The Whistleblower of a Dominionist Cult

Sam: 00:00:18

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.

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 occult 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.

Clare: 00:01:39

Welcome, Clare. Thanks for joining me.

Speaker C: 00:01:41

My absolute pleasure.

Clare: 00:01:43

I'm so excited about this episode because I remember way back watching your little stint on Channel nine about your story and I remember, and this was like, obviously, well before I even started the podcast. And I remember watching that episode with my wife next to me and going, I need to talk to this woman because she sounds fucking incredible. Like, so.

So I'm really excited about this interview and, and just about, like, your story is incredible. So let's start with that. Where does your story start?

Speaker C: 00:02:21

A long, long time ago, in a land far, far away.

Clare: 00:02:25

It sounds like a start of a Disney story, Clare.

Speaker C: 00:02:28

I mean, if only. I don't think Disney would be brave enough. And they took on the grim. So, you know, that's saying something. I am. I was.

I was born to an idealistic young couple who were at the time doing the bus ministry out in Wodonga in kind of right on the border of Victoria and New South Wales. And to the pastor, the week I. When I was born. Oh, you know, having a baby and, you know, we've got to take some time off the kids ministry and.

And the pastor said, well, what's more, one more kid on the bus. And that story's kind of been kicked around a little bit about, you know, all the dedication to the work of the gospel and all that kind of stuff.

But it kind of shows right from the get go where my family structure was headed. And When I was 8 or 9, my dad took over kind of a micro church out in the country.

It was part of a denomination called Christian Outreach center which was all about reaching our world for Christ. And it had been started in Queensland by this giant of a man who went on to have an affair with his secretary and blow up the whole movement.

You know, the old, like the stereotypical.

Clare: 00:03:42

Thing to do, isn't it?

Speaker C: 00:03:44

I know, right? It's so passe. So dad took over the church from the retiring pastor who had been afflicted with Parkinson's.

And you know, in the beginning it was fairly typical, you know, fairly typical charismatic evangelical church that just wanted to, you know, introduce people to Jesus.

But pretty early on it was sort of, I've been told now by people who knew my dad back then that there was some authoritarian tendencies that 35 of the 70 person church kind of left when, you know, the week that dad took over. And I remember some things, discussions with between my parents on the way home from church, which I now reflect on as being quite misogynistic.

And it's all Jezebel that and you know, this woman, blah, blah, blah. And so those were the kind of foundational things.

You fast Forward sort of 25 years and now the church, which, yes, I have publicly said that I believe it to be a culture on 60 Minutes Australia, it's, you know, really been at the forefront of the Dominionist movement in Australia. The now assistant pastor was on the no campaign ad for the Australian Christian lobby when Australia was voting on marriage equality.

And that was, you know, that was a time where there was a lot of hate flying around and a lot of Facebook keyboard warrior things and what about religious freedom, blah, blah, blah. My ex husband, he was, he's a conversion practices survivor. When I say conversion practices, I mean gay conversion therapy.

But he was part of the survivor group in Victoria who created the legislation, a policy that has gone into the ban now, the ban on conversion practices. So that's sexual orientation and gender identity change efforts.

But really the Victorian legislation sort of moved the needle on, you know, it's not just therapy, you know, what kind of therapist in their right mind is going to do something that only causes harm?

Clare: 00:06:08

I would love to say that that's not happening, but it is. But it is much broader than that.

Speaker C: 00:06:15

Yes, is it's the weaponization of prayer, prophecy and proselytizing.

It's that there's this whole system around It, So he was part of that because prior to that he had been, he'd gone through gay conversion therapy, he'd been exposed to conversion practices within our ecosystem. We were very, the church was very aggressively homophobic, very aggressively political.

And yeah, our marriage was sort of arranged in a way like obviously not in the, you know, you've never met each other now get married on the daylight, none of that. But my dad set us up and we, it was a courtship or kind of purity culture style.

The first part of our relationship was an unmitigated disaster in which I cried in just about every restaurant in Gippsland. We were then called pause on the relationship. And my ex husband went through conversion practices, then conversion therapy then.

And I was diagnosed with PTSD due to, you know, prior church, church based abuse.

So I'd been to another church where like the pastor doubled as a massage therapist and would also give unlicensed non consensual counseling while the massage was happening. And, and yeah, on 60 Minutes it's referred to as a creepy encounter, but it was actually two years of sort of twice a week.

Clare: 00:07:55

Yeah, I, I'm not sure I would describe like sexual violation as a creepy encounter.

Speaker C: 00:08:04

Well, you know, that's interesting because Nick McKenzie, the, the journalist who was doing the whole thing, he doesn't put anything to air unless he's got hard evidence on it like corroborating witnesses, emails, nothing like that.

And in the interview, you know, we'd kind of done six months of investigation which was going at the same time that he was doing a documentary on human trafficking and fighting the Ben Roberts Smith stuff in court that was all happening at the same time. And he, he asked me in the interview whether I viewed it as, viewed that as sexual assault.

And I kind of fobbed off the question because I was like, you know, there's so many other elements to this that have happened, you know, and I think for a survivor to be able to define their own experience is important. And I was like, how am I going to define myself in this moment? You know, would a, would a jury of peers decide that it had a sexual element to it?

Probably. But am I going to say that's what it is? Not in this moment. In this moment, this story is about political dominionism.

It's about infiltration of the Liberal Party through a coordinated effort from, you know, churches who are dominionist and anti democratic in that they don't want a representative government, they want the government to represent the government of heaven.

And when I say that kind of tongue in cheek, because it's Project 25 light, really, and it's already the lived experience of so many people all across the world, including in Australia. And, you know, once that that door cracks open, we, we don't want it to. It's just like, it's just horrendous. But. Yeah, yeah.

So look, there was, there were so many different threads that came together for that particular story. And I, I knew that, like, really only 1% of it made it into the segment because there was four of us interviewed for the TV segment.

One was cut at the last minute just because of what would happen to her if she was put on the stand and if we were sued for defamation. Not that we couldn't defeat it. Absolutely, because the evidence was there. But, you know, you don't want to, you know, being a whistleblower is re.

Traumatizing, it just is. But there was too much on the table in this moment.

And of course, the story was led into by the fact that my little sister had been put up for a safe seat in Parliament. And if you're listening from overseas, we're not America, we have a bit of a different system. So there's the lower house and the upper house.

And if you're in the lower house, people vote directly for you. But if you're in the upper house, it's a quota system.

And if you get the top of the ticket, the position at the top of the ticket, you only have to get 12.5% of the vote in order for you to get in. Then the next 12.5% gets the next person in and so on. So my sister got the top of the ticket. She only had to win.

Now, I think it was, I think it was like 55 to 58 was like the margin she won by one vote to get that seat. And then she was going to be in the safest seat in Victoria, really, representing an aggressively ultra conservative agenda.

And we had it on good authority that the church was severely pissed off that the gay conversion ban had gone through.

And knowing that was likely to be on the agenda, knowing that abortion would be on the agenda, knowing that it would start with late term abortions and then it would come to, you know, like, it would creep back as it has in the States, and knowing that religious freedom, quote, unquote laws would be on the agenda, so the right for schools to discriminate against people who didn't share their faith or their opinion on, well, let's, let's call it what it is. It's LGBT people or It's Muslims that they want to be able to discriminate against. But, you know, like, this would be the agenda, so.

And really, no one goes whistleblower for fun because you are throwing your family under the bus.

Clare: 00:12:52

Absolutely.

Speaker C: 00:12:54

But my honest hand on heart concern was that somebody would die if the ban didn't go through. And look, we know, like, you've just hinted at that even after the ban, practices have just gone underground.

And so people may still die, you know, and I'm sorry to drop a trigger warning so close into it, but even while the legislation was being developed by an incredible group of survivors who were re. Traumatizing themselves to get this across, they were grieving the loss of somebody who had not survived the damage. And so that was really strongly.

My motivation was that this. We cannot go backwards on this.

But also, I think there was so much that I wanted to warn people about because I had been a director of this church, I'd been a leader, I'd been a worship leader, youth leader, discipler, all of the things. And you carry a lot of guilt in your complicitness in that. But also, like Dr.

Janya Lalitsch, who's a leading cult expert, she calls it moral injury that you have to deal with your own injury and the injury of being complicit in something that is so damaging. And having seen what I'd seen, having heard the stories of people after they found out that I lived and was, you know, it was a lot.

That was a really jumbled way of popping out. Like, a whole lot of, you know.

Clare: 00:14:38

Just, oh, that's okay.

Speaker C: 00:14:40

But. But, yeah, working kind of backwards. So. Yeah.

So pastors, kids since age 8 and, you know, ended up blowing the whistle on a homophobic Dominionist church that. Yes. That I've publicly called a cult. Yeah.

Clare: 00:15:00

I mean, there's like. There's so much in there that I want to, like, pull on, but I'm gonna go. I'm gonna, like, I'm gonna go back a step and go.

How do you look back on what it was like for you as a child in that environment? Like, what do you remember?

Speaker C: 00:15:19

Well, I was homeschooled. Okay. For the first thing. And, you know, this is. This is. This is. Of course, you're a therapist, aren't you? So. Good question.

I've been chatting a lot about this lately because somebody's come into my life who I was aware of, but not friends with, and this person's also a pastor's child. And in dealing with them and, you know, and my Obviously my ex husband moving. Moving back into my garage partially due to this whole situation.

We've been really pulling at this thread of what was it like? And I think the first thing is when you're a pastor's kid, there's a lot of pressure to be, you know, a lot of pressure towards perfection.

And on chapel probation, Scott Okamoto asked me whether I'd rebelled like a lot of pastors kids had. And no, I didn't. I was. It was the control screws were too far in me for me to. Yeah. For that to be a thing that I could do. So.

So yes, I lost my virginity at age 29 after I got married.

And I had my first glass of alcohol when I was like 27 and I, you know, didn't try drugs until I was 38 and then didn't even like it never went back to seconds, but, you know, so there was never a rebellious time. Yeah, because I was, you know, I was homeschooled. I didn't have peers in the secular school system.

I didn't have protective adults who were outside of my family's orbit who weren't submitted to my dad as a pastor. When my parents started homeschooling, a lot of other church members started homeschooling their K.

And When I was 12, when I was 12, I was on the music team. I was assisting in my younger siblings schooling. I was in at a job at McDonald's from when I was 14 and nine months old.

And I was kind of doing school, helping with housework and you know, the parentified child.

You know, you're helping raise your siblings and you're doing the chores and the scrubbing out the cloth nappies and cooking dinner and looking after siblings, babysitting, all that kind of stuff, helping with their schooling. But then I was also. There was music practice and then when we started a youth group, there was, you know, youth on Friday.

But then there was like a youth planning meeting or there was like music practice and there was leadership training for life. And so, yeah, that was the world I grew up in. And. And it was exhausting. I.

To the point where I just really limped into adulthood with severe sort of adrenal fatigue and, you know, already sort of burnt out in a lot of ways.

I also, I know like, and going to that other church that is referred to in the 60 Minutes piece was really my first attempt at escaping and it was disastrous because I ended up with PTSD and ended up, you know, going home for support, quote, unquote. But yeah, so that all sort of happened. And around the time I was 15, my dad joined a network called the Isaac Network, which is over in Malaysia.

It's hardcore Dominionist, hardcore New Apostolic Reformation, extra biblical revelation. Sort of like this real huge reliance on what that. What the presiding apostle has to say and an expectation towards explicit obedience.

And you know, like my relationship, when we started courting again, it was signed off by this guy over in Malaysia before we gave. Got clearance to marry. Yeah. So really high control stuff and.

But, you know, people ask me, you know, what, what my education was and I'm like, yeah, I've got a full ride scholarship in kind of purity culture and dominionism and, you know, praying in tongues and like, if you would, like. We, we did the Rodney Howard Brown holy laughter thing and we did the. I think at one point we gave it a crack with prophetic art.

And there was dance groups.

Clare: 00:20:20

Yeah, I was like, where are the flag waving? Like surely it's got to be flags.

Speaker C: 00:20:24

Flag waving. We wore T shirts under our spaghetti straps and. Oh, like. Yeah, you name it. Oh gosh, yeah, I remember because.

And did you ever listen to Carmen or are you too young for Carmen?

Clare: 00:20:38

Oh, I know of, but I've not. Yeah, not really.

Speaker C: 00:20:42

Look, he was kind of like a wannabe Christian sex symbol kind of thing and he'd do all of these like, you know, kind of half rap, half kind of. I don't know, it was bad. But we danced to a lot of his stuff.

And of course, if you were in the youth group, you had to be in the dance group, no matter your complete lack of talent. I remember like, and my sister, I don't usually talk about her much.

You know, I don't want to look like my whole life is about attacking my sister, who's in Parliament at the moment, but even she would agree that she had no dance talent.

And at one point her entire job during a Carmen song was to hold a beach ball that was decorated like the world and just slowly turn in place while we all danced around her. So like, like it was, it was bad. Oh, yeah. So that, that was.

I mean, I look back on it and there's funny moments and there's a lot of action and there's a lot of.

I think people approach my family with a lot of reverence, which creates kind of a bit of, A bit of confusion looking back because you're like, you know, I wasn't given the puberty talk until after, like, after the fact. And then I was given the purity talk at the same time as the puberty talk and you're going, you know, like, okay.

And you know, there was big things missed in my medical history, either missed by ignorance or by not listening to me when I had complained or by preferring prayer to medical intervention.

There was my parents because another thing that happened is I shared a room with a youth leader who was 10 years senior to me and she unfortunately had severe trauma in her past and she had dissociative identity disorder. But that took a long time to come out and I was the first one who saw that. It was pretty terrifying. So there was.

My house was full to the brim with people. There was no safe place for a teenager to develop just as a teenager. There was no safe place to retreat to. There was no access to parents.

Was really difficult because you'd have to fight through a crowd to get to them. But you were always being told, oh, you're so lucky. You've got these perfect parents. And they're so amazing and so much better than my parents.

And that's why I've joined the church and moved out of my parents house or, or whatever. And dad would preach on parenting and you'd be hearing how wonderful they are and how they've got it together.

And yet you're sitting kind of looking at the damage in your own life and going, I'm not allowed to say this out loud because one contradicts the other. So therefore I have to be wrong. And you know, it sort of took me till I was 32, 33 to start to advocate.

Oh well, not to advocate for myself because I didn't. My, my husband did that.

And yeah, so that, you know, it took me till 32, 33 to find my way free of the group socially and physically, which happened via a pretty brutal shunning in which there was a lot of misinformation and disinformation kind of spread about us and particularly me, order to kind of create the pressure to either toe the line or leave. And you know, and then we. Yeah, and then it was a wild ride from there.

Clare: 00:24:31

It's like I describe religious trauma like the, like the roller coaster I never chose to get on.

Speaker C: 00:24:37

Oh my God. Oh my God.

Clare: 00:24:39

You never know where it's going to go. And even if you think you know, you don't know.

Speaker C: 00:24:44

You've got no idea. Yeah, no, it is like. And the funny thing is there's a really fine line between humor and trauma dumping like.

And I find this difficult to tow because I'll tell you this story because hell, we could all use Some comedic relief, right? When I was, you know, and I. I was the eldest of five, I was the only one who actually read Dr. James Dobson's Preparing for Adolescence.

I was the only one who knew what went on in chapter nine. So I had given the puberty talk to so many people. And I'd also been a bra fitter.

I'd done bra fittings for, you know, like, I've seen more tits than anyone, you know, but let me tell you guys, there's nothing for us. You just like, don't be nervous. Get your breastfeeded properly. But not the point.

So I was telling this story to a friend of mine who was exvangelical.

And it was a story of how in the lead up to my wedding, my mother decided to, you know, do what mothers and daughters had been doing for generations on the eve of her virgin daughter's wedding, to take her to her favorite restaurant to deliver the birds and the bees talk. So there we were at the Bunnings Cafe.

Clare: 00:26:05

Of course, you can't get more Australian than that.

Speaker C: 00:26:10

Bunnings is a warehouse. It is a tin echoey hardware warehouse.

Clare: 00:26:16

Like a home Renault Shop, basically.

Speaker C: 00:26:18

Yeah. So there we are at the Bunnings Cafe.

And in the Bunnings Cafe, there's me and my, I suspect, hearing impaired mother and there's a table full of old ladies with their ill fitting dentures and their purple rinses. And then there's, you know, Sharon on the coffee machine just burning the shit out of the milk. The milk is screaming for the sweet release of death.

So am I. While my mother is delivering the sex talk. Because I was only 29, so.

Clare: 00:26:47

Oh my gosh.

Speaker C: 00:26:50

So there I was.

I think it's hilarious because like these old ladies, obviously they can hear everything because mum's yelling and, and like they're smiling at me like, oh, that's so sweet. Next thing I, like, I'm just like, I gotta get out of this conversation. This is just like so mortifying.

And so I noticed that Mum was holding a bag of towels, like a bag of like gifts, so that this is it. This is my way out of this horrendous conversation. So I've reached and I've taken the bag and I've opened it and pulled out six black hand towels.

And I'm just looking at the hand towels and it's at this moment that Shaz, over on the coffee machine, she's done talking, torturing the milk. The grinder goes off and my mother yells, somebody's gotta sleep in the wet Spot.

Clare: 00:27:41

Oh, my.

Speaker C: 00:27:42

Across the Bunnings Cafe, there's. It just echoed. And I've never been back to that Bunnings.

Clare: 00:27:52

I don't blame you. Oh, my God.

Speaker C: 00:27:57

So that happened. And I think the story is hilarious because the degrees.

The degrees of awkwardness is such that I was at Bunnings this morning, a different Bunnings, and I've taken a photo of the Bunnings Cafe and sent it to a friend of mine. So, yeah, like, I think it's hilarious. But to exfangelicals, they'll laugh at it because they're like, yeah, that's peak purity culture.

Yeah, that's just what happens. But, like, my friend was like, oh, tell Aaron. Tell Aaron.

So I went to tell another friend and his wife, and they were just like, oh, my gosh, that must have been so traumatic. Like, you know, you're like, no boundaries and all that, you know? And I was just like, no, no, guys, it's funny. It's funny.

And often things I just piss myself laughing over. Yeah. Like, you. It can really kill a party.

Clare: 00:28:50

It's like, yeah.

Speaker C: 00:28:52

Oh, it's just like that time when. And then they're like, oh, you know, so that's a difficult line to tread.

Clare: 00:28:59

Oh, my gosh.

Speaker C: 00:29:00

Yeah.

Clare: 00:29:00

And.

And I think in the space of religious trauma, cult, spiritual abuse, anything in that umbrella, the things that we laugh at are not the things that other people laugh at. I will still have people. Like, I'll be sharing, like, a story with someone, like, deadpan. Like, it's just like.

And they're like, that's like, batshit crazy. Like, you do realize. And I was like, yeah, I do now. But, like, in. When you're in it, it's not that easy to realize.

Speaker C: 00:29:36

Like, I. Like, how do you spot a red flag when you're raised in a sea of them? Exactly. That. That has been the thing that's been so interesting. Upon exit. So we.

We exited, he raised some concerns with my dad. And the response that came out of my dad's mouth was, well, you're free to leave.

And it was the day we found out we were pregnant with our son, Henry. And it was like, he was the fifth pregnancy, like, but the first one to make it through. So I'd had four miscarriages in a year.

My dad had asked me whether, you know, because I was not okay. I had really gone to a really dark place over that and, you know, had come back from, you know, I was just holding on to.

th of November,: 2015

I pulled out of the driveway to go have lunch with friends, and dad was walking into the house, and I remember seeing his hackles up, like, his shoulders were up. And I thought, that doesn't look like a pastoral care visit. That looks like someone who's, you know, who's edging for a fight.

And I thought, now, not your circus, not your monkeys. They'll be fine. And I left for lunch, and when I came back, dad was leaving, and there was anger.

And what had happened was ex husband had had raised some concerns. Dad had responded, as I would suggest, as a cult leader responds when the mirror is held up with anger and you can leave.

And I tried to broker reconciliation that night because if you're family, you should be able to talk through things, and we're the perfect family and covenant and, you know, all that kind of stuff, like. And, yeah, it was just, you can leave, you can leave, you can leave. And I was like, I don't want to leave. I want to fix this.

And that had come on the back of us watching the Scientology documentary and going, clear, yikes. And really seeing a lot of dynamics that were quite similar to us. And ex hub had said, are we in a abusive church?

And I was like, yeah, like, it was the most obvious thing in the world to me.

But I think that was kind of because I'd While also going through periods of being very devout and wanting to convince myself that this was the way, because to think any other way would cost me community, it would cost me family, it would cost me reputation, because, like, I'd seen what had happened to other people who'd left. I was in a business at the time because kingdom business, you know, crossing over to take over. You don't make a million dollars off a cafe, guys.

But anyway, that's a word to the wise. Yeah. Like, it was going to cost me all those things to really face up to this. Patrick was like.

He knew straight away that there was no point trying to argue. And I was like, but this is my family. Yeah, this is like. And no one wants their family to be the bad guys. No, no one does.

No one wants to destroy their father's legacy. That no one wants to do that.

And I know that, you know, like, I hear things, of course, because, like, I've unfollowed, you know, like, I don't follow them on social Media or anything like that. But people often send me screenshots of, you know, the latest thing or, you know, the. The small town gossip gets back to you.

And sometimes it is helpful because sometimes it's nice to know what's coming and kind of brace yourself a little bit. But sometimes, like, Like I don't know any of the family news, just the church stuff.

And yeah, like, you hear the stories that they've concocted about me to kind of justify, you know, the narrative, and you're like that. That bears absolutely no resemblance to what happened. Not even close. But, you know, it is what it is.

And at the end of the day, leaving a cult is not fun. Leaving your family is not fun. You do carry the grief always. It hits you.

You know, you say, they say that you never outgrow grief, you just grow a bigger life around it. And so it hits the sides less over time.

And I do have a really wonderful life, but it's not without those moments where the grief hits the sides and you're like, oh, you know, this is crippling. So, yeah, I don't know what question you asked and how that's all right.

Clare: 00:34:38

I never know what question I ask after I ask it. I. I have no idea where that went, but it doesn't really matter.

I don't work in chronology or anything like that, but I am curious about through all of this. So, like, through your teenage years, you know, like through your 20s, getting married, what was your personal relationship with God like?

Speaker C: 00:35:06

Personal relationship with God?

Clare: 00:35:07

Yeah. I know whenever I ask it, people are like, fuck, I haven't been asked that for a really long time.

Speaker C: 00:35:13

You know, I. I'm a relentlessly inclusive person now. And, like, I'm chatty, you know, like, I'll chat with anyone. Like, I just want people to live in a.

I live in a court with like. Yeah. And the neighbors are all really friendly. And it was his new neighbor who moved in and we were chatting and.

And then she said something and I was like, oh, that's Christian.

Clare: 00:35:41

Oh, yeah, you can spot it a mile away, can't you?

Speaker C: 00:35:44

And then she said, she said that line, it's not a religion, it's a relationship. And I inside, I thought, bullshit.

Clare: 00:35:52

Oh, my gosh.

Speaker C: 00:35:53

Yeah, a relationship. Because it's your inner monologue that you're having a relationship with.

You construct this thought form you call God and you're in a personal relationship with that. Like, if you think that you actually have, you know, like, yeah. Anyway, that's.

That's my opinion about That I have very mixed ideas about what the divine is now. But I certainly don't think that God is a humanoid character that has a personal relationship with all of us. Anyway, that's a bugbear.

What was the question you asked again? My personal relationship with God.

Growing up, my parents will tell that I was born again at age three and that I recommitted my life at age 16 after having had an argument with dad at a church he was a guest preacher at. I think that age, at age three, you do not have a prefrontal cortex.

Clare: 00:36:53

The child development brain just goes, that's impossible. Like, it's actually impossible.

Speaker C: 00:36:59

It actually very much is. It's like there's no prefrontal cortex activity. Like none. No. So.

So my first conversion experience, but, you know, I was probably like, I was a soft hearted kid and I was, you know, raised in a Christian family, homeschooled. What other worldview was I going to come up with? Your reading material is chosen by your parents who share that worldview.

Your schooling, like all of that kind of stuff we watched, even the videos that we were watching at the time were Christian. And I've later on found out they were from the Children of God cult.

You know, they're called Kitty Bitties and they were songs like always better yes to do because Daddy said so. Like really psychotic, like, but also kind of grooming you towards the. The quiverful Christian wife, you know, submitted and meek and mild.

And I was probably not really ever cut out for that. I was a reader. But of course your books are chosen from Coorong, which is the one place, the one Christian bookstore that we.

Australia or there was also the word. But Kurong.

Clare: 00:38:24

Yeah, Kurong was the, like the. That was the. Yeah. I spent so many hours in Kurong.

Like I still get Facebook memories of like my Kurong, like spending spree of like the photos of all of the stuff that I bought.

And the most horrifying one I think that I ever bought was I bought this book that was titled Fit for My King, which was essentially about like dieting for Jesus.

Speaker C: 00:38:50

Right?

Clare: 00:38:51

Like, is that like. It was. Oh my gosh, I. There's so many stories with like, you know, past purchases from Kurong, but oh my goodness.

Speaker C: 00:39:02

Yeah, it is. Yeah. So like. Yeah, so my books were chosen from Kurong. I was also allowed Enid Blyton. I had quite an Enid Blighton collection.

Watching the Helena Bonham Carter bio pick ruined that for me. I had the Pollyanna Glad game books. I had Anne of Green Gables and I had the Bible. So that was kind of my.

You know, you grow up with a really narrow worldview, but you want to just as a, as a child does, you want to please your family, you want to find meaning in life. You, like, you go into teenage years and all that teenage angst.

If it can be poured into, if it can be poured into this search for, for meaning and service and purpose, then really churches can commodify youth to an extreme degree. And I was part of a group called Training for Life, which was a whole lot of my peers.

And we'd made on Fridays before youth group to be discipled by dad. And it was really there that we started getting spoon fed this, what would Jesus do?

And you know, go take take positions of dominion so that you can do the right thing for Jesus. And it was like the book was in his steps and it was about a newspaper editor who took the pledge to only do what Jesus would do.

But we really set the foundation for, we were making career choices, we were making university choices at that point. And it was all very much, you know, in line with this.

And, you know, 20 years later, these people are still living out of that playbook, the ones that have lasted. A lot of us have been kind of shunned and, or if left of our own volition. I was, I think there was a degree of earnestness in my pursuit of God.

Like, really, truly there was. But where the clash came for me was that I'd read outside of just the passages that were being spoken about on Sunday.

I think about them, you know, like.

Clare: 00:41:20

As a woman, Claire, as a woman, how dare you. You engage in critical thought.

Speaker C: 00:41:29

Oh, and, and you can't even really call it that.

You just gotta kind of, when you know that questions are frowned upon, you really, you really swallow the questions and you go, okay, yeah, so you, like, you compare things and you go, so you say that women can serve in church, but you also call these people Jezebels when they get too opinionated. You say that your daughters can do anything.

But you also tell me that I need to have a job, that I'm happy to lay down when I get married because I need to serve my husband and I never need to be, I can never be more than him. And like, you're just noticing the clashes and then you're noticing the doctrine and you're going, you're telling me Jonathan and David aren't gay.

Clare: 00:42:13

You cannot convince me otherwise. But that's, I mean, that's a whole thing. Actually, there's a really great episode on the podcast.

You can't get to Heaven in a Miniskirt with Jess and Sarah who talk about, were Jonathan and David gay. It's a really great episode. Go and listen to that.

Speaker C: 00:42:31

Because there's the scripture. I mean, it's been edited and edited and edited. Sorry, translated. Wrong word.

Clare: 00:42:37

Same. Same.

Speaker C: 00:42:38

Yeah, there's this scripture that talks about them disrobing and embracing and David. And David grew large. Well, he didn't get tall at pumpkin. That's not what happened.

Like, you know, anyway, so you're reading the Bible and you're seeing different things and, you know, questioning the nature of God, going, okay, God is love and. But also a little bit genocidal, you know, and. And God is. God never contradicts himself and the Bible never contradicts itself.

And yet in one scripture, Jesus contradicts himself. Like, you know, there's. And you're going, okay, this doesn't add up.

But I can't voice these things because, you know, I've seen what happens when other people question and you kind of get micro doses of that when you experience or witness in what we'd call Covenant Group meetings. So there'd be the church service, which is all fairly naff and evangelical, usually like they are.

They do have a bent towards immersive worship, which I now look at as very problematic because altered states of consciousness, because high degree of susceptibility, because come up with a good idea and say it's God and who can question it that, you know, I have issues with that, which is a whole episode on itself. So, you know, let's not go down that rabbit hole.

But, you know, usually meetings can be quite like, people go along and go, this isn't a cult, this is fine.

But it's only, you're being introduced to the more palatable aspects of a belief system and you don't actually get access to that inner circle until you're really dyed in the wool and you've been disciples. So all of your dirty secrets belong to the group and all of that sort of stuff.

But the Covenant Group meeting, what would happen was the church administrator would just kind of subtly, not subtly move through the congregation after church on a Sunday and just tap people on the shoulder and give him the eye. Which would mean, come to Pastor Brian's house at 7:00 tonight for the Covenant Group meeting.

We'd all sit around the lounge room and there could be 20 of us there or there could be 40 of us there, and it would be a really uncensored, unminited meeting of the core group. And in this, you. You'd discuss stuff that shouldn't be discussed. Like, there were no secrets, there was accountabilities.

Like there was, oh, this person's Covenant Eyes browser has been triggered this week because they were looking at porn. Or this person's daughter had an abortion. And how were you letting them sleep around anyway? And you sinned against all of us.

Like, you know, but there was also this. What is God telling you? And you're, you're a counselor. You might have seen the ash conformity studies where.

And this has become like a bedrock of my understanding of what happens in groups. The ash conformity studies, what happened was they got four actors to sit in a room and stare at two lines on a wall.

One line was clearly shorter, one line was clearly longer. Then they had one studied participant who did not know the other four actors. And they go along the line and say, which line is longer?

Now let's say the line on the left was longer. Actor number one would say right. Actor number two would say right. Actor number three would say, right.

You get to that final person who's going, no, that's left. Like, it's clearly left. And like 80% of the time or even higher, they would say right. They would agree with the group and it shows.

Just like complete strangers and something as inconsequential as the length of a line. The bent towards confirming conformity because we're tribal creatures was so strong.

But in a group like the Covenant group, you've got all of your friends, you've got their parents, you've got your own parents, you've got your social ecosystem, you've got your spiritual ecosystem, you've got. Got sometimes your business partners, you've got sometimes your romantic partners.

Well, you know, like, you know who you're courting or who you're married to or whatever. Because you don't date in systems like this, your whole life is in that group. If you step out of line in that conformity, like, it's A, terrifying.

But B, there can only be really a couple of responses.

One is that the group turns on you and, and they go, well, you're not hearing from God like the rest of us, or you're out of line, or you need to be accountable for your spirit of error or spirit of disagreement, or you need to. Or you're an idiot. And you can either come back in line or you can leave that group.

But when there was such status involved in participating in that group, it's terrifying even for me as a pastor's daughter. I was going to be at my parents house for dinner on, on Sunday nights anyway if I didn't get an invite to cut to, to Covenant group.

Like holy bad news.

Clare: 00:48:02

So, yeah, and I think it's really interesting when like people who are the leaders in groups like this say like, if you don't, if you don't follow the line, then you can leave. But it's not as simple as that.

Like, and, and like surface, that sounds like, well, okay, you've got choice here, you've got choice, you stay or you leave. But that choice, quote unquote, is not really a choice.

Speaker C: 00:48:31

Right.

Clare: 00:48:32

And that choice is going to come with potentially dire consequences and shaming and guilt and you know, power and control, control and manipulation and all of those things. And so actually it's not a choice at all.

Speaker C: 00:48:48

It is not. Plus it might not be the choice you want to make.

Clare: 00:48:51

Exactly.

Speaker C: 00:48:52

When my father said to me, you're free to leave, I was like, I don't want to leave, I want to stay. I want to fix this. And, but that was not you're free to. It wasn't, you're free to. That's not what that language meant. It was you're out.

And you know, I, I did try for several months to, to broker a reconciliation there and you know, ex hub, he knew, he knew and he was just like, well, I'm going to support you going through this process because he knew that it was my parents and he knew and he's, he's still got three siblings in and you know, like he, he knew the depth of the consequences for us. It cost money to leave because I was in a business and you know it.

And eventually we did move three hours away to a new suburb and not, not immediately because I kind of felt like I owed it to other survivors to hold my head high and to go to another church and to go, you've got the right to participate in faith and community here even if you've been ousted from this group. And I knew the heartache and the intimidation and the slander that other people had faced in the wake of their own exits.

And as a, as a pastor's kid, that really weighed on me very heavily and continues to weigh on me very heavily because I know I'm not the pariah, I know I'm not the villain, but this is my family and I break cycles for my own kids.

I read a quote on the Internet font of all wisdom that, you know, some of us Concentrate too hard on being good descendants and not enough on being good ancestors. And I was like, that's, that's a call to, to me to, you know, it ends with us. To quote the current.

Clare: 00:51:06

Well, that's, that's going down a rabbit hole.

Speaker C: 00:51:09

We.

Clare: 00:51:09

We cannot do that right now.

Speaker C: 00:51:12

There are only rabbit holes in this, in this conversation. There are only rabbit holes. Yeah. So before we moved to Melbourne. Yeah. We, we went to join another church. And it.

And like, at that time, my husband was wrestling with his sexuality. Is. Is it. Are you really destined for eternal conscious torment because of how you're wired up? Did God really predestined me for hell? Because I'm.

I'm wired up this way, you know, and you're looking at the club of scripture, scriptures, and you're listening to the progressive Christian influences like Kevin Garcia, who's now. Probably wouldn't call him Christian now. Call them Christian now.

Clare: 00:52:02

But I mean, if, if it's pretty loose version of pretty loosey goosey Christian.

Speaker C: 00:52:08

Yes. But I'm okay. I'm only okay with the loosey goosey Christian. Yeah. Although actually that's a lie. I do have a friend who is.

He's on leadership at a Baptist church here in Melbourne. And like, sometimes I get messages going, I'm preaching on this date. What do you think about this scripture?

And I'm like, okay, okay, don't take this angle. This angle's bullshit. And it's really fun. Like, I really do like theology.

Clare: 00:52:29

Yeah.

Speaker C: 00:52:30

But it's more of an agnostic kind of. Like, I read about theology in the same way I read about the origins of tarot or like, you know, the Salem witch trials. Like, it's. Yeah, it's. Yeah.

But anyway, like, we kind of. We went to this, this church in town very quickly.

We're on the music team and running a small group and all of that, while also kind of trau dumping, you know, all of our cult trauma, rapid fire at people. If they asked us how we were, I think they must have just about seen us coming and gone. Oh, here they come. Gerda Loins.

Like, you know, but also in a small town where there's been suspicions that this particular church was a cult for such a long time, to the point where I've been told if you get a job at the prison or if you get a job at the RAF base out there, it's almost part of the unofficial, the induction pack that they say, oh, go to this church, but don't go to this church because they're a Culture, like, it's just like it's part of the local law and you know, but there was a lot of curiosity and, you know, ex Hub was the deputy mayor at the time that we left, and he was running a couple of branches of the national party out there, which of course we'd been, you know, helping people to become members in an attempt to get rid of one of the members of parliament who'd spoken up in favor of marriage equality. We didn't want to do that because, like, you know, obviously he was closeted at the time and it was just so messy and it was a real moment for us.

And yeah, so all of that was happening when we left.

And then, so we're deconstructing across this other church and you know, eventually, eventually my, eventually Patrick came to the conclusion that, that he's gay. And in perhaps the kindest breakup ever, he said to me, we're doing really well. And I was like, yeah, I know.

And he's like, I'm still calling helplines a lot. I said, yeah, I know.

And he said, I think we both deserve the chance at authentic love and we need to transition this to a friendship while we still can. And at that moment, you know, when, you know, you can't fight for your marriage anymore, you start fighting for the life you want for your kids.

And so, yeah, six months after that, we moved together as a family here and because the kids were quite young, we lived together for six months while they were down here to kind of resettle them. And. And then we lived apart until, yeah, a few months ago. And we will very soon have a, like a year unit that we share on our non custodial days.

So we'll, you know, he and I will shift in and out of that because the kids are so much more settled and they don't have to move their stuff every few days. So. So that's the arrangement that we've come to and, and really we've carved out a really beautiful friendship.

And then when people sometimes remind us that we were married, we go, okay, yeah, so, yeah, so that's, that's how we are now.

Clare: 00:55:50

Yeah, I mean, like, I hear the transition from like, I mean, as you were talking about some of the stuff with the church, like essentially they're building an army. So like you're like fighting for God and then you're fighting for your marriage and then you're fighting for your kids.

So at what point, Claire, did you start fighting for you?

Speaker C: 00:56:12

You. Oh, well, I, I was going to say, are you asking about the state of my sympathetic nervous system. Yeah, the clinical term is shit fucked.

Clare: 00:56:25

Yeah. Yeah, okay.

Speaker C: 00:56:28

No, I think that's a. It's a. Interesting question. It was in. In fighting for the life I wanted for my kids.

Kids, I had to acknowledge that a happy, safe mother was part of that. And I. And it's interesting, having. Having kids is. You go. The baseline that I operate from is nowhere near the baseline that my mother operated from.

Like, and this has been something to really wrap my head around.

It's taking me a while, because in parenting a child, you're acknowledging the love and safety and compassion and opportunity that you should have had as a child. Like, I had my son first, and then 16 months later, I had my daughter.

And one of the first things that I had to kind of grapple with was did I want to pass on the poor body image that I had inherited from my parents? I mean, my mother's been on a diet for as long as I can remember, and that's affected my sisters in.

In ways that is not mine to tell, but significant. And. And I'm the chubby one of the family. And I say that in air quotes because I. I think I'm hot. Like, so it's.

Clare: 00:58:02

I mean, I think people just don't understand just how much diet culture is wrapped up in church culture. Like, they.

Speaker C: 00:58:08

Oh, my God, Synonymous.

Clare: 00:58:10

Like, they are one in the same.

Speaker C: 00:58:12

Like, they are. Yeah, they are. Diet culture is purity. Culture is church culture. They're the same.

I remember being eight and a half months pregnant and, like, massive. Like, I carried, like. Yeah, yeah. And being in a family gathering that really. I think it was like my granddad's 90th or something.

I can't remember what it was, but I remember dishing myself up a salad wrap and my dad. And this was after we'd been given the flick, but we were still kind of like, trying to play nice so that we wouldn't cop harassment.

Dad says to me in front of a whole lot of people, how's the diet going? And I've just looked at him and gone, you know, I'm this shape because I'm pregnant, right?

Clare: 00:58:54

Yeah. Like, this is not chocolate. Like, this is a baby.

Speaker C: 00:58:59

And I just remember the look of horror on a few people's faces because I back chatted that way. And then one of the others started talking about how, you know. Yeah. The weight that she'd gained in pregnancy.

I was like, oh, actually, with Henry, I lost weight, you know, and, like. But just answering back, that defined it was it Was something. And like I say, I think I'm hot.

It's hyperbole, but it's also retraining my own neuronal pathways. I don't owe anyone skinny, I don't owe anyone pretty. I don't owe anyone makeup. I don't owe anyone anything.

This is about how I look, is about my self expression and the life that I have chosen involves carbohydrates because absolutely.

Sam: 00:59:47

So good.

Speaker C: 00:59:48

And because the Italian quarter is so close to my house. I mean, am I going to miss that?

No, I, I don't, I don't want to live as a slave to diet culture slash purity culture slash church culture after I've left. So that was one thing is I was like, I have to unlearn this for my daughter.

But also like it was things like are we going to smack, you know, and going no, we're not going to smack our children. We're not going to inflict that damage on them.

Because I mean as in the psychology, in the psychology space, we know that it doesn't help with learning, it doesn't help with any of that. I decided I was going to be a parent who co regulates with my child until they decide, until they, you know, grow their own ability to co regulate.

It means that my children are probably hugged a lot more than I was as a child. But in a way that's healing and you know, teaching them consent from the get go. Can I hug you? I would like to hug you, but you don't have to say yes.

Things like that, teaching them those boundaries from the get go but also not teaching them body shame. So there's, there's ways in which fighting for your children is fighting for yourself.

Because like even my choice to, to date is, is like, well, what do I want to model for my children?

Do I want to model that you have to make yourself sad in order for the other people, other people in your life to feel like you are serving them, you know. Or do I, do I have a right to be happy? Do I have a right to pursue love?

And so yes, I'm seeing someone and he's lovely and the kids don't know about him yet because none of their business yet.

But you know, like there's a lot of reparenting that is, is involved in the healing process and a lot of actual physical care that is involved in the healing process. And I can't stress this enough to my deconstructors and cult leavers and people leaving coercive control. Your nervous system is not okay.

Clare: 01:02:14

Not at all.

Speaker C: 01:02:16

Not at all. You need to sleep. In the aftermath, you might need. Need so, so much sleep.

You might need help with sleep because if you're having vivid dreams, you're not dropping down to the deepest sleep cycles because your sympathetic nervous system, your fight or flight is still pinging. Like, you might need to learn different types of rest.

Not just sleeping, but sitting in the sunshine and reading a book, but going for, going for a coffee with a friend, going for a walk, creative rest or something else. Get a visual journal, a whole bunch of stick. I don't know, something. But these different, you know, there's different types of rest and that are.

Teaching your nervous system to regulate is something that's so difficult because church culture to me was also toxic positivity and toxic productivity.

Clare: 01:03:12

So culture.

Speaker C: 01:03:13

Yeah, it's hustle culture. So, yeah, sometimes you got to go. Not going to work today.

Clare: 01:03:18

Yeah.

Speaker C: 01:03:19

And it's an go get a massage and I'm going to hang out with a friend or I'm going to lay on the grass. Yeah, lie on the grass. Yeah, I was going to say take a nap in the sunshine. But don't do that if you get burnt to a crisp.

Clare: 01:03:32

Yeah, it depends on what part of Australia you're in.

Speaker C: 01:03:35

Totally. Like, there's, there's breath work, you know, classes that can really unlock the conditioned, physically held trauma.

You're gonna need a therapist because deconstruction isn't just a mental thing. Like, it's also about the conditioned responses in your nervous system.

Like certain smells might trigger memories, certain sounds, certain scriptures, certain cliches that you hear thrown around. There can be a lot that'll just make your system jump and you need to work that out too. So.

Yeah, so in the aftermath of, of a high control religion or, you know, whatever it is that you're deconstructing, sympathetic nervous system care is vital. It's about really looking after your body. And yeah, that's something. So for me, medical care is part of my recovery, ongoing.

Would it surprise you, I have an autoimmune disorder that was triggered under extreme stress. Stress. Of course it wouldn't.

Clare: 01:04:44

Not really. Not really, no.

Speaker C: 01:04:49

So, yes, there's things that I have to really take my physical health very seriously. I have to take my physical rest very seriously. And that for me means finding multiple forms of rest. Because for me, I was so.

I was sleeping so much that I was like, okay, I actually don't think this is restorative anymore. I think it's dissociation. I think it's I can't, I can't with today I'm going to sleep. So, you know, that became a thing.

So now I've got other strategies.

You can be as nerdy as you like with deconstruction, but it's the deconditioning and it's the physical care that I think people don't prioritize enough in at all.

Clare: 01:05:44

Absolutely. And I think it's. For me, when I. That's a key aspect when I explain the difference between deconstruction and processing religious trauma. Right.

So like we heal religious trauma through the nervous system and deconstructing is largely, you know, you're pulling apart and so it's, that's largely going to feel like a cognitive based thing that you're doing, but it doesn't mean that it's still not living in your body. If there's trauma there that's in your body, not in your brain.

And if you have been in survival mode for so long, sometimes for as long as you have existed, then there's going to be a recovery period before you even get to the resting period.

Speaker C: 01:06:34

Because 100%.

Clare: 01:06:36

Yeah.

Speaker C: 01:06:38

Yeah. So it's, it's really so, so important. Like. Yeah. So when I was diagnosed with this particular. I thought it was burnout.

I, I was, I thought I'd hit burnout. Like, I was so tired I couldn't walk up the stairs without having a break. And then. Yeah.

And lo and behold, I was diagnosed with this autoimmune thing instead. And for the first time in my life I went, ah, Tiredness is something I have to listen to. I've been ignoring it all my life.

I've been pushing through, I've been breaking through. I've been not letting limitations hold me back.

Clare: 01:07:16

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

Speaker C: 01:07:19

Yeah, but is he strengthening? No.

Clare: 01:07:24

No.

Speaker C: 01:07:25

Making yourself sick, love. So, you know, so I started to really take it seriously this year and. Yeah. And then I forgot about it for a while and.

And old habits reverted and then I gave myself a concussion and had to be on bed rest for a week. So, you know.

Clare: 01:07:41

Yeah.

Speaker C: 01:07:42

Sometimes the universe gives you a tap on the shoulder. Sometimes it gives you a whack over the head. Yeah.

Clare: 01:07:47

I mean, either way, it'll tell you what you need. Sometimes it's just less pleasant than others.

I mean, like, what has it been like for you to like, I guess reintegrate into like mainstream secular society? Jeez, like pop culture and all of those sorts of things?

Speaker C: 01:08:14

I don't know. I don't know. Yeah.

Like in some ways I feel like I'm 150 and I've lived three lifetimes at least and I've seen too much and I know too much and in other ways I feel like a 15 year old girl. And the fact is I think both things are true.

And like I caught up with a lady I used to work with 16 years ago just the other day and she is so no bullshit and she just kind of goes so what about this? And just fires me a question. And I was like, oh, let's go straight for the big guns first. And.

And she said, oh, you always seemed different to the others. And I was like, I cringe when people tell me that because I'm like, I felt like I was.

Clare: 01:08:59

Yeah.

Speaker C: 01:09:00

But also I felt like I wasn't. And sometimes you feel like people are just blowing smoke up you to, you know, you know, you're not like the other culties, you're different.

And you'd say that to every one of us. But. And in truth there probably is a group dynamic that's different from individual dynamics.

Like individually people in cults are very often intelligent and often really earnest and well intentioned people who have been indoctrinated and into a system of mind control that is really, you know, a toxic transcendent belief system and a toxic central charismatic figure and all of that. So like I had, I'd worked in secular jobs, I'd done quite well, I'd been to a secular university.

But all the while participating in my own indoctrination, participating in staying in the lines of mind control. You kind of tread that line. You're in the world but not of it.

And you know, you know how the normals dress and you know, you dress mostly like the normals and you have jobs like the normals even though you know that God has sent you to that workplace to take over and to bring dominion. And so that was a little bit dizzying.

I found that immediately after news broke that we had left and we tried to keep it under wraps because we really didn't want confrontation.

But as soon as people found that we were out, all of these relationships that have been quite tentative because became quite genuine because I wasn't reaching out to them to bring them along to convert them anymore. I wasn't, it was equal.

So for the first time in my life I was having real conversations with people and I found that they quite genuinely did want to support and did want to help.

I also found that there was a friction point in those conversations because Inasmuch as they really did want to help and support me in a horrendously difficult time, they also wanted the gory details of what goes on behind those doors. And I had to exercise a little bit of self care because my.

My desire to trauma dump was also balanced by my desire to protect my family, to protect myself from more conflict with my family, and to not be like a circus sideshow, like this interesting new play thing that we've got to talk about. So that was kind of the first few years that we were out were, you know, we're there, then moving to Melbourne, I just got to blend in.

I just got to blend in, and it was covered. So in Melbourne, that meant travel restrictions. It meant no one could come looking for me.

Yeah, it meant that I felt really, really safe and befriended the neighbors and, you know, and then my kids started to go to school and. And I kind of became known as the funny chatty girl. Like, I've always got a joke to make dark sense of humor, of course. But yeah, like.

And I kind of flew under the radar for the first couple of years that we were down here. And then Nick McKenzie found me. I'd been running the podcast Unchurchable under an alias. The alias was chosen because I've been cut off from family.

And I kind of said to myself, well, you guys, you can't cut me off from everything. So I took my grandmother's names and made it my moniker. So Kit Kennedy was my.

Was my alias, because I needed to blog and I needed to figure out the doctrines and I needed to connect with the deconstruction community and. And blogging and podcasting was a way to do that. But behind the scenes, there were political players who knew that the pseudonym was me.

And when the branch stacking started to happen within the Liberal Party, I think there was a whisper across the political divide that there was another Heath sister who had flown the coop. And then when a journalist kind of connected the dots, I started getting emails through to my page going, I've got to talk to you.

I've got to talk to you. And there was a few different journalists circulating.

I'd been saying no to media for a long, long time because I don't want to be a trash mag kind of storyline.

But there was this real burden of if these guys get the win and they don't have a target placed on their back, there could be literal lives in the balance because of this, specifically the gay conversion stuff.

But as we look over to the states to Project 25 to this aggressively misogynistic, you know, roll back the women's right to vote, have them all barefoot, pregnant in the kitchen and enforced pregnancies and all of this crazy stuff. We're going, this is the gateway drug. Like, you know, this is, you know, rolling back no fault divorce.

If you roll back no fault divorce, what you get as dead women. Like, absolutely, like it's serious stuff. And I was sitting with that and I'd said no to a lot of journalists.

And then one I said no to, she goes, if I can get an investigative journalist who's got some teeth, would you speak to them? Just for me, would you speak to them? I was like, fine, okay, fine.

And then, yeah, and then Nick McKenzie and I mean, he's Australia's leading investigative journalist. I think quite peerless at this point in time. But it took, it took him a while to, it took him a while to convince me.

And it was definitely done under the condition that it didn't center my story, but it centered other survivors. But eventually the segment that came out that I'm sure you'll link in the show notes, it really only covered sort of 1% of the story, if that.

I mean, the three of us that stepped forward for that one and there was some other coverage in the Age, which is Melbourne's, you know, Victoria's leading newspaper there, there was five that stepped forward for that.

But the three of us who interviewed for 60 Minutes one is, was Patrick and obviously his was about going through gay conversion therapy and the political angle.

My storyline was about the arranged marriage, or what we call the arranged marriage and about the, the trauma of, of, you know, this, this other church and the political stuff as well, because I stood for the family first party. And the third storyline was that of a trans man.

And it's just like, because I knew him prior to transition and I was his discipler and I won't dead name him, I'll never do that.

But we hadn't seen each other in 20 years and then, yeah, and he was outing himself as a trans man to, in, in service of this because he knew just how important it was. And he was telling me that he was nervous about it because he lived in a small kind of area with his partner who is also non binary.

And after the segment aired, he went to a hardware store and he was a bit nervous and you know, he loaded up the, loaded up the trolley and went to the checkouts. And they're like, oh no, you're not paying for this, mate. We're so proud of you and, like, at the local hardware store, like. Yeah.

So, you know, it was a big. It was a big kind of moment, but, yeah.

Clare: 01:17:03

Do you have any contact with your family still?

Speaker C: 01:17:06

I do have. I'm friends with one of my sisters on Instagram, but it's not. We don't chat.

I love them dearly, but the last contact I had with one of my other sisters, who's getting married soon, kind of showed me where the lay of the land was. And I really realized that there's a determination to maintain their narrative in which I'm the villain.

And that means that there can be no accountability for the things that my dad's done, the things that the church has done, the things. The trail of wreckage that's led to their door or led from their door and.

But they want me to take accountability or, you know, they want me to say that I was wrong in speaking up, and I know that it hurt them when I spoke up. I know that they would take it as a collective blow, even though it wasn't about my mother, it wasn't about my two younger sisters.

It wasn't about my brother. It was the target. Even wasn't my sister, who's the MP now. It was, hey, be aware of this church. Be aware of this pastor. This is.

You know, there's people who've said that they were groomed away from their families. There's people whose family relationships were shattered. There's, you know, there's been. Abuses have been covered up and all this kind of stuff.

And, you know, as with. As with these churches, like, there's the lead story.

And then I kind of feel like I'm being stalked by the skeletons in my father's closet a little bit at the moment. But, you know, they're not my stories to tell, and I try to tell myself they're not my burdens to carry.

But, you know, the cycle breaker, the role of the cycle breaker is a heavy, heavy thing. And I don't know why I signed up for it. I don't even think I did. I think that was my higher self or something.

But me and my higher self have got to have words, because I want the timeline in which I have the, you know, endless lottery wins, luck, endless good health, and the adoring, unconditional love of an ethical billionaire who looks like Chris Hemsworth. You know, like, you know, I mean.

Clare: 01:19:37

Just like the small things, like, it's owes me. I mean, like, outside of the.

The heavy burden that it is to be, you know, whether you use the term Cycle breaker, whistleblower, whatever term you use, it is a heavy role to carry.

Speaker C: 01:19:58

Yeah.

Clare: 01:19:59

If we come into like present day, what like, I love trying to reclaim language that sometimes we think the church.

Speaker C: 01:20:10

Owns, but they don't.

Clare: 01:20:13

What brings you joy and peace?

Speaker C: 01:20:16

What brings me joy and peace? Well, going to Bunnings.

Clare: 01:20:22

But not like it's gotta be a particular Bunnings. I mean, in fairness, Bunnings is great fun.

Speaker C: 01:20:31

I know. It is so good. Office works brings me joy. No, like, I really, I've got a wonderful and truly eclectic group of friends down here. Comedy.

I do really like, I've had a crack at it once, I had a crack at it twice actually and. But I made some really beautiful friends through there and I may take it up again, do a bit of stand up comedy.

But I really love just going out for a good night of laughs. I love, you know, cinema. I really want to get into script writing.

So I've got a couple of writing buddies that are, you know, one's trying to get me to put on a stage play that she'll stage manage. So there's those kind of creative pursuits. I, you know, obviously I am seeing someone.

I get a huge amount of joy out of a soccer mom and a taekwondo mom and not putting my kids in after school care on Wednesday so they can just come and, you know, sit on the couch and cuddle and watch tv. I love doing the iconic Melbourne trifecta. And if you're in Melbourne, you have to do this. You have to go to Tiamos on Lygon street for Italian.

Then you have to go next door to Readings in Carlton, which is the best bookshop in the world, I swear to God. And then across to Cinema Nova for like a good indie film. And it's all like, it's all there live on street. So I love that on a Sunday afternoon.

I love photography wandering around Melbourne's art galleries or they're, you know, doing a bit of street photography and the iconic laneways and stuff like that. And of course I do like, I run a podcast with Sherry Smith and Kate west called Survivors Discuss.

Unchurchable has been on hiatus for a while because there's so many deconstruction podcasts, podcasts. I really need to think about what direction I'm going to take that in.

But I write, I do a little bit of, you know, Twitter is more of a political space for me because I've got quite a, like, I've got quite a lot of insider connections and stuff like that. I run a evangelical Explainer kind of substack.

And I do a lot of threads, Evangelical explainer threads, threads on Twitter so that we can join the political action with the elements of evangelicalism that people would think it's just too bonkers to exist, bringing those worlds together to kind of explain to people why it's concerning or what it all means and what the lived experience of evangelicals and people in high control religion is. And yeah, I just love catching up with friends for brunch, really. That's, you know, that's what brings me joy. Yeah.

Clare: 01:23:21

And, I mean, we touched on it a little bit early when we were talking about the nervous system, but I tend to finish these episodes with. What thing would you say, word of encouragement, piece of advice.

Would you say to someone who is fresh out of a cult group, fresh in their deconstruction, they are just like knee deep in the thick of all of that?

Speaker C: 01:23:43

Yeah, yeah. I would tell them what a dear friend told me.

And I actually just, actually just wrote to an artist friend of mine this morning going, can you illustrate this for me? I want to print it and frame it. She said to me, don't let anyone shit in your peace bubble. You get to live the life you want.

Clare: 01:24:03

Yeah.

Speaker C: 01:24:04

And it was. It was funny. I laughed and then I thought, thought, yeah, you get to build a peace bubble around you. You get to decide what you let in.

That kind of boundary was never something that was allowed in in this old iteration. There was accountability and there was scripture and blah, blah, blah, blah. But no, what brings you peace, Let that inside the bubble.

And what doesn't bring you peace doesn't have to be in it. And, you know, there's this whole life coaching thing or you got to be outside your comfort zone. You actually don't.

Your comfort zone is the place where your nervous system rests. It's the place where you gather strength so that you can.

You can actually grow from inside your comfort zone by just stepping to the edges of it and then coming back, just stretching it a little and then coming back. You don't have to be constantly throwing yourself out there. And outside my comfort zone, you can grow slowly. You can grow in a safe way.

But yeah, yeah, don't let anyone shit in your peace bubble. You get to live the life you want.

Clare: 01:25:08

I love that. That's great. Definitely get that illustrated. That's wonderful. Well, I mean, thank you so much for joining me.

I will link everything in the show notes, and I am thankful as a therapist to have voices like yours in this space in Australia and New Zealand. Zealand where the demographic in the landscape of religion and politics is just different to in in America.

And and I appreciate having strong fierce voices like yours in that space who like don't pull any punches like that, no bullshit approach is just like my kind of jam. And so so I'm so thankful for that and I'm thank you.

Thankful for you joining me to share your story when I know how much emotional energy it takes to dredge it all back up. So I'm grateful.

Speaker C: 01:26:08

It's my pleasure. And it's been so good joining you today.

Clare: 01:26:11

Amazing.

Sam: 01:26:16

Thanks for tuning in to this episode of beyond the Surface. I hope you found today's conversation as in 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 on your journey, you're not alone. Until next time, keep exploring, keep questioning and keep moving forward.

Clare: 01:26:48

Take care.