't comfortable opening it, let alone studying it and trying to pull it apart. So when I did go back, I'm I specifically went back to do my last few subjects in social sciences. But even because it is a Pentecostal Bible college that has the social science side, there was still that ability to look at it from different religious perspectives, even though it wasn't actually the the biblical studies that I was doing. Yeah, yeah, because I wouldn't have gone back and finished it if that's what I had to do yeah, yeah.

30:11 - Sam (Host)

And so what was church life like for you?

30:15 - Elise (Guest)

it was all encompassing, it was basically my whole life, um, I worked for a while in educational administration, just in school offices kind of, from when I got married, um, until I had my daughter, um, and then I had my daughter when I was 21, um, and had, uh, quite bad pre and postnatal depression, uh, so at that point I had stopped working, I stopped studying, um, I was literally just trying to survive, which is also the first time that I had ever reached out for professional support for my mental health, because now I didn't just have to try and make sure that I got through, like I have this little human being that also needs to survive.

31:09

Yeah, so that was one of the healthier things that came out of that season was actually going and, um, getting on medication, going to see a psychologist and really starting to work through some of the underlying things. Um, yes, but in the, in the midst of that, once you know my, my mental health started to pick up again. It was it's almost like you're given a small grace period when you have a baby, because you know that's a ministry still called a ministry. It's the biblical thing to do.

31:49

It's the biblical thing to do. Yes, although same as same as myself. When I was a baby, our daughter was in church from, I think, three, four days old. She was there with us. I wasn't doing any kind of ministry at that point until she was about two, and then I started to go back to Bible college. So I was going to go and finish my diploma in ministry, so I went back to Bible college. So I was going to go and finish my diploma in ministry, so I went back to Bible college part-time.

32:22

I was working again in a school office part-time, and the other the other part-time that I had left of my life would be volunteering at church. So then it was things like going to mother's groups. Um, I got very involved in women's ministry, yeah, uh. So there was, you know, a lot of planning, a lot of different groups that would be run, support groups, um, when my daughter was quite young, it's that was one of the places where I actually started to make some friends who I still have to this day. So there was some really good connections that were made. But it was. It was kind of the beginning of the ramping up of. This is what the rest of my life is I'm going to give the rest of my life to ministry, and so it looked like every spare moment that I had would be volunteering in some way for the church.

33:26 - Sam (Host)

Yeah, it is. I often think of all of the denominations. Pentecostal churches love their volunteers, and by love I mean mean they treat them terribly. Uh, they just really like to have volunteers who do all of the, the work that people should be being paid for. Um, that aren't um, and and often it is an overworked, underappreciated space um, yeah, and it's.

33:55 - Elise (Guest)

It's that overwork and almost the idolization of the overwork that they are either either overtly praised for, how much they are doing, how much they're not saying no, how much they always say yes. That becomes so unhealthy. It just seems like there are zero boundaries with listening to what someone can give and what they can't give.

34:24 - Sam (Host)

Yeah.

34:25 - Elise (Guest)

And I've found, even when there's language around that's okay, we're happy for you to just give what you can give it becomes quite obvious that there are losses to that, which usually come in the form of you. You don't have the same level of connection anymore. Yeah, so if I would go from one team to another team whether that was when I was on staff or just volunteering it was quite often the case that the team that I had moved on from for whatever reason, whether I just didn't have the time for it anymore, it's almost like you just cease to exist to them, whereas when you were in the team, you were family, which I have a big gripe with that.

35:13

Yeah, I mean, you're not only a family, but yes, that's what it was meant to be. But really, what I found most of the time was that it wasn't family. Sometimes it was friendship, sometimes not, but it was really just a matter of um, incidental conversations, which is, you were there for a task, yeah, and so we're going to connect with you while you're here, but once you're not here, it's kind of the real, like the hard, the hard truth of oh, we actually weren't ever friends.

35:49 - Sam (Host)

We were teammates, we maybe were colleagues, but we were never friends and definitely not family yeah, yeah, it's that transactional belonging right where you know you serve a purpose and once that purpose is served, we don't need you anymore and we have no reason to continue having a conversation. You know that connection is solely built around the purpose you serve there. That connection is solely built around the purpose you serve there. What was the result for you? Serving, whether paid or unpaid, in multiple areas? Because, as someone who also served in multiple areas, that's bloody exhausting. That's bloody exhausting. And I was in a very small church in comparison to you know, I guess we expect most Pentecostal churches to be relatively large in size. And so what was the and the impact on you?

36:54 - Elise (Guest)

Yeah, so I went from volunteering almost full-time. I really I had actually stopped work, stopped doing my paid work so that I could finish my studies full-time as well as volunteering. So I was down at church offices maybe three, four times a week, um, just as a volunteer. I was also a volunteer um lecturer and tutor within the church, and so I was doing that for quite a while before I came on staff um, I came on staff part-time but worked full-time hours around my daughter's school. So at the time I thought this is great, it's flexible, I can get my daughter to school.

37:48

But it often meant being involved in multiple teams, often meant many nights out because each team has their own team meetings. Each team always consisted of volunteers who can't do daytime um. So those who were on staff were then expected to go and, you know, do things outside of hours, because this is our um, this is our faithful serving and we want to respect our volunteers and their time. Yeah and so, yeah, it wasn't just the full-time day hours, it was then the night meetings, most of the teams that I was involved in during that time. I was leading those teams, which then meant the responsibility to pastorally care for each team member fell, uh, fell onto me as well, and I took that really seriously, um, which also then meant a lot more time connecting with people.

38:54

Yeah, you've got all the one-on-one stuff. Yeah, so lots of one-on-one stuff, which is where I then fell into exactly the same thing that I had experienced myself of when people leave a team. I then didn't have time to keep following up with them. So it's kind of this, it's a toxic system that eventually harms everyone. Yeah, um, and so there's been a lot of grief for me being part of that system, as well as the grief of experiencing the pain at the expense of the system. Yes, it was. When I say I was busy, it's an understatement.

39:33 - Sam (Host)

Yeah.

39:37 - Elise (Guest)

Then I had, whatever was going on with my daughter that I needed to be there for her as well. Um, my, my husband has always been just a rock, like. He's always there, so always felt like I was kind of leaning on him for a lot. Um, yeah, so it eventually led to just a collapse. Yeah, just extreme burnout, because you couldn't say no. Um, well, you could say no, but it would have really big consequences.

40:17

So a part of what I had always felt like was my calling. What I was meant to be doing was ministry in the form of mainly teaching and preaching. To be able to do that in a church the size of what I was a part of, there is a very clear, mainly unspoken ladder that you need to climb although they'd never say that because you know, when you actually make it to the top, they're like well, you know, you were meant to be here, god got you here. Yeah, I'm like no, because I've seen men not have to climb that same ladder, especially charismatic men that just go out and make friends, and I'm just this shy little girl that's basically. The way up was to never say no. You always say yes, you do what you're asked, you go above and beyond. Then you can start to get noticed. And that's why everything in the background for me was not about I want to be the one on the stage, I want to be the one that everyone looks at and listens to. It was I can't not do this, because if I don't, I haven't done what I think God's asking me to do. If I haven't done what I think God's asking me to do, then he's not going to accept me and I'm back in hell again. And so it's kind of this really strange driving force that felt spiritual and right at the time that now feels very wrong and damaging.

42:01

And so I remember one of my mentors at the time when I was really just starting with preaching and doing different platform ministry, and he knew the anxiety that I faced, so extreme anxiety I would have to go and throw up every time before I would go and be on platform or even teach in a small classroom. I would be sick before. And he'd asked me to do something. And I remember he just looked at me and he said I only give people one chance to say no. If you say no a second time, there will be no more opportunities for you here. And I remember going, oh okay, like I need to pick my one no, really carefully, and so that was kind of at the beginning of everything ramping up for me yeah which then also, you know, sat in that background going I can't, I can't say no, even if I really feel like I can't do it.

43:07

Um, and the messaging was the same you know, god will be enough for you. You just need to have more faith. Um, you know, the the anxiety is just keeping you humble.

43:19 - Sam (Host)

Yeah, so that I shouldn't have been surprised when I completely collapsed and just went I can't, I can't do it anymore yeah, oh, my goodness, I mean that and like that's not even like subtly having you know, poor boundaries or no boundaries, that's like super overt, like you know. To say something like that to somebody and for your response internally to not be this is not okay, but for the response to be oh, okay, okay. I just need to be really careful about when I do say no, that one time um, which you know probably tells you everything about the level of control and manipulation that is happening um, throughout, um, that community and that church lifestyle.

44:18 - Elise (Guest)

Yeah, I think that's a really good point to make. Is that my yeah, and not even just my initial reaction, but my ongoing reaction to that was not hold on, that doesn't feel right or that doesn't feel safe? Yeah, because there was beyond, beyond anything else. It's you. You do not question the people that God has put in authority, um, and you know, and they're in that, the position that they're in because God has put them in that position, and so there were yeah at that point and that, and that's something that's taken me a long time to undo. That thought in the back of my mind. Even now, when I feel like something is off, I still notice that that voice is still there going, but if you say something, you might get in trouble, and it's something that I'm now just more aware of. Yeah, and it doesn't necessarily stop me from saying what I need to say or keeping myself safe, but it gets really embedded.

45:24 - Sam (Host)

Yeah, yeah, and I think sometimes it's not even about trying to exterminate or get rid of that voice, it's just allowing it to not control what comes out of your mouth and what you do, because I think when you know, like you said, it's been embedded and it is like deep in there, it's woven into every part of your being, and so for that voice to not exist is almost unrealistic. So it's just about, yeah, yeah, having the awareness of it and not necessarily listening to the voice.

46:02 - Elise (Guest)

Um, yeah, I think it's being able to give it that compassion. Yeah, go, it's okay. I understand why you're there, like I get it, but like it's okay, we've got this yeah, yeah, absolutely.

46:17 - Sam (Host)

So what was that deconstruction process like for you?

46:23 - Elise (Guest)

it was terrifying to start with, yeah, and probably for the first at least 18 months, yeah, it was a lot of therapy. It was a lot of therapy it was. It was a lot of patience with myself. Um, it was a lot of choosing what I was no longer going to listen to, which was very opposite to what um is still told by by a lot of churches in terms of there's heaps of talk right about be careful what you listen to, don't listen to. You know the voices that just want to bring the church down. Don't listen to anything negative. And so that was a real battle for me, going back and forth, going what should I be listening to, to what shouldn't I be listening to? Um, and so that was, that was one big thing, the other the other one.

47:24

So my, my actual journey of deconstruction started with a real unease that I started to feel around the doctrine of hell. Um, and because, because I was a bible teacher, it was a lot at the start for me around well, what do I believe now and what don't I believe, and what have I been teaching that's potentially been wrong or harmful, um, and so there was the real kind of urgency. That wasn't, it wasn't healthy, but it just was. It was this sense of urgency of going. Well, I need to figure out what I believe now and being able to sit with that without rushing to any other beliefs. I didn't want to end up just on the other end of the scale. That also says, well, now I know what to believe. It's like the black and white thinking just has two different ends and I think sometimes when we're living in deconstruction and that way that lifestyle of deconstructing, we have the potential to end up on the other end of the scale of going. Well, now everyone needs to believe this or everyone needs to not believe this.

48:44

So I lived there for a while. I lived in that place of going. Nope, I still need black and white. It's just a different black and white. And again, it took a lot of therapy for me to learn how to sit with uncertainty and learn how to sit with curiosity instead of needing to know an answer. So there was a lot of fear around that and um, so the the first one that I really connected with was that doctrine of hell as as eternal conscious torment, and I think the reason that I really started to question that was, again through the therapy that I was doing for my recovery from burnout and recovery from other kind of abuse that took place was learning how to connect with my body, and that was really hard because I realized quite quickly that I don't connect with my body because that's really unsafe.

49:46 - Sam (Host)

Yeah.

49:47 - Elise (Guest)

And as I learned to connect with my body and my gut instinct, which had always been taught don't trust your been taught don't trust your emotions, don't trust your, don't trust your gut. Um, but as I learned how to connect with that and as I learned how to trust myself and what I was feeling and what I was experiencing, I actually learned what safety feels like, so not just what it should look like, but how do I physically feel when I'm safe, which, on the flip side, meant that I was starting to learn what not feeling safe felt like.

50:29

Yeah yeah, and once you connect to that, you can't pretend that you don't feel like that. Yeah, like as much as you try and tell yourself it's fine, it'll be fine, we're safe. The more that I learnt to trust myself, the more that I learnt to sit with what didn't feel safe yeah. And so, as I was sitting in places like church, or even when I was still doing some biblical studies, there were specific messages that would be taught and I would immediately feel that physical sense of I'm not safe. And a lot of it was around the, the teaching of well, you need to accept Jesus or you're going to hell. It was either around that or around the doctrine of original sin, which you were talking about before. We're born bad, we're always bad. Yes, only Jesus can fix it.

51:32 - Sam (Host)

Um, but pretty much like you, just stink basically it's it's like I describe it as this like really ironic vicious cycle where you get told that you are really, really, really, really broken and really shit, um, but also you are a beloved child of god, um, and it's like well, which? Which is it like? Right?

51:55 - Elise (Guest)

yeah, because it can't, it cannot be both. No, yeah, no, and the, the spiritual gymnastics that it takes oh, I love that term to try and get people to believe both. Yeah, it just it really look, it really resembles gaslighting, to be honest, absolutely, because you can't. You can't do it without having to deny a part of yourself, um. And so, yeah, as I, as I kind of sat with those messages and went wait, this doesn't feel safe, and at that point, my faith had become a lot more expansive, so I felt like there was a lot more room for me to ask questions and to not be okay with things and still have faith of some kind. Yeah, um. So yeah, being able to really sit with those messages of this is not safe, and I'm going to trust what I'm feeling and I'm going to trust that I know what safety feels like, and I'm not feeling it with these messages and like, at a really basic level, it was asking myself the question and this is something that my counselor helped me with because she's, like I just said, I'm seeing red flags everywhere. Yeah, what are the green flags that I'm looking for? Because I'm like I'm exhausting myself looking for all the red flags, yeah, and so we just came up with three, and it was specifically around church and teaching and how I was feeling in that space, and the three green flags were where is love, where is freedom and where is grace, and it was usually all three of those that were missing when I was feeling extremely unsafe.

53:46

Um, and another question, I think. I think I know I read someone else wrote it, so it's not mine, it's not what I came up with, but I think it's. The question I was always trying to ask is does this lead to human flourishing? And if it doesn't, it's not good. And if it's not good and leading to human flourishing, then I don't believe it's God. Yeah, and so being able to ask those simple questions to myself, listen to what my body was telling me, I began to really get clear on which spaces were safe and which weren't safe.

54:27 - Sam (Host)

I mean simple questions, but big questions like not simple at all, not simple at all, and you know it can lead to immense destabilizing and disorientation. And all of that Because when the answer to those questions is no, that's when we, that's when we start to go oh crap, okay, what do we? What do we do with that now? And I know that actually, we, what do we do with that now? And I know that actually, and and this is not always the case for people who deconstruct but, um, I know that leaving church is very recent for you, and so what I mean? This is probably a two-fold question, which is what was it like trying to deconstruct while still in church, because that sounds like mentally exhausting. And secondly, where does your sense of spirituality land now?

55:27 - Elise (Guest)

Yes, it was mentally exhausting. Yeah, because it's been a while it's probably been over two years now um, probably 18 months of really like, really deconstructing. I think the first six months for me was going am I even willing to consider, yeah, journey? Yeah, because the, the, the price you pay is real and it's really hard.

56:02

um, and at that point it took me six months to even get to the point of saying the cost of not doing this is much higher for me yeah um, and then, yeah, going going through that while sitting in church was I think you said the word destabilising, that's a really good word for it yeah, because I didn't want to be that person that came in to critique and again, I'm not necessarily sure there's anything wrong with that, it's just something that I felt like, you know, I don't want to be that that typical person that the church looks at and says well, you know, we know, we know what you're doing, we know that you're, you're essentially on your way out, um, which may or may not have been said to me by a few people. So even the fact that I was there, but not sure if people actually wanted me there, was hard in itself, or if I could be there in the capacity that I could. So sometimes I would turn up and I couldn't make it past the foyer. Sometimes that was okay, sometimes I got questioned on that. Usually, if I could make it into the service, I would sit at the very back, like against the back wall, and again, I've heard comments being made about that in terms of you know, people who sit here are just on their way out.

57:39

There was very much an expectation of my time in leadership at this particular church that all leaders should be sitting at the front. What they potentially didn't know at the time and again I didn't feel like it was for me to need to explain myself was that because of how I was feeling unsafe, I would regularly have panic attacks during the service. So sitting at the back meant that not only could I get out if I needed space, it also meant that I wasn't going to interrupt the whole service and make an embarrassment of myself. Yeah, and it was loud, there were bright lights All the things that would normally trigger my anxiety were all there. It was just like a recipe for disaster for me, but I actually, I genuinely wanted to see if I could make it work.

58:37

I wanted to see if this church was changing, and so I stayed, and I did critique most of the messages, but in saying that I critiqued them, it was more of a critique of asking those questions when is the? Where's the love? Where's the freedom? Is this a message based on fear or is this a message based on love and acceptance and inclusion? And so it wasn't that I was even, and so it wasn't that I was even. I was gathering information to go is this safe for me and does this align with the values that I now hold? Yeah, and that took 18 months and there was grief. There's still a lot of grieving because I still have a few really good friends there, but I do know from a lot of experience that a lot of people who leave will get some not very nice labels and there will be conversations that happen and usually no one will really ask you directly. They'll just make up their mind about what happened.

59:59 - Sam (Host)

Yeah.

59:59 - Elise (Guest)

And so there's a lot of grief about the community that will not be there, but for me, there's also a lot of freedom in what can community now look like and what can friendship look like? And what can my faith look like and what can friendship look like and what can my faith look like? Um, yeah, what does your faith look like? Yeah, what does my faith look like? My faith looks much more expansive, much more about the grey areas than any kind of black and white. My faith looks like a place of curiosity and learning. It looks like spiritual practices that don't look like spiritual practices.

:: 01:00

So things like reading my Bible is still something that I'm not comfortable with. But what faith looks like for me is listening to a whole lot of different podcasts that interpret the Bible, in a whole lot of different podcasts that interpret the bible in a whole lot of different ways. Um, and it looks like doing that without trying to find a single truth, which? So, as I say that I'm like, okay, I know there, I know there's going to be people to go, but there is just one truth yeah, like, yes, but truth according to which? Interpretation? At which time? Yeah, absolutely, yeah, yeah. So I think faith just looks like a big question mark that I'm happy to explore.

:: 01:52

I love that and I think I like that because there was real freedom for me in just, you know, the sentence I don't know was complete, like I don't know is a complete sentence for me now, and but that initially was like that was. That's terrifying to not know something and to not be certain, because certainty provides safety, um, and so I think, yeah, I think, being able to have, um, you know, your spiritual practices rooted in curiosity and wonder almost, um, how is that? I sort of go, how is that not inherently spiritual about you know to be curious and wonder about the world around us. Um, I think that's inherently spiritual. What was that process like? To go? I'm not going back to church, how did you make that decision?

:: 02:48

Um, I feel like it was actually quite an easy decision for me to make once I had decided. So there were a few really obvious things that had occurred in that space for me over the last few months. Like you said, it's quite fresh at the moment, but when people actually listen to this, it will be a while ago. When people actually listen to this, it will be a while ago. So there were a few things that happened, but I never. I never wanted to try and point to a specific thing and say, well, that's why I'm going. I never wanted to put it on someone else or something else. I needed it to be my decision for myself.

:: 03:38

But again, those things that happened just reinforced the lack of safety for me in that place. And again, that's personal to me, personal to what I find safe and don't find safe. I don't necessarily think they're safe for other people either, but that's probably a different conversation. Yeah, yeah. So that part when I had decided I'm actually I can't go back. This is not good for my overall health and wellbeing. The sense of peace and safety that I felt again within my body kind of confirmed for me that that's what I needed to do. Now.

:: 04:26

I sat on that for about a month before I could actually bring myself to have the conversation with those closest to me, because I never want to be making someone else's decision.

:: 04:44

I would hope that, just as I would want others to respect my choices of where I'm comfortable, I want to be able to do the same for others, and so I wanted to make sure that the way I communicated that to my family and a couple of my closest friends, um, was with that in mind, that I'm just communicating a choice that I need to make for myself.

:: 05:08

Um, there was definitely some fear of is is this going to be accepted, is it going to be respected? Um, and so that probably fed into a little bit of why it was a month before I actually communicated the decision I'd already made, and in that month I was still going. Um, so I was still there, but knowing that, um, I wasn't going to be there much longer, yeah, um, which a few of my friends have since said, they kind of knew that that's where I was going anyway, in a kind way, in a very kind way, yeah, so then actually communicating that with my family was actually a really beautiful conversation of not just respect but real understanding that this is what I needed to do and they were going to support me because I know what I need.

:: 06:07

So I feel like that, like that was just so beautiful for me and it just confirmed again this is good and this is safe and this is what it needs to be yeah, I think I think in all of the conversations that I've had, I think a lot of people think that deconstruction is just sort of going from one belief system to another, and and a lot of people do, and a lot of people do essentially jump from one form of fundamentalism to another, which you know you've mentioned as well, um, but I I think that's, you know, true deconstruction is is not jumping from one thing to another, but more so about moving to a place of personal authenticity and autonomy and to be able to make decisions and choices with both of those things in mind.

:: 07:08

And I think you know it sounds like that was a place that you landed and you know what that feels like is safe, and so you know that sounds really beautiful, um, and I'm glad to hear that the communication went well, because that can, for a lot of people, be a disaster, um, and can be a really, you know, just piling on on top of, um, the grief that is already there, um, so okay, so my last question that I ask people is what would you say to someone who is fresh in their deconstruction?

:: 07:47

Yeah, oh gosh, there's so much that I would want to say Something that for me me when it was really fresh I just I remember thinking this all the time, so perhaps it's what some of the listeners might be thinking is um, I wish I could be ignorant again oh, yeah I've.

:: 08:10

I've even thought that, yeah, it's like gosh?

:: 08:13

did I? Did I have to find out? Did I have to see behind the curtains? Did I did? I need to know, and I think, I think you know, ignorance is not always bliss. No, I think sometimes ignorance is just the response of our nervous system trying to protect us from truths that feel unbearable. So I would just encourage them that it's it is normal to feel, that it's normal to want to go back to the safety of either not knowing or not seeing. Yeah, but the journey is really worth it, and it does get more expensive. It can feel really narrow to begin with. Um, yeah, it can. It can feel like you're almost walking on glass and it's really hard. But if you can find the right supportive people to walk with you whether that's whether that's friends that are going to support your search for safety or whether that's the therapist that you need to find find someone, because I can promise, ignorance is not bliss. The bliss is actually finding that expansive place of safety for yourself.

:: 09:33

I love that, yeah, and I Ignorance is definitely not bliss, but I think, like you said, it is normal to to want that yeah and yeah. It reminds me of that saying like once you, once you see it, you can't unsee it. It's a little bit like that Once you see it, you can't unsee it.

:: 09:57

It's a little bit like that. But yeah, absolutely, it's normal to want to backtrack a little bit. So yeah, thanks, elise, you're welcome. Thank you, it's been a wonderful conversation and I guarantee that there are many people out there who will be able to resonate with a lot of the things that you've said. So I appreciate you sharing.

:: 10:24

Well, thank you so much for listening. It's been a pleasure chatting with you.

:: 10:31

Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Beyond the Surface. I hope you found today's conversation as insightful and inspiring as I did. If you enjoyed the episode, be sure to subscribe, leave a review and share it with others who might benefit from these stories. Stay connected with us on social media for updates and more content. I love connecting with all of you. Remember, no matter where you are in your journey, you're not alone. Until next time, keep exploring, keep questioning and keep moving forward. Take care.