A live with Joe and Lindsey and anyone else who could be there would be great! Something that really speaks to how much hard work Joe has done in therapy is how much he can speak about his mother with balanced compassion. Not making excuses, not over-identifying, not lashing out in anger, not denying. This balanced compassion represents so much work on yourself, Joe, so many hours spent intentionally seeking healing. I commend you for being brave enough to follow through with your desire to know yourself.
So fascinating to hear the similarities in the family dynamics and structure- where mom is the leader, in reality, but defers to the dad as the ‘head of house’. Helps me continually learn about my home and fundie family.
The issue with using physical violence for discipline. (This is my story) It taught me as a child and teenager that physical violence was okay. Just subconsciously. Fast forward i get into my first seious relationship (i am gay) the first time we had a major conflict first thing I did was want to put hands on them. It took me years of therapy to work through that. I had the shit beat out me though. In the end physical violence has lasting impacts. I basically raised my younger brother and did not hit him ever..but i didn't baby him either. But you can punish without violence. Thank you for sharing your story with us! So glad I found this channel!❤
While I do agree that the act of the hitting itself is the thing that’s horrible for a child, regardless of the type of item being used to do the hitting with, the thing that really doesn’t sit right with me is the fact that an adult put thought into what items to use to inflict more intense pain. Even if that kind of nuanced thought doesn’t occur to the child, it doesn’t change the fact that the adult is behaving maliciously to deliberately cause greater harm 🙁
Being responsible means that you are the one that is able to respond. So maybe we should all take a look at what we are able to respond to in our own lives. Good luck everyone and much love. Great interview gentlemen. 💕👍🏼🇨🇦
I can relate to Joe's feelings re the windshield wiper blade. When you are beaten as a child, what you are beaten with doesn't seem to have the fear and sorrow attached to it. More like practical coping: how much does this weapon hurt in the moment, does this weapon leave marks I'll need to hide, if this weapon breaks will mom stop or be more angry and get another weapon. What really, really, really causes constant pain that never really goes away is the fact that your mother beats you.
It was interesting hearing his story and perspective! I think some people don't realize how it can be so difficult and painful to get to a point where you can't speak to family members. You're a good interviewer, Davey 💖
I need to be a little snarky here Holly's voice and way of speaking is almost identical to the Dana Carvey "Church Lady" skit that used to run on Saturday Night Live. Davey if you want to make a funny short clip Holly saying something and then a clip from the Church Lady skit right next to it. Like Holly talking to the Church Lady and the Church Lady answering.
This is a fabulous interview. Really helping me look at my life from different perspectives, and I didn’t grow up in an ultra religious family, but I did grow up in a very controlling family business, which in a lot of ways mirrors your lives growing up. Loving the content Davy. ❤🙏😊
Amazing how different religious systems have similar impact, even across the globe. My husband and I were both raised in a strict reformed setting. Especially some of the dynamics with my inlaws family sounds familiar, they were (are) with 8 siblings. Sometimes I wonder if starting a family at a young age, while only staying in your own bubble, lowers the likelihood to fully develop critical thinking skills. And its not like I think they are dumb, but that some never learn the capacity to look further then their own reference/religious framework.
He's SO brave to come out and share his experience growing up in a high control religion, homeschooled, disciplined and the most difficult part, speaking out against his own mother and her efforts to slander the SHP doc and discredit the survivors.
i would love to hear more from him on growing up mormon/RLDS. maybe he'd be interested in going on John Dehlin's podcast? I dont know if he's ever had a guest from RLDS
33:00 I almost screamed ironically OMG 😂. This is so true and also so heavily guilt ridden sacrilegious. But I see you. I am grateful for this information.
Thank you for this episode ❤ it resonates so much with me to hear about realities of "shiny happy" families. I grew up in one of those, though neither religious nor physically harmful - but it was awful and abusive for me all through my childhood and well into adult life until I separated from my toxic mother. I tried years and years to go different route than a separation, but situation never changed, and since childhood I had had very serious mental health issues, and to survive I had to choose me over my parents. Once separated, my life-long (sometimes heavy!) depression lifted. I am most happy I have ever been in my life 😊🎉 Also like Joe, I wish my mother and father could step out of their ways and be able to acknowledge and feel emotions and be for real; it feels like my parents are hollow people riddled by shame & guilt about all sorts of things, anything. Then they project onto me, and they made me feel like I only ever had (have?!) failed in their minds (- which is MAD I am a classic overachiever). When one aspires to portray such a picture-perfect scenario that nobody dare move nor hardly breathe, this prevents anything real from happening. It is no life, it is a museum, or death.
I have so many questions. First of all, thanks to Joe for coming on the podcast to talk about his horror show mother. So.... I thought RLDS was the "progressive" wing of Mormonism? According to wikipedia they accept LGBT and are in general very progressive. Maybe this is a new thing for them and they weren't like that when Joe was growing up? Still it doesn't explain why Holly is so damn "Gothardite" to this day. Why is she so fundamentalist when her church is so progressive? BTW, I had many fruitless debates with Holly on twitter as a Gnostic Christian. Holly is just as far right and preaches all the same stuff Gothard does, in fact, Gothard himself was promoting Holly's so-called documentary on twitter when she first came up with it!
I think it’s an effort for self protection. Imagine the pain and shame of actually recognizing what you did to your kids and then living with that the rest of your life. A person would do a lot to escape that. Fear feeds denial and denial is a sedative.
@@MeadowSongs Holly has gone out of her way to disparage SA survivors. It is absolutely sickening. This is one of her main points is to disparage the survivors of Gothard abuses and pretty much anyone who is a survivor of religious SA. She's not just in denial about what a shitty parent she was and is, she literally doubles down.
Davey always has the best interviews on this show! Joe’s story was very interesting and I look forward to his book coming out. He must be a strong person to have the courage to stand up to his parents and point out that this cult-ish religion he was raised in stifles individuality and promotes misery. Sorry but based on all the evidence I have seen, his mother sounds like a very unhappy and controlling person. I wonder what made her that way. I can’t wait for the sequel to this interview.
Oh yeah, the "WAIT TILL YOUR DAD GETS HOME". He would take his belt off and make me lay over the toilet and wip me with his belt... I would say to myself when I grownup o will never do this to my kids... I never did....
Sounds to me like maybe the mother was a narcissist using the church for the ability to act out her abusive anger and control and be respected by others for it?
It is common to find extreme narcissists in high control, patriarchal supported religions. They flourish because they are placed in non-questioning control. Great insight!
I told my dad I didn't care about the spankings he gave for 9 years: only thing I hated was the giant belt and the spark plug with the wires exposed. My worst punishment was hitting a pillow for 5 min. I told him this about he threatened to give a lick to my 10 year old nephew after he talked back. My dad never gave a small lick ever. My nephew also never got a spanking before. Neither way of raising a kid works.
On the windshield wiper thing -- the thought is it's as painful as possible without leaving marks. I was instructed as a young mother to use a few different things because of that reason. It's sick to think I at one point believed that.
Yes to this. My parents would only discipline on the rear and upper thighs. Since we all wore pants and skirts, no one ever saw those area. I was so used to seeing discipline marks on kids when I would be in the nursery on sundays. It made me feel so sad that kids were getting disciplined but it was a "normal" thing I was enduring at home. I feel grief that I never realized I could have called CPS on all of those parents including my own.
Use the BITE model? Absolutely no. They wouldn't put their belief in anyone but scriptural based viewpoints. The BITE model would be denounced in a heartbeat because it holds a threat to their own actions.
@@thecultchronicles I think they use it without realizing it.....they THINK they are just using scripture, but because of their authoritarian tendencies, there is tons of behavioral, information, thought, and emotional control, at least in the Gothardy church my family went to off and on as a kid. The pastor there said, for example, that women were too easily deceived to study the Bible for themselves. He didn't want us to study it for ourselves, which to me is nothing but mind control. "Leftist" media was highly discouraged, so we couldn't hear both sides on political issues. In his book on parenting, he told parents to not let teenagers be with their friends (or have friends at all) if they were influencing their thought patterns too much - which is really nothing but isolation to control.......But I'm sure he (don't want to say his name to protect the guilty) or Gothard or any cultic leader would deny using the BITE model, and say they were just teaching truth.
Dear God, Bill Gothard is so far from "real Christianity" 😂😩 But so fascinating that ol Holly may be questioning her faith in the OG mormon prophets... Hmmm
A live with Joe and Lindsey and anyone else who could be there would be great! Something that really speaks to how much hard work Joe has done in therapy is how much he can speak about his mother with balanced compassion. Not making excuses, not over-identifying, not lashing out in anger, not denying. This balanced compassion represents so much work on yourself, Joe, so many hours spent intentionally seeking healing. I commend you for being brave enough to follow through with your desire to know yourself.
So fascinating to hear the similarities in the family dynamics and structure- where mom is the leader, in reality, but defers to the dad as the ‘head of house’. Helps me continually learn about my home and fundie family.
Break the silence. Break the cycle.
🙏🏻🙏🏻❤️
The issue with using physical violence for discipline. (This is my story) It taught me as a child and teenager that physical violence was okay. Just subconsciously. Fast forward i get into my first seious relationship (i am gay) the first time we had a major conflict first thing I did was want to put hands on them. It took me years of therapy to work through that. I had the shit beat out me though. In the end physical violence has lasting impacts. I basically raised my younger brother and did not hit him ever..but i didn't baby him either. But you can punish without violence. Thank you for sharing your story with us! So glad I found this channel!❤
❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤
Thanks for sharing ❤
This saga is fascinating to me on so many levels. Great interview!
While I do agree that the act of the hitting itself is the thing that’s horrible for a child, regardless of the type of item being used to do the hitting with, the thing that really doesn’t sit right with me is the fact that an adult put thought into what items to use to inflict more intense pain. Even if that kind of nuanced thought doesn’t occur to the child, it doesn’t change the fact that the adult is behaving maliciously to deliberately cause greater harm 🙁
Power, authority, dominance. More pain, more power.
Being responsible means that you are the one that is able to respond. So maybe we should all take a look at what we are able to respond to in our own lives. Good luck everyone and much love. Great interview gentlemen. 💕👍🏼🇨🇦
I can relate to Joe's feelings re the windshield wiper blade. When you are beaten as a child, what you are beaten with doesn't seem to have the fear and sorrow attached to it. More like practical coping: how much does this weapon hurt in the moment, does this weapon leave marks I'll need to hide, if this weapon breaks will mom stop or be more angry and get another weapon. What really, really, really causes constant pain that never really goes away is the fact that your mother beats you.
It was interesting hearing his story and perspective! I think some people don't realize how it can be so difficult and painful to get to a point where you can't speak to family members. You're a good interviewer, Davey 💖
Pretty cool - I just read one of Joe’s articles he published today where he interviewed one of my law professors (Mike Wolfe)!
I need to be a little snarky here Holly's voice and way of speaking is almost identical to the Dana Carvey "Church Lady" skit that used to run on Saturday Night Live. Davey if you want to make a funny short clip Holly saying something and then a clip from the Church Lady skit right next to it. Like Holly talking to the Church Lady and the Church Lady answering.
Yes! She does remind me of the Church Lady!
Joe McLean is quite the storyteller. I loved how he laid things out and explained it all.
This is a fabulous interview. Really helping me look at my life from different perspectives, and I didn’t grow up in an ultra religious family, but I did grow up in a very controlling family business, which in a lot of ways mirrors your lives growing up. Loving the content Davy. ❤🙏😊
Amazing how different religious systems have similar impact, even across the globe. My husband and I were both raised in a strict reformed setting. Especially some of the dynamics with my inlaws family sounds familiar, they were (are) with 8 siblings. Sometimes I wonder if starting a family at a young age, while only staying in your own bubble, lowers the likelihood to fully develop critical thinking skills. And its not like I think they are dumb, but that some never learn the capacity to look further then their own reference/religious framework.
This is so great! I loved this interview.
While I watched, I wanted to say, "Breathe, Joe, breathe..."
It's very couragous of him to talk about this, it seems like it was hard for him to so.
He's SO brave to come out and share his experience growing up in a high control religion, homeschooled, disciplined and the most difficult part, speaking out against his own mother and her efforts to slander the SHP doc and discredit the survivors.
i would love to hear more from him on growing up mormon/RLDS. maybe he'd be interested in going on John Dehlin's podcast? I dont know if he's ever had a guest from RLDS
I immediately thought this! His interview would make a great mormon story.
Whoa, there's a lot to unpack here. Common denominator I noticed is a lot of retelling of a hard life is wrapped in a layer of humour and comedy.
It helps to cope and eventually process the abuse, pain, damage and the length of time it takes to heal.
33:00 I almost screamed ironically OMG 😂. This is so true and also so heavily guilt ridden sacrilegious. But I see you. I am grateful for this information.
Thank you for this episode ❤ it resonates so much with me to hear about realities of "shiny happy" families.
I grew up in one of those, though neither religious nor physically harmful - but it was awful and abusive for me all through my childhood and well into adult life until I separated from my toxic mother.
I tried years and years to go different route than a separation, but situation never changed, and since childhood I had had very serious mental health issues, and to survive I had to choose me over my parents. Once separated, my life-long (sometimes heavy!) depression lifted. I am most happy I have ever been in my life 😊🎉
Also like Joe, I wish my mother and father could step out of their ways and be able to acknowledge and feel emotions and be for real; it feels like my parents are hollow people riddled by shame & guilt about all sorts of things, anything. Then they project onto me, and they made me feel like I only ever had (have?!) failed in their minds (- which is MAD I am a classic overachiever).
When one aspires to portray such a picture-perfect scenario that nobody dare move nor hardly breathe, this prevents anything real from happening. It is no life, it is a museum, or death.
I have so many questions. First of all, thanks to Joe for coming on the podcast to talk about his horror show mother. So.... I thought RLDS was the "progressive" wing of Mormonism? According to wikipedia they accept LGBT and are in general very progressive. Maybe this is a new thing for them and they weren't like that when Joe was growing up? Still it doesn't explain why Holly is so damn "Gothardite" to this day. Why is she so fundamentalist when her church is so progressive? BTW, I had many fruitless debates with Holly on twitter as a Gnostic Christian. Holly is just as far right and preaches all the same stuff Gothard does, in fact, Gothard himself was promoting Holly's so-called documentary on twitter when she first came up with it!
Thank you for bringing this up. I loved learning about the Gnostics!
I think it’s an effort for self protection. Imagine the pain and shame of actually recognizing what you did to your kids and then living with that the rest of your life. A person would do a lot to escape that. Fear feeds denial and denial is a sedative.
@@MeadowSongs Holly has gone out of her way to disparage SA survivors. It is absolutely sickening. This is one of her main points is to disparage the survivors of Gothard abuses and pretty much anyone who is a survivor of religious SA. She's not just in denial about what a shitty parent she was and is, she literally doubles down.
Ok, just found you. Great voice - perfect ss narrative!
Davey always has the best interviews on this show! Joe’s story was very interesting and I look forward to his book coming out. He must be a strong person to have the courage to stand up to his parents and point out that this cult-ish religion he was raised in stifles individuality and promotes misery. Sorry but based on all the evidence I have seen, his mother sounds like a very unhappy and controlling person. I wonder what made her that way. I can’t wait for the sequel to this interview.
replay crew !
Liked. Shared. Commented.
Such an interesting interview! I would love to see Joe on @CultstoConsciousness
Oh yeah, the "WAIT TILL YOUR DAD GETS HOME". He would take his belt off and make me lay over the toilet and wip me with his belt... I would say to myself when I grownup o will never do this to my kids... I never did....
Sounds to me like maybe the mother was a narcissist using the church for the ability to act out her abusive anger and control and be respected by others for it?
Very good point
It is common to find extreme narcissists in high control, patriarchal supported religions. They flourish because they are placed in non-questioning control. Great insight!
I told my dad I didn't care about the spankings he gave for 9 years: only thing I hated was the giant belt and the spark plug with the wires exposed. My worst punishment was hitting a pillow for 5 min. I told him this about he threatened to give a lick to my 10 year old nephew after he talked back. My dad never gave a small lick ever. My nephew also never got a spanking before. Neither way of raising a kid works.
On the windshield wiper thing -- the thought is it's as painful as possible without leaving marks. I was instructed as a young mother to use a few different things because of that reason. It's sick to think I at one point believed that.
Yes to this. My parents would only discipline on the rear and upper thighs. Since we all wore pants and skirts, no one ever saw those area. I was so used to seeing discipline marks on kids when I would be in the nursery on sundays. It made me feel so sad that kids were getting disciplined but it was a "normal" thing I was enduring at home. I feel grief that I never realized I could have called CPS on all of those parents including my own.
I like what he said about the abuse being in the mind. Do you think both Gothardism and the RLDS use the B.I.T.E. model?
Use the BITE model? Absolutely no. They wouldn't put their belief in anyone but scriptural based viewpoints. The BITE model would be denounced in a heartbeat because it holds a threat to their own actions.
@@thecultchronicles I think they use it without realizing it.....they THINK they are just using scripture, but because of their authoritarian tendencies, there is tons of behavioral, information, thought, and emotional control, at least in the Gothardy church my family went to off and on as a kid. The pastor there said, for example, that women were too easily deceived to study the Bible for themselves. He didn't want us to study it for ourselves, which to me is nothing but mind control. "Leftist" media was highly discouraged, so we couldn't hear both sides on political issues. In his book on parenting, he told parents to not let teenagers be with their friends (or have friends at all) if they were influencing their thought patterns too much - which is really nothing but isolation to control.......But I'm sure he (don't want to say his name to protect the guilty) or Gothard or any cultic leader would deny using the BITE model, and say they were just teaching truth.
Dear God, Bill Gothard is so far from "real Christianity" 😂😩
But so fascinating that ol Holly may be questioning her faith in the OG mormon prophets... Hmmm