00:00So, let's start from the beginning. You grew up in a very conservative Christian household. You were one of 11, is that right?
00:07Yes.
00:08So, tell me a little bit about that.
00:10So, I grew up in a very big family. I personally only really grew up with four of my siblings. So, there's 11 of us, and then I have three step-siblings. It was a big family. There was, for me, I'm the youngest, so there was about seven of us at home at a time, because two parents, five kids.
00:29So, I grew up moving a lot, and I don't know how else to live.
00:36Yeah, normalcy is relative, right?
00:39Yeah, exactly. So, I don't know what to tell you, because for me, it was so normal to have so many people around me. I pretty much shared a room all the time growing up until I hit 14.
00:48I mean, there's got to be something really wonderful about that, though, to be surrounded by family and kids your age. Did you have a good relationship with your siblings growing up?
01:01No.
01:01Oh, okay. I take that back. Never mind.
01:05It was good in the sense that we were all kind of homeschooled, and we moved a lot, so we didn't have a lot of friends. We didn't get to interact with the outside world, so having each other was helpful.
01:20But we definitely had a very broken up family. There was a lot of home abuse, of course, and not of course, not of course, but there was a lot of that going on. So, there was a lot of disconnect between me and my siblings until we got older, and we started connecting more.
01:35So, you moved, I think I have it in my notes, 21 times before you turned 18?
01:41Around there, something like that, yeah.
01:42That's insane. That's got to be, I mean, that's really disruptive.
01:46It was, being younger, I didn't really like it as much. I mean, I didn't know any better, because I had always moved around right, but I always longed for that small town, you're there, you know everybody since birth. I always longed for that as a kid.
02:01But now, as an adult, looking back, I got to live so many different types of lives before I turned 18, that it really broadened my perspective, and I think that there's a value to that, and so I'm happy I got to experience that.
02:18So, tell me a little bit more about your childhood. I mean, you said you were homeschooled, you grew up in a super Christian, conservative family. Like, what was God in your home? Like, what was a day-to-day life like?
02:31Yeah, so my mom, both my parents were pretty religious. My mom more so than my dad. Definitely, they wanted to go to church. They were wanting to go to Sunday school, church on Wednesdays, that kind of thing.
02:45And it had been occurring since I was born, so it kind of became like a regular thing. But I personally, I think for me, it always felt more like a fantasy thing that just we kind of did. It didn't become something really important or relevant to me. I was never like a huge, hardcore Christian. I fully stopped believing in it when I was like 11, 12.
03:09Oh, wow. Was there anything in particular that made you believe that? Or stopped believing that, I should say?
03:17Growing up with such an abusive parent that was so religious, it kind of makes you feel like it's hypocritical and that it's bullshit.
03:28Yeah.
03:28And I always grew up questioning things. I was always that kid asking the questions like, why? Like, if God made us, who made God? You know, trying, like, poking holes in everything.
03:39Mm-hmm.
03:41So it was just kind of not something I ever fully believed anyways.
03:46Right.
03:47So I kind of created that, like, oh, this is bullshit. Like, how can you, when you're doing all these horrendous things, try to impose your religion on me?
03:55Mm-hmm.
03:56That doesn't add up. And you don't even follow the faith yourself, so.
04:01Yeah. No, that makes sense.
04:02Yeah.
04:03What is your relationship with religion and God now?
04:06I went through a lot of phases with it.
04:08I became very resentful to Christianity at first, but now I see it as something that some people actually need.
04:19Some people do need religion. They need to believe in those things.
04:23I think there is a spiritual aspect to the world, whether it's a God or Mother Nature or—I don't know what's out there, but I think energy is real.
04:33I think we can all feel that.
04:34So I'm just—I try to be as open-minded as possible, and I try to regulate the, I guess, triggering or trauma responses that I can have with it to understanding that that's just something I experienced, but that's not what that religion actually is as a whole.
04:50Yeah. It's the way that, like, people—I mean, it sounds like it was weaponized against you, which is unfortunate, and human beings, unfortunately, can take anything that is meant to be good and weaponize it.
05:03Now, I grew up in an atheist household, so I'm definitely not here to, like, you know, support religion in any way, but I agree with you.
05:09I think that some people do need it, and I can see it is bringing comfort to some people.
05:15It does, yeah.
05:16I mean, some people have, like, really hard lives and just difficult existences, and they need to believe that there's something better for them out there afterwards.
05:24Yeah, it gives them something to hold on to to keep them going day to day.
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