Ep. 8 - Jennifer's Story: Religious Trauma, Deconstruction, Leaving the Church, Living with Chronic Pain, and Adult-Diagnosed Autism

00:13 - Melissa (Host)

Welcome to This Is My Story, where everyday women share their stories of struggles and setbacks that have shaped their lives. I'm your host, Melissa Teutsch. In today's episode, Jennifer Wildeboer shares about religious trauma, her journey through deconstruction and, ultimately, her decision to leave the church. We also talk about living with chronic pain from a spinal injury, as well as Jennifer's more recent autism diagnosis. Before we jump into today's episode, don't forget to follow us on our social media and subscribe to us wherever you listen to your podcasts. You can find all our social media links, as well as more information about us, at ThisIsMyStoryPodcast.com. 

00:55 - Jennifer (Guest)

My name is Jennifer and this is my story. 

00:59 - Melissa (Host)

I did take a little bit of a deep dive into your TikTok not too deep. You had said you had covered a lot early on in your TikTok about your religious trauma and your deconstruction. For the purposes of this podcast and this episode, we're going to define deconstruction as the questioning or reevaluation of your beliefs. Is that something you agree with? 

01:22 - Jennifer (Guest)

Oh, 100%, and just looking at it piece by piece. 

01:26 - Melissa (Host)

Yeah, yeah, I just wanted to in case. Somebody was like I hear deconstruction all the time, but I don't really actually know what that means in terms of religious Right. 

01:37 - Jennifer (Guest)

There's a big difference between deconstruction and deconstruction, which I think a lot of people use those interchangeably. Deconversion is leaving the religion. Deconstruction is pulling down the things in the religion that aren't really supposed to be there in the first place. Yeah, that's how I like to think of it. 

01:52 - Melissa (Host)

Yeah, I just want to start with that. We're going to talk about more than just that today, but just want to start there with what exactly we mean by deconstruction. You described in what you were sent me for my prep your religious trauma is based mainly around the satanic panic, purity culture and rapture anxiety which I told my husband that and he was like 100%. He grew up Southern Baptist. He was like definitely, definitely see all that. 

02:27

We started chatting about this because I was like I grew up in a really rural Southern Baptist church. It did not have full time youth ministers, children's ministers, it was just the only full timer was the pastor, a lot of volunteers in and out. I think that kind of shielded us from some of this because there wasn't a core group of people that were formulating all of this. I was like, well, I didn't really see any of this. We would do the Heaven's Gates and Hills Flames, the Judgment House or different stuff like that. I think I went to a True Love Waits rally one time but none of it was so intense that I felt like it really created trauma for me. But I know that everyone's experiences are different. Can you just start out as a child walking me through how those experiences work for you. 

03:28 - Jennifer (Guest)

It's important to note that at the time it was the 80s they didn't really know what ADHD was and nobody really knew that autism looked different in girls. A lot of the stuff that I struggled with behavior-wise and things like that that I get in trouble for a lot were sensory-related. That plays into it a little bit because I grew up in a castle. I grew up in the Assemblies of God, which is the respectable version of Pentecostal, which that's kind of their joke. It's also very old-school holiness, which is a different thing. That's more the makeup, the skirts all the time and no cards, no movies, that kind of stuff. My mom came from that background. My dad came from a Baptist background. He was converted right before he went to Vietnam in a Pentecostal church. He had a very Holy Ghost kind of conversion. He came back from Vietnam, went to Bible college, met my mom. They became ministers and traveled with me on the road for two years. My mom said it was like being in a shoebox with a Tasmanian devil, which always makes me laugh because I can see it. I have children now too and God paid me back. 

04:40

I guess that's my earliest memories. Are people shouting and having revivals because my dad's an evangelist, then he goes into pastoring. The first church that I really remember was a church up in Seneca, south Carolina. It was at the height of Satanic Panic. 

05:00

Now I being autistic, being ADHD, overactive imagination, incredibly literal child, when you grow up seeing your demons getting cast out and all this stuff, it's very much like growing up in a fantasy novel, but everything's a little bit terrifying. Some of that blossomed into me, developing routines and certain ways that I would pray to make sure that I didn't go to hell in my sleep or something. It was very intense. Yeah, the Satanic Panic stuff at that church was out of control. It wasn't my parents doing it, it was some of the people in the church. The church actually split over that at one point. They're all really good people. They were just really into conspiracies After being told that everyone is a witch and wanted to infiltrate the church and steal your baby's blood and all this stuff. Eight years old, hearing this stuff and I read this book about it that I shouldn't have read. 

05:59

But when you're by yourself in your dad's office you just read what's on the shelf. That was how I read the Strong-Willed Child. I was like, oh, this is about me, but yeah. So I mean there is a lot of that. But it was a really terrifying time. 

06:14

Then, as I went into middle school, I started to back off from believing so much in that stuff. I mean, I still had a pretty healthy fear of demons and all that kind of thing. Into middle school I was awkward, I was not cute I don't mean not cute the way that all middle schoolers are not cute, I mean bullied, not cute and so I was just kind of by myself a lot and I disappeared into reading and things like that. But as I became older and youth group culture started to develop in the early 90s, it was like custom made for me. 

06:52

Purity culture was easy for me because I don't consider myself asexual but I'm probably somewhere on that spectrum I just thought where's all this lust I'm supposed to struggle with? It just never really came up. But yeah, so I was like Miss True Love Waits. I would preach to my friends. I would tell my high school friends, you should wait till you're married. All this stuff it was the hugest thing to me at the time. Then I would feel so disappointed when I would find out that one of my friends had sex with their boyfriend. I would be like, oh man, there goes another one. I was really messed up, but I thought that I was out here just being Buffy the Vampire Slayer for Jesus and fighting all the demons. 

07:37 - Melissa (Host)

So you were a preacher's kid, yes. So how was that? Did you feel like you were held to higher standards? Everybody was watching you to see what you were doing, always being judged. 

07:53 - Jennifer (Guest)

Oh yeah, I know Every single one of those things. 

07:56

Then, on top of that, you never really got to be your own person because you were always kind of a mouthpiece for the pastor and a mouthpiece for the church. 

08:04

So everything you said wasn't just held to scrutiny, it was held discreetly by the people listening to it and by my parents making sure that I'm on message and that I'm not misrepresenting things, because I always ask hard questions, got in trouble for it a lot in church, like me as a five year old going are angels terrifying, and my teacher being like I have no idea why you're asking this question. I'm like because every time they show up they're like don't freak out, be not afraid, and so it was like little things like that. I get in trouble a lot for that. And so my parents would always kind of be like just don't say anything about your business, keep it to yourself. Yeah, so it was very much one thing in public and then in private, not anything drastically different, but just even my mom and dad are totally like they would listen to some secular music and stuff like that whenever nobody was around, living on the wild side. 

09:01 - Melissa (Host)

Did y'all have a TV? 

09:02 - Jennifer (Guest)

Oh yeah, oh yeah. Mom and dad have never really been super like they'd watch HBO whenever it came on for free and stuff like that, but they've never been super strict about things the way that their churches were strict about them, which was always my dad would kind of play along and be like, okay, sure, just don't tell them we listened to Fox 97 or whatever. 

09:22 - Melissa (Host)

My dad grew up in a castle, and so my mom would tell me sometimes that some family members would have a TV, but it would be like hidden in the back room so that if the preacher came over they wouldn't see it. 

09:37 - Jennifer (Guest)

Yeah, I mean, and that's the whole thing, and like you hear that joke about how, what is it? Jewish people don't recognize Jesus as the Messiah, protestant people don't recognize the Pope as the church authority, and Baptist and Pentecostals don't recognize each other at the liquor store. So there's kind of the you know, to pretend not to see each other, which is why I started going to a Methodist church, because we could go to the liquor store. 

10:02 - Melissa (Host)

nobody says anything just kind of camping out a little bit in your childhood. You know, looking at your TikTok it seems like you have some pretty crazy stories from your childhood in the church. Are there any that you just, you know, pull out as your party stories? 

10:21 - Jennifer (Guest)

Yeah, I mean I have a few that I like to pull out there. Funny, a lot of the ones I realized is another beautiful thing about being autistic and not reading social cues. I didn't realize how everybody kind of got quiet during some of my stories. At the end of it they're like are you okay? So I try to pull out the funnier ones. 

10:42

Well, there's one where the time that I accidentally lied to a lesbian about seeing a demon, that was in college. The reason that I tell that story is because the lady that we were walking with she was kind of trying, I think, to impress me with her spiritualness, you know, but it was that very repressed kind of you know weird Bible college and that's not really what's going on, you know kind of thing. And she's like so do you see that demon over there in front of that light pole? And I was like no. And she was like well, can you see it? Now the light shifted a little bit and I'm like well, I didn't really notice the light pole before, but now I can see it. Maybe it was just in front of it, I don't know, I couldn't really. So I'm like trying to play along and not hurt this person's ego, because they're obviously trying to impress me and I'm just like I'm just gonna lie about demons, it's fine. It's fine, it's fine, just lie about the demons. 

11:42

And then I accidentally lied to my mom about demons when I was five. So I had told her like this house that we lived in was supposed to be possessed which I don't even think is biblical, that houses can be possessed, but whatever. So all these things had happened, and I also want to point out that this all happened around the time that my little sister was born and my mother was on painkillers that's an important point in the story but that she would see demonic activity and things. And I was telling her about a dream that I had where I saw a big green monster and ugly green flip-flops come out of the grate and the floor. 

12:23

Well, she took that to be a real story and she told that story for 40 years. I mean, oh my gosh. And I didn't know, I didn't have the heart to tell her until like last year, I think. I was like I didn't actually see that I was telling you what I was imagining and she said well, what about the wolf in the closet? I'm like that was good work from the never ending story. I just was like freaking out because that movie scared me so bad and I was like, oh my gosh, I guess, I guess I lied to my mom about demons for 40 years. 

12:55 - Melissa (Host)

Did they like have somebody come cleanse the house? 

12:58 - Jennifer (Guest)

Oh yeah. So that was like a regular occurrence. They would come over, and because that night that that all happened, my mom called over some of the like the prayer warriors you know from the church and basically was like we don't have any olive oil, we're going to use Crisco. And so there were smears of Crisco over every door in that house until, like, they remodeled it 20 years later. It's a very well protected house, I guess, but they anointed it with Crisco and just went on their way. That sounds so Southern. It is. It's like you could reach up there and make a biscuit, like I mean, there was like a smirsh mush. Oh my gosh, it's like Southern Gothic plus just a tiny little bit of demons. You know, just the normal amount. 

13:49 - Melissa (Host)

As you've gotten older and kind of processed everything, what things were like a normal part of your life growing up that you thought were normal and then you realized this is not normal. 

14:01 - Jennifer (Guest)

It's not normal to have a thing where people bring their records and set them on fire in the art of your church. I didn't know that. Why were you burning records? Well, they're of the devil. 

14:11

We had this guy come in. 

14:12

His name was Billy Mayo and he had this thing called the tour or what was the journey through rock, and I had a t-shirt that I was super proud of because it was black and I love black, and I didn't have any black clothing because obviously the devil but it said, I took the journey through rock and realized the real rock. Jesus Christ, he would come and he would play these songs backwards and be like and do you hear them saying, start to smoke marijuana? And I'd be like, no, I heard him say her, her, her. You know, I don't know where you're getting this from, but okay, and then he would play some of the ones where we now know that the bands put the backmasking on their on purpose because it made a cool sound in the song or because they were just messing with people. So there's some of that. And gosh, so you burned Smurfs also, yeah, and I had to get rid of my toys and this is awful had to get rid of Shiro because she used magic and so many fun things. 

15:12 - Melissa (Host)

Were you growing up in the time of Harry Potter? 

15:14 - Jennifer (Guest)

Oh no, I was in college when Harry Potter came out, Actually had to read that for one of the band books that I had to read. Read that one in the giver. But yeah the, if Harry Potter had been out I would have been all on it and there would have been nothing my parents could have done to stop me. Because the one thing that all of that did was give me this very big love of horror and of any kind of like true crime or conspiracy theories and stuff Like, because I was raised around it. I'm just like kind of obsessed with learning more about what really was going on, so it was a little bit of a special interest. 

15:52 - Melissa (Host)

The one thing I do remember from my childhood like I said, we didn't my church didn't really participate in the whole satanic panic or any of that really, but I do remember the boycott of Proctor and Gamble. Yeah, because of the logo with satanic or something. I can't remember exactly what it was. 

16:13 - Jennifer (Guest)

Yes, there was something to do with the logo, with Proctor and Gamble, and then there was something to do with oh my gosh, what's her name? She's a designer. Oh goodness, Liz Claiborne was the other one that they were like we can't do Liz Claiborne because it's got this and that and the other and the marketing materials, and gosh. And then they tried to ban Disney. I mean so many things. 

16:34 - Melissa (Host)

So were you guys all participating in that as a church? 

16:37 - Jennifer (Guest)

It was one of the issues that my dad was like rolling his eyes about, and the church that split from our church eventually was the group of people that was really into it. So, yeah, he was kind of like, no, we're not doing that. So he's always had a lot of wisdom about him. 

Most of the weird stuff that I thought was normal was stuff that I did because of my understanding of what other people were saying to do, not so much because they told me to do it. If that makes sense, so I would take it in, because when you are on spectrum, you kind of take things and you go you have to like, okay, I have to make a rule for things in this category to stay safe and do the right things socially. And so I would pray every night before bed. I would try to list out everything I'd done all day long, and when I was really in my like sinful area in high school, where I would cuss all the time and stuff like that, I'd be like God forgive me for saying bleep, god forgive me for saying bleep, every single thing. And I would lay there and I would cry at night because I was worried that I wasn't asking for enough forgiveness, or I would. Or, for example, if I could immediately get in touch with somebody and I needed them, I'd have a panic attack. I wasn't thinking they died, I was thinking the rapture happened and I got left behind. 

17:56

I mean, like there was. I mean it was intense. I mean we watched these rapture movies from the seventies and they just scarred everybody. But we watched them in our Christian school and it was. It was a lot, just a lot, a lot. That wasn't normal and I honestly didn't know that everybody didn't go to church every day until I was in like middle school, because I'd go on Sundays twice, I'd go on Wednesday night and then I went to school at the church Monday through Friday and we'd have chapel twice a week. So I mean I don't go to church anymore because I feel like I did my time. You know, like I got it banked up, so stuff like that was where I was like, oh, regular people sometimes get to just sleep in on Sundays. That's neat, you know. Or they get to see their family on holidays. That's kind of interesting. 

18:42 - Melissa (Host)

How did the concept of purity culture affect you after you? I mean, you said for high school you didn't really feel like you know, you felt asexual, like you didn't really feel like it was an issue. But once you got older, how did that affect you? 

18:59 - Jennifer (Guest)

Well, the big thing was it really limited my social interactions with people a lot. Purity culture in my later years, you know, went to a Christian college, a Pentecostal holiness college, and I went there. We always joked about one for your MRS degree and that was kind of one of the things I was hoping for because I was like, well, I'm a big religious freakazoid and I need other freakazoids to choose from if I'm going to get married. And it was all just very logical in my head Like I've never. I mean, I always love all the romance and the sweeping stories and stuff like that, but I can never square it with being such a like strong Christian because everything was so passionate and you're not supposed to be like that. So, you know, it was like this constant tug in my head of that and I'm going to I'm just going to be real. 

19:52

Purity culture worked out great for me in the end because I waited till I was married. Husband waited till we were married. Like we are happily married 18 years down the road. But that is not what happens for everybody and a big portion of why it worked for us was because we just had those conversations early on and we're like look, I'm 25, I've waited this long. We're going to wait a little bit longer. And it was more practical and just like it was. Just basically I had to get the logical, practical side out of the way. He just told me I like you. And I was like I like you too, and then we dated. We broke up for a little while and then I told him I like you again. He said I like you too, and then it was like we were married within like 10 months of that. 

20:38

But it was. It's because we're both very logic driven people and not so much like flights of fancy, but we figured out that once you like each other and that's like settled, all the other stuff fell into place. So you know it wasn't like some passionless you know. Oh, I assume you greatly kind of like you know what's her name? Oh, jane Austen kind of thing. It's not nothing like that. You know. It was just more long lines of oh, you can just be friends and then just fall in love. That's cool, I just do that, that's easier. 

21:14 - Melissa (Host)

You briefly mentioned the rapture anxiety and you've said that you deal. You know that's something you have had to deal with is anxiety and depression throughout your life. Is that something you still deal with, like is it still haunting you or have you been able to move past that so? 

21:34 - Jennifer (Guest)

Mentally, just like cognitively. No, I know now what I believe and what I don't believe and you know, I kind of have my head wrapped around what's real and what's not real. What I will say happens is that, like sometimes my body just remembers things and so if I can't find my kid, my first thought is not oh my gosh, the rapture. But I do have that heightened emotional response because there's that like abandonment thing. You know that wound that you can heal it, but sometimes that scar acts up. You know you don't mean to feel it and you don't really feel it deeply, but you have to catch it and go. That's not a real feeling, that's something because of trauma, you know, and then you have to move on from it. So I've gotten really good at doing that, which has helped tremendously, and so my anxiety now is just regular garden variety, chemical imbalance kind, you know. 

22:28 - Melissa (Host)

So you said that you began to deconstruct denominational doctrines as a young 20-something and then deconstructed everything after you experienced a major life event that left you with a permanent pain condition. Can you share more first about the initial deconstruction and what started that process and what a deconstruction looked like for you then, before the major life event? 

22:57 - Jennifer (Guest)

I know that people tend to use fundamentalists to talk more about, like the Baptist and like that branch of theology. But you can be a fundamentalist Pentecostal as well, and I really was. I still believed a lot of that stuff after college, but then some things didn't square. We were dealing with 9-11, and I was seeing them invade a country that didn't appear to have any connection to 9-11. And I was having to square with the fact that people who love Jesus were okay with blowing up people who didn't look like us. 

23:30

I heard people celebrating when you know, things like when Osama bin Laden died, and I was like gosh, I can't celebrate death, even when it's someone awful Like that that doesn't feel like Jesus. You know, it's little things like that broke down as I went and I said I need a more gentle version of faith because this one doesn't square with what I see of Jesus. So my husband was very much the same and he theologically kind of abandoned Pentecostal thinking during school because he was a biblical studies major. But you know, talking with him and he was one of the first people that I could just ask questions to without judgment, because a lot of that stuff, stuff he'd already kind of deconstructed himself and we were talking through it and I was like, yeah, so I mean, if you're going to be like the quote unquote like leader of the family, spiritually, I had to figure out where I'm going, because, because I don't know what to believe about a lot of this. 

24:26

And we eventually we stayed in a Pentecostal church for five years as youth pastors, not because we were still Pentecostal, but because we loved those children and wanted to see them all the way through high school. And then something horrible and traumatic there happened, which is another story for another day and we left very abruptly and the next thing that we did was try to attend a Methodist church and I was like, now this theology kind of squares with what we believe, but the people kind of seem to be more open and loving to different types of people. So it was mainly just that little chipping away for years and years and years. But I was still pretty much like heaven and hell and I'm not affirming, even though I love gay people, I'm not affirming, I'm not this, I'm not that. And then I got hit by a bus and it broke my brain and I decided to further deconstruct from there. 

25:21 - Melissa (Host)

Yeah. So you asked me can we talk about how cannabis broke my brain and led to my trauma, recognition and healing? And so I was like yeah, sure, let's go for it. Yeah Well, so what happened? 

25:35 - Jennifer (Guest)

Well, so in 2019, I got hit by a school bus while driving a Prius and it jacked up all of the facet joints in my back. One of my discs slipped a little, the other one was punctured and it was just this whole thing of just constant, chronic pain. I have always been a T-totaler, like I would have a drink, but I'd never have more than two. It just made me feel sick. I didn't have fun in high school. I didn't touch anything that altered my mind. You know like there, the Holy Spirit was my drug. You know what is it Like? Jesus is my anti-drug. 

26:11

And so a good friend of mine who had had back surgery, who is another like really good Christian friend, she comes to me and she goes I think that you need to try weight, and I was like I'm sorry what? And I'm like clutching my pearls because, heaven forbid, I do something illegal. And you know allegedly, and you know I was like, well, I don't know. And so she said well, let me, let me, just, let me just let you try this. And she hands me this and I don't know anything about what to do, how much to do this or how to, yeah, and so I just smoke it like a cigarette, and that's not how you do it. It's just not. And because when you do, you start to hear voices and stuff starts to happen. But the thing that I started hearing was all of these voices in my head telling me all these bad things about myself and and how messed up I was and how I wasn't as good as my husband because I didn't know what I believed, and you know, I was just pretending and all this stuff. And I was like, where is this coming from? Because I haven't thought like this in years and it's kind of like I had it all hidden behind a wall in my brain. I just did not allow myself access to you. 

27:23

And when that wall broke down, buddy, I had to process all that and I started thinking back through all the crazy stuff and the times that I was the most traumatized, just in school and in church and all the things and it always came down to I never understood why I was in trouble. I never understood what I did wrong. I just understood that it upset people and that I was an upsetting person to people, and so I internalized a lot of that. Of course, I mean, like, what else are you going to do and but then, as I'm, you know, throughout like a two year process of like canceling a therapy and then my own stuff, I started to realize that the common link pattern there was I didn't understand the social situation I was in or how to be in it properly, and it caused me to either assume the worst when I shouldn't have, or do something that was completely out of left field. 

28:17

That mess things up, you know, and and I was like, oh my gosh, I would have never known this if I hadn't broken my brain a little bit that night, kind of let the damn unleash, you know. And I really think that a lot of people could benefit from going through their trauma with the aid of things like that. Or I know that a lot of places do ketamine and some places will do psilocybin. I know they do that out West, but I think that there's something to be said for mind altering substances and helping you access the things your brain just doesn't want you to get to 

28:58 - Melissa (Host)

Your healing from religious trauma involved leaving the church as a whole. 

Is that correct? 

You said you guys don't go to church now. 

Do you still believe? Are you anti church? 

29:06 - Jennifer (Guest)

I wouldn't say I'm anti church because, like I see my parents, they still go to Pentecostal Church and it is a church where I think it's been a place of healing for them, because it's a church for addicts and so they've been able to experience a different side of grace in that scenario. So I'm not anti church. I can see that there is a huge value for church culturally and just connecting with people, because a lot of people that's the only place that they can connect with people and I totally support that. I'm anti cult. That's really what that's. 

29:40

What this has done to me is make me very much like looking for the signs I'm trying to see. Are they? Do they have like one leader that makes all the decisions? Is it this? Is it that? Is that that mind control stuff is what I'm against and unfortunately, sometimes I'll say something about a cult. Someone will be like taking it personally about their church and I'll just have to be like you need to sit with that for a moment and see why that bothers you so much, because if that's what's happening in your church, there's a chance, there's a problem. But as far as beliefs go, I've run the gamut like I went down to believing nothing. And in one of my tiktoks I like literally stripped off my clothes, through myself in the ocean, was like okay, god, it's your chance. And then after that I was like you know, I'm on red and I think I've kind of come to a place where, you know, I believe because I choose to believe, and that's as much as I can give in this moment, but I'm still trying, if that makes sense. 

30:43 - Melissa (Host)

Well, I think that's all of us. I think faith is. That's it in a nutshell choosing to believe. Can we unpack a little bit about what you said about cults, what I see things and I'm like, oh, that seems cultish to me. 

31:03 - Jennifer (Guest)

Right For somebody that I think this doesn't even have to be religion. 

31:06 - Melissa (Host)

Yeah, but for you who feels like you grew up in a cult type atmosphere, what for you are those red flags? 

31:15 - Jennifer (Guest)

Well, I'm actually looking it up to make sure that I'm saying it correctly, but Steve Hassan has this thing called the Bite Model of cult, or it's the Bite Model of authoritarian control, and Bite is an acronym and I'm trying to pull this up really quickly to make sure that I get its behavior control, information control, thought control and emotional control. So if you're in a place that is saying hey, you know what, maybe we don't need you reading this or hearing this or watching this particular news outlet, that's information control. If you hear them saying like someone's expressing, I have doubts, I have fear, I have this, instead of sitting with them in that fear. If instead they go like, well, god's got this, god's in control, that's emotional control, because you're bypassing real emotions. 

32:06

Behavior control is what I was really struggling with a lot, because I felt like I had to do certain things in order to get it all right and all of those things are kind of part of churches a little bit. It's just there's a definition. I forget what it is. It's about pornography, where it's like there's no definition for it, but you know it when you see it, and that's how I feel about cults. You know it when you see it and you may not see it initially because it may look healthy, but kind of what you see how the sausage is made, you kind of figure stuff out. But I just always challenge authority, which is why I was never super popular in churches anyway. 

32:46 - Melissa (Host)

Do you think that had you grown up in a different denomination, that things would have gone differently, that you'd feel differently? 

32:55 - Jennifer (Guest)

Oh for sure I probably would still go to church some. I feel like a lot of the things that I grew up and made me feel like I just don't need it anymore. But I feel like if I'd had a little bit more of that positivity, I'd probably still want that social connection in a church. I mean, we still do attend sometimes because our boys like to go to church, which you know. When your kids rebel against you, you don't think, oh, to go to church. You think like you know let's steal a car, you know where's my cool kids. You know they want to go to, like, youth group and children's church, just kidding. But we do still do that because, like I don't want to keep them from that, like if that's where they're curious spiritually, I want them to go and have that bed and find out and ask questions, because I don't want to prevent them from it anymore than I want to push it on them. 

33:45 - Melissa (Host)

I think that's great, that you can separate yourself and what you've been through and say I'm going to let you have that experience and make that decision for yourself. 

33:56

It's a fine line to walk because you want your kids. You know, as me as a believer, as a Christian, as someone who regularly attends church, I want my kids to want to go to church, but there's some days they're not feeling it. Now they're young enough that I still make them go, but you know I don't, I can't have the faith for them. That's a personal decision and so yeah, as kids I can have them there. But you know, if it's extra stuff at church, I'm not going to force them to go. If they don't want to go, like you know, we'll go on Sunday, but I'm not going to force them to go if they don't want to go to a special event at church or participate in something else. But you know, I feel like you know it's just like with anything else with kids, if you force it on them, they're going to rebel and go the other way, you know. So I feel like you know it's a fine line.

34:51

My kids are very. 

They have their own neuro spicy stories to tell that are there. 

35:01 - Melissa (Host)

Neuro spicy is that what you said? 

35:03 - Jennifer (Guest)

Yes, that's our neuro divergent, adhd, autism spectrum disorder and you know, sensory processing disorder and stuff like. So we all kind of have our own little sprinkling of things. The fun thing about having kids with sensory issues and having grandparents that are Pentecostal is sometimes we'll go to their church and Pentecostal churches are loud and we went on Easter one year, and so my older son is very Sheldon Cooper Like he's Sheldon. 

35:34 - Melissa (Host)

I was going to ask you if you guys watch that. We my husband, not my husband my son I think he's high functioning, autistic. We haven't had him tested. I mean he's like, if he is, he's like super high functioning, right right, but he's also probably ADHD and so I see a lot of Sheldon Cooper. Oh yeah. 

35:55 - Jennifer (Guest)

And like right down to the fact that he's got a spot on the couch that he considers his and he doesn't want you to sit in it. So that's my older son and then my younger son is Wednesday Adams. Like I don't know how, he's always like creepy things and cryptids and all this stuff. So the little one comes to church and he's never been part of church. My older one was part of church for about five years and, you know, went to kids' church and nursery and all that stuff. My little one only went to nursery and then we stopped going to church not long after that because of just a bunch of different stuff. But so we're sitting there, it's Easter Sunday and they're having a passion play, of course, and it's in the South, and so you know, in the South we're gonna do everything. 

36:37 - Melissa (Host)

Just go big or go home. Go big or go home. 

36:40 - Jennifer (Guest)

And so we get the door bursting open into a dark church with light pouring in. Jesus comes in carrying the cross and we hear crucify him, coming in Most Southern accent you've ever heard in your life, and they're all repeating crucify him, crucify him. And my younger son's like oh my gosh, it's too loud, it's too loud, he's covering his ears. Then they get Jesus up on the stage and the crowd starts to go quiet because they get him up on the cross and my son's like whoo? I was like what is wrong? Are you cheering for that? He was like, well, because they got what they wanted and it's quiet now. I was like, oh my gosh, your grandma's gonna kill me for not bringing you to church more often. 

37:33 - Melissa (Host)

That reminds me of my daughter when she was I think she was a toddler, maybe around five. She was pretty young and we went to my parents' church. It was I don't remember if it was a holiday or not and she does this loud whisper after the sermon started, where she said are we having fun yet? 

37:52 - Jennifer (Guest)

Um, oh my gosh. Yes, so much that I think that could be the title of my memoir oh my gosh. Well, you gotta turn it all into a sense of dark humor, because if you can't joke about it, you're just gonna be so depressed for all the time. Like you just. I can't live in a world where I can't laugh at some of the crazy. 

38:20 - Melissa (Host)

Your mother. I saw where you had said something about you had forgiven your mother or made amends with your mother. So how was she? During all of that, Did you hold a grudge with her? 

38:36 - Jennifer (Guest)

Stuff with my mom is a little more complicated because a lot of the stuff with her was not just religious but had to do it the way that I was disciplined, since we didn't know what was going on. She was kind of doing the best she could and I see that. But I also see that she's been really good about listening to me when I say, hey, xyz was really harmful and that's why we're not doing it with our kids. So I think a lot of the times the stuff that we've talked through and sought forgiveness and understanding about is things where the issue will come up with my kid and she'll be like, well, you should just blah, blah, blah. And I'll be like, how'd that work out for me, mom? 

39:14

She's like they need a board on their butt and I'm like, well, I turned out great. And she's like, okay, that's fair. So she has been a trooper. She's gotten her feelings hurt some, but so have I. I mean, that's just the natural process. But we're very close and I wouldn't trade her for a million bajillion bucks. But she's been really good about hearing me when I tell her some of the stories and how it affected me and also just being like I had no idea and me being like I know you did it. That's why I'm not mad at you. 

39:49 - Melissa (Host)

So how do they feel about your decision to not be in church now? 

39:53 - Jennifer (Guest)

I think they'd rather I was in church. But I mean, honestly, I had a conversation with my mom the other day and I said, do you ever just feel like with all the church that you've attended, you've just done your time and you're kind of done? And she goes every Sunday? And I was like, okay, so it's not just me. And so she's like, yeah, we just go to church like normal people now. 

40:12

So when they don't want to go, they just don't go, and I'm so proud of them for that, because for years they've been like the most dedicated folks and they just get trampled on, you know. And so I'm like you know, don't make it your whole thing. If you don't want to make it your whole thing, make hanging out with us your whole thing. That's fine, we're. You can worship God by loving your family. That's a good option too. And so we kind of found striking a balance to be important. But I'm sure that I'm sure that some days she, some days I think she worries that I'm going to go to hell. But then most days I told her I was like here's the thing, mom, what you need to understand is it is well with my soul. That's all you got to know, and she's like okay, I believe you. 

40:53 - Melissa (Host)

Your spinal cord injury led to chronic pain, so can you explain what challenges you face daily with your chronic pain? What does it look like on a good day? What's a bad day look like for you? 

41:08 - Jennifer (Guest)

That's a good way to ask that question, because it's never just one thing. There's some days I wake up, I have all the energy in the world, I can do everything, and then I do everything and I pay for it for three days but I can't move and everything hurts and I'm dying kind of thing. But then, you know, there's some days where I'll get like four or five really good days in a row and be able to be productive and feel good and like I've done something worthwhile, and then I'll get a really bad day of pain and it's just like why do I even try, you know and it takes a lot to kind of temper the ups and downs emotionally that go with the ups and downs in pain? Because that was one of the things whenever we were dealing with the legal portion of the injury was I had to tell them I was like, just because I look good today doesn't mean I look good every day. 

42:00

Like the big thing is on the good days you just embrace it. On the bad days you deal with it because you don't have a choice. And I've crafted a life now where I have a job that doesn't demand physicality from me, I have a support system where I can pay someone to come in and clean my house if I can't do it myself. You know we've bought a house now and have our own space and it is hugely helpful, but it's also sometimes a little overwhelming. So you just kind of have to balance it out by realizing when you need help and when you can do things on your own. That's been a big part of it. 

42:39 - Melissa (Host)

So I saw, where you said on TikTok that you also have Ehlers-Danlos. Is that how you say it? Yes, it's. 

42:46 - Jennifer (Guest)

Ehlers-Danlos syndrome and I can't officially say that I have it because we've not done the genetic testing. But I meet all of the markers for the hypermobile version. So it's kind of a situation where I probably wouldn't have been injured as badly if my joints weren't so flexible. But it is what it is now. So we just kind of smile and nod and learn how to move without injuring. 

43:11 - Melissa (Host)

I knew somebody who has that syndrome and she's in a lot of pain daily and she, like, wears a pain patch all the time. So is that even for your chronic pain with your back? Are you on a regular pain medication or do you just try to struggle through without it? 

43:31 - Jennifer (Guest)

Well, how to say this? I won't take any opioids. I have had people that I love. I've lost them to overdose and I can't risk that for my family, so I won't really touch opioids. I'll take them like I've had several procedures done and I'll take them for like a day after the procedure. Then I want to be on like Advil after that. But one thing that I'm very grateful for that we have available right now legally is where we're located. You can still receive certain types of THC that help with pain, but they are legal because they're derived from hemp instead of actual cannabis, and so there's stuff like that that can help, but you can't use it all the time because it impairs your mind. So sometimes you got to tough it out and then sometimes you can kind of give it a little padding or whatever, but it's a beast more mental real estate than I wish it took up. 

44:30 - Melissa (Host)

So what are your coping strategies for that? I see your oftentimes in the hot tub? Is that part of that. 

44:37 - Jennifer (Guest)

That was one of the things I was like whenever we dealt with the insurance and everything. I was like one of the things I have to have is the hot tub. The hot tub is absolutely essential and right now I can't get in it because I got a tattoo on my back a couple of weeks ago and. 

44:51

I'm like I really want to get back in it, but so I'm sacrificing for the tattoo. But so there's that. And then I mean I move and exercise a lot, but it's nothing. It's not like a routine, it's like just moving your body, how your body feels like it needs to move, whenever it needs to move. And again I've crafted a life where I can take a step away from my desk and do those things and not really have anybody able to see it. So that's nice. But again I've had to create my life around providing opportunities to relieve my pain. And I don't think about it all the time, it's just part of. It's even kind of weird to talk about it because I don't talk about it regularly. Like you might hear me grunt when I get up, but I'm not normally going to sit around and be like, oh my God, I'm dying, like if I did that it would just be all the time. 

45:40 - Melissa (Host)

Do you think that that's just you, with a high tolerance for pain, or just being really strong or not wanting to complain? 

45:47 - Jennifer (Guest)

Yes, I'll say this. I think that I've always kind of been a suck it up buttercup kind of person. I'm becoming less of that now because I'm realizing I do need help, but I think that mostly it's just because I want to have another. I don't want pain to be my whole personality. So I'm trying to. You know, it was for a little while because I was having to adapt my entire life to it. And now I'm kind of at a point with my like grief from realizing that certain things are no longer the way they used to be. I'm kind of at a place place a piece with it now where it doesn't feel like I need to mention it as much. 

46:23 - Melissa (Host)

I like that where you said pain isn't part of your personality. 

46:27 - Jennifer (Guest)

Yeah, like, and I don't ever want it to be and I didn't want religious deconstruction to be part of my personality, but it was for a while, and still remains, a kind of big part of it, just because of it was very consuming for so long. And when you look at it in relation to how, what does it? They say like you need half the amount of months, as you had years in a relationship, to heal from it, to move on, and I mean I had 43 years of you got a while to go, then yes. 

46:56

So it's a little bit to go. You know, probably going to be another couple of years, but it's just one of those things where I think that the desire to want to heal is there now where it's like okay, I don't want to lick my wounds anymore, I want these suckers to heal up so I can do something else. You know. 

47:11 - Melissa (Host)

You mentioned ADHD and autism several times. Do you feel like that's part of your personality? 

47:19 - Jennifer (Guest)

Oh, whether I want it to be or not. Yet Everybody who knows me can pretty much tell you that they would have diagnosed me. And I always have these moments where I'm like, how did I not know that I had autism? Because I knew I had ADHD when I was 22,. One of my professors diagnosed me with ADHD and I was like, oh my gosh, yes, absolutely, that's what that is. Yeah, for the autism part. Sometimes my friends will be just saying something and they'll be like I don't know how you didn't know, I don't know how I didn't know, like it just yeah, it's the same. 

47:55 - Melissa (Host)

You received that diagnosis as an adult, the autism one?

48:00 - Jennifer (Guest)

I self-diagnosed at 40 and then I started talking with my psychiatrist about it and we could do testing. But it was going to cost a couple thousand dollars for something that I'm not a child, so it's not like I need accommodations, you know that kind of thing. So he kind of confirmed like this definitely seems accurate, but I'm not going to label it unless you want to go through all the testing and things. But he would be like so what are you going to do with that now? And I'm like you know I'm going to do, I'm going to stop pretending like I understand what's going on all the time. I'm just going to ask people when I don't understand what's going on now, because I can. And he was like well, more people did that there would be a lot less disagreement in the world. 

48:41

It's like well you know. 

48:43 - Melissa (Host)

So I've had several people that I know that have had ADHD and or autism diagnosis as adults, like recently. Do you think that that's just because it's becoming more appropriate to talk about this and it's something that we just didn't want to talk about, didn't want to acknowledge previously? I kind of do. 

49:09 - Jennifer (Guest)

I saw a meme today actually. That was like one person was kind of like well, everybody has ADHD. No, we didn't have that my time. And the other person's like okay, so your grandpa, who used to info dump about stamps and ate the same lunch every day 40 years is definitely normal. And I was like I think the boo Radley vacation of people with autism prior to you know, like the 1980s or whatever kind of accounts for some of that. 

49:39

But also tend to think that a lot of people just didn't want to admit it to themselves or a lot of us were burnt out by the time COVID happened and then we had to sit along with ourselves for two years and really become reflective of people and learn about ourselves. And some people are naturally prone to that. That's the thing that I am naturally prone to. But a lot of people just never really delve into those depths and when they did, it was a little scary for them and some of them came out with some surprises, you know, because like people are seeing, like oh, I'm a lot like my 12 year old or I you know what I mean and like a lot of the moms that I know that were diagnosed older, or who self diagnosed older and have people that are like, oh, absolutely, yes, that's you. 

50:27

You know, I find that a lot of the time, in learning about what's going on with your child, you figure out, oh, is that not normal? Like I thought everybody did that and I think that that happens a lot too, especially in parents and my grant, I mean my dad, came up to me one day and was like, oh, it's reading about autism because, you know, in one of my sons has autism and he says I was reading about autism and I think I might have it. And I was like we all think you have it. 

50:55

And you're the only one that doesn't know you were the last one to know, but I'm so glad you found out. 

51:02 - Melissa (Host)

Do you think that in the future you'll ever look for a different type of church like ever consider getting back into church in some way? 

51:15 - Jennifer (Guest)

I haven't written it off. I don't typically write things off because I like to be proven wrong whenever I'm being negative. But as of right now I don't have any plans for it. But it kind of depends on the circumstance and the people. But I'm hesitant, but I'm not totally closed off to it. 

51:38 - Melissa (Host)

What advice would you have for someone who is starting to kind of look at maybe their doctrine or their theology or how things are done at their church and kind of just getting a little bit of a nudging that maybe things aren't quite right, Maybe it meets some of that cultish like standards which I'm not saying that churches are cults or that all of them are no same. Yeah, but you know, what would you say to somebody who's kind of like I think something's a little off here? 

52:17 - Jennifer (Guest)

So there's a couple of things. The first thing is and this is something where I absolutely do get very harshly blunt about it One instance of abuse, one instance of mistreatment is enough of a reason to step away, and you don't have to justify that to anybody for any reason at any point. If you feel that you're being mistreated, you can just leave, and God's not going to come down and smush you or smite you. You're going to be okay. You don't have to leave forever, but you can just step away. And that's the first big thing. The second thing is, I would say be willing to drop everything that you believe, but also be willing to pick some of it back up if it still fills your heart the same way. So you know, be willing to let go of all of it, but also be willing to understand that there may be value in certain things later that you don't find value in early in the journey. 

53:14 - Melissa (Host)

When you say abuse in the church, can you clarify what exactly? We're not just talking about? Sexual abuse or something of that nature? 

53:24 - Jennifer (Guest)

No, I don't even mean officially. If you feel that people are lying about you or you're having to deal with all the we just call it church drama and act like it's a normal thing, it's not normal, it's toxic. And if you're in a place where you feel like you're constantly having to defend your reputation or you feel like you're constantly having to fight these useless battles that use up your mental energy, like that's enough of a reason that you can leave. You don't have to have somebody hit you. You don't have to have somebody you know financially abuse you or emotionally scar you. Like if it's unpleasant, you can leave. Church may not be perfect, but you don't want to go in it. It's like. It's kind of like if you're engaged to someone and you meet their family and you go, oh yeah, no thanks, and you really have to decide if that person is worth putting up with that family or not. And that's kind of what it's like for me. I mean, in there's certain, certain families, it is not worth it. 

54:23 - Melissa (Host)

All right. Well, thank you so much. 

54:23 - Jennifer (Guest)

Well, this has been fun. 

54:24 - Melissa (Host)

Thanks for joining us today on THIS IS MY STORY. If you'd like to be a guest on our show or know someone that has an inspiring story they'd like to share, please visit us online at ThisIsMyStoryPodcast.com and fill out the contact list form. If you enjoyed today's episode and want to hear more inspiring stories, make sure to hit the subscribe button, and don't forget to leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform. 

This has been Jennifer's story. What’s yours?