Episode 11: Just ✨cult✨ things!

Chase:     Welcome to Neurotakes, I'm Chase.

Courn:     This is Courn. Let's get into it. So Chase, tell me, you might be in a cult if...

Chase:     They say we're nota cult. They tell you not to research or associate with anyone outside of the cult. They don't let you leave without cutting off ties to current members. They guilt or shame you for not conforming. They teach you thought-stopping rhetoric or they exploit you financially. The list could go on. Welcome to Chase's childhood.

Both:    *Laughs*

Chase:     For those of you who don't know, I was raised in the Jehovah Witness religion/cult, or high control group, as it's more technically called. Very authoritarian group. Courn, were you raised with any religion?

Courn:     I was. I was raised apparently Lutheran. I don't really know what that means.

Chase:     *Laughs* Apparently Lutheran, okay!

Courn:     Because I stopped going to church in like third grade. But I did go to a private religious school up until third grade. So, very much was active in the church and stuff. But then I went to public school and my parents stopped caring. So.

Chase:     Oh, you really dodged a bullet there. You really got saved by the bell.

Courn:     Truly, truly! I'm like, so my brothers though went up to that weird religious school all the way up to almost high school though and I feel a little bad for them.

Chase:     You think it did number on them?

Courn:     Oh yeah, it was such a bad school! Respectfully there was-

Chase:     Like not even good?

Courn:     Like 20 kids from like kindergarten to like graduation. But.

Chase:     Oh boy. I like that you said, apparently I grew up Lutheran. That's funny.

Courn:     I don't know what that means. I literally had to Google in preparation for this episode and it didn't even sound familiar, but I did find out that both Lutheran and Jehovah's Witness believe that there's a second coming of Jesus soon. That's what I found out, that that was a shared trait. So look at us.

Chase:     Yeah, I'm excited to talk about my experience kind of growing up in a high control group like so, growing up in a cult, and just how it really affected my life as a queer, baby of color. Like let's really talk about those layers. So, I'm able to talk about it a lot in part today due to years of therapy, thankfully, and like lots of supportive friends and partner, because obviously my family's not supportive of me leaving.

Courn:     Awwwww.

Chase:     But I'm excited to share my experience because I have heard through a lot of other AuDHD folks that they also grew up in maybe some kind of high control group or very strict religion and I think there's a lot of crossover between those experiences and folks who are AuDHD and maybe get sucked into those groups or they might be born into it and then have a really hard time leaving or don't leave until much later in life. So let's get into it. What questions you got for me? What do you want to talk about first?

Courn:     I'm like, I feel like you need to give me a beginner's guide to like Jehovah's Witness because like I know nothing. Tell me what is up with the J-dubs. I also affectionately kind of like that that acronym nickname.

Chase:     J-dubs?

Courn:     I don't know if they actually use that but I think it's really funny.

Chase:     Oh no, J-dubs is something they use. I like to say-

Courn:     It makes me like it less.

Chase:     I know, truly. I don't like to say the full name because there's a whole pride in which the reason they call themselves Jehovah's Witnesses and like it's using God's name, which we can go into a whole piece. We're gonna try to keep this kind of top level today because this could be a lot of layers but I think for today's purposes we'll just call them the J-dubs.

Courn:     Okay.

Chase:     At least I'm gonna because I don't want to say the full name.

Courn:     Just give me like an idiot's guide to what's the big thing that they're preaching about.

Chase:     Most people are going to recognize a J-dub because they don't celebrate holidays or birthdays. They don't like the gays. That's right off the bat.

Courn:     Isn't that every religion? Or all the white ones?

Chase:     That's true. That's true. They go door-to-door, or at least they used to before the pandemic. They were known for going and giving pamphlets out and stuff. I think that's probably the main pieces that you would know about the J-dubs, like just from looking outside or looking at them. They have like kingdom halls. That's where they like congregate.

Courn:     Kingdom Hall? What is this?!

Chase:     Oh your face. Oh boy, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah so Kingdom Hall is kind of like their the building that they go and like have their meetings at, which that's another thing, they don't call like church, meet they call it meetings, which is creepy because the buildings have no windows.

Courn:     Oh, that seems illegal. From a house perspective.

Chase:     Mhmmm. I guess not. Yeah.

Courn:     I don't know, I thought you had to have windows.

Chase:     Well that's a, they're listed as a religion, so I'm sure they're exempt from a lot of the rules and taxes.

Courn:     I do, that was so interesting to me though when you said that they don't really call church, church. Because I was like, they are a thousand percent listing as a religion to get tax exemption.

Chase:     Oh for sure.

Courn:     But they don't want to personally call themselves that?

Chase:     Correct.

Courn:     It's like a way of life or something?

Chase:     It's kind of like how they differentiate themselves, right? Because all religions are businesses, let's be honest.

Courn:     Yeah.

Chase:     Right? At the core and like when you take the value system away. So that's how they kind of like, that's their USP. That's their unique selling point is that they are different from other religions by like, we don't call ourselves church. We go to meetings and we congregate, kind of crap.

Courn:     Oooohh, and we have a cool name, J-Dubz.

Chase:     Exactly, exactly. It's not like anything listed, which friends and my wife has pointed out a great point like asking if they are like monotheistic or polytheistic and I was like well, J-dubs are they would probably consider themselves monotheistic and they're like, so they don't believe in the trinity? I was like, no. And they're like, but do they believe that Jesus is God's son? I was like, yes. And they're like, so that's polytheistic. I was like, oh, that's a great point. I have no idea. So honestly that's a lot of the beliefs are just like they don't make any sense. They don't line up. They don't hold up to any scrutiny or criticism in any way shape or form. So they used to have two meetings per week that you would go to. You'd have a Sunday meeting and then a weekday meeting and then you're expected to go minister door to door for like at least 2 hours on like a weekend, Saturday or Sunday. Typically, it's going to be a Saturday.

Courn:     That's like a big part of it right? Like you need to always be spreading the word? That's what I've heard.

Chase:     Yeah, yeah because you know they try to be like, you know we're Christians, Christ told us to go forth and like spread the word so like they would do that and they kind of started with like a lot of these publications. You might have heard of the watchtower, the awake magazines like that's kind of what they do, they have their own bible, they translate their own bible that they use, they don't use any other, There's another sign you might be in a cult-

Courn:     Cha-ching!

Chase:     Is if they have their own bible, exactly.

Courn:     It costs a thousand dollars and it's a thousand different volumes!

Chase:     It's actually free, it's actually free but it's funded by volunteer work, aka free labor.

Courn:     Uhhh.

Chase:    Yeah, lots of free unpaid unregulated labor, for sure myself included partook in that. They don't really go there's some like international travel to like do missionary type trips but they don't call themselves missionaries, they just do these like trips where they're like oh, these people need some help preaching, we're gonna go help preach, but it's like white people going to Costa Rica. Not me doing that, not me doing that. But you know it's that kind of crap.

Courn:     They're like you're brown.

Chase:    You can speak Spanish right?

Courn:     Yeah.

Chase:    Gross. Testigos de Jehova. That's how you say it in Spanish. Not me trying to learn Spanish and also become a J-dub in Spanish.

Courn:     No.

Chase:     RIP dude. RIP.

Courn:     That's not the reason to learn Spanish.

Chase:     Struggle. So there's a brief overview of kind of the beliefs and stuff. Does that cover it?

Courn:     I guess I'm curious like, what where do you feel like more of the money-making aspect came from? Like are you, I get the free labor stuff, like was there stuff you had to like buy? Like-

Chase:     Oh no, you are definitely expected to donate. You're absolutely expected to donate. They do it in a pretty like slick way. It's very like kind of covert gaslighting, right? They don't pass a plate around. They don't like put a box where everyone can see and you like go put money in front of everyone. It's nothing like that. There's no plaque of like who donated the most. It's just like a little box, kind of in the back of the building next to the announcement board that has like these little like slip like little holes and one will be like for the publications and the other one will be for like the worldwide work and they kind of call them these like cheeky names and so you're just expected to either drop money like cash or checks in there and of course you can hear when you drop change in there because it's a metal, or it's a wooden box so it's like, DUM DUM, you know versus like a piece of paper that falls quietly.

Courn:     Oh so we got some judgment, not the pennies!

Chase:     Yep, there's a yeah, there's a yep, exactly or you know of course if a kid's like putting their coins in it's like awwww! Yeah, but like you know adults coming in there with like quarters, it's gonna be like looking at you. They do make a monthly announcement of how much money was donated to that congregation so they tried it, they spin it as like, oh we're being transparent about how we use our funds, when really they're just trying to shame you as to how much money was brought in and like if there should be more. So like once a month it'll be like the congregation report and it'll be like oh like we received X amount in donations like X is being sent to the branch aka HQ and then they'll be like you know as a congregation, do we vote to like send this much money to so-and-so for this amount, for this help, and like all in favor and everyone who's baptized has raised their hands and votes, so there's the financial piece.

Courn:     Ohhh!

Chase:     So the donations go to like making all of the literature and now of course, they've got a whole production team for movies and music and crap. So that's the financial piece but again free labor, volunteer work, everything is volunteer ran. So like the actual church grounds are volunteers. Each like groups within the congregation so to be like one week it's like so-and-so's group and the other week it's like so-and-so's group to like take care of the grounds and it's like such a privilege to take care of God's properties and blah blah blah so there's their business aspect of it.

Courn:     Okay that's interesting, seems like some you know suspicious tactics.

Chase:     It's super sus folks, it's super sus.

Courn:     Do you feel like you were suspicious like growing up at all or you’e just like, oh yeah this this feels right?

Chase:     It wasn't until I probably was like a tween, did I get suspicious of it. Again they don't encourage any association outside of it. So it was once I got to be older and like started having friends outside of school and then like a job in which I had friends at my job and I was at my job for 40 hours a week, was I spending less time with the church. So then at that point I was like, man I just want to go have fun. Like I just want to go, I literally was like, I just want to party. I just want to get drunk. Like I want to go have fun. Like I just, that was literally the first thing and then you know from there, it just kind of fell apart and stuff. Disfellowshipping is a big one for J-dubs.

Courn:     Yeah?

Chase:     Yeah.

Courn:     Tell me about it.

Chase:     It's just shunning. They don't call it shunning, but it's basically.

Courn:     Ohhhh.

Chase:     Yeah, so if you get baptized basically in front of everyone and be like, I promise to be a J-Dub for the rest of my life. Then like all of a sudden, if you're like, just kidding, I changed my mind. They're like, okay, disfellowshipped. And no one in that is allowed to talk to them ever again.

Courn:     I feel like that is always such a red flag. Like I don't know, I just hear that like Scientology and stuff too just like instantly shunning people like, what?

Chase:     Like do y'all realize how harmful it is to cut off people like that for any reason and have it be like guised as like we're cleansing the congregation we're keeping it clean.

Courn:     Right, right.

Chase:     When like there's so many times when like, they'll just fill up just fellowship teenagers. If you get baptized and stuff and like you're a minor and like you do enough bad things, sleep around, do whatever, like they'll just fellowship you even if, and like your parents can choose to keep you at home, they could kick you out if they wanted, like there's options.

Courn:     I was gonna say, what are your parents supposed to do?

Chase:     Not talk to you, they're not supposed to talk to you nearly as much. And like how, just like how devastating that kind of stuff is and how toxic it is for anybody, but even neurodivergent folks or AuDHD folks to like like lose that amount of support and structure at times you need it the most, especially early in life. So yeah, I questioned pretty early it took years for me to piece it together and finally like be like, oh screw this.

Courn:     So, what do you think, do you think there was like a final like last straw or was it more just like a series of events? Like-

Chase:     Probably a series of events, most people talk about like a buildup of stuff, it's never, rarely is it for one thing, but like for me it was a build-up. I mean my family's very well known in it so like for me, it was a natural path as a woman because obviously women can't hold leadership positions, so I kind of worked my way through like the highest positions of privilege becoming a pioneer, baptized, I was baptized when I was 14.

Courn:     It's like kind of late. Do you have to like earn it?

Chase:     I was like, no, 14 is pretty young, to like typical because I was raised in it. So the expectation is like you baptize as soon as possible.

Courn:     Oh, yeah. I guess I don't know a lot about baptizing. I was baptized when I was like a baby.

Chase:     J-dub baptism basically means you've committed to it for the rest of your entire life.

Courn:     I mean, at least they wait till you're a little older. They don't do it when you're like a baby. I don't know. I got dipped in.

Chase:     No, they do want you to like auditorily, like, or like, like verbally.

Courn:     Cognizant?

Chase:     Yes, they want you to like verbally agree?

Courn:     But you're still too young!

Chase:     Oh for sure, at 14? Did you, whatever you wanted at 14, do you still really want that? Like, come on.

Courn:     I would have got a infinity symbol tattoo-

Chase:     Oh, I would of too!

Courn:     With birds coming off of it on my wrist. Thank God I didn’t have the ability!

Chase:     I would have gotten the arrows. It's probably on my Pinterest board somewhere.

Courn:     Oh no.

Chase:     So yeah. I mean who knows what they want at 14, early teens, to commit to that and then have no way to leave that or ever change your mind is terrible.

Courn:     Yeah.

Chase:     That's terrible. So yeah, I mean I work my way up to like high status aka pioneer, means I spent 70 hours a month in the ministry.

Courn:     That’s just giving colonizer.

Chase:     Oh for sure.

Courn:     I'm a pioneer!

Chase:     For sure. Oh yeah, oh yeah, absolutely. And so basically, I did that. I graduated college around that time and that's kind of when we became friends. I started traveling, once I started traveling the world I was like oh, I can party and like not get in trouble-

Courn:     No one's gonna know!

Chase:    Yeah, no one's gonna know about it and then that was kind of like part of the scene like, oh this is kind of ooooh, I'm having fun partying and come back I actually got drunk with some J dubs one night…

Courn:     Oooooh, the pot thickens!

Chase:     It thickens. I was texting a worldly guy-

Courn:     Ooooh, wordly?!

Chase:     Back in those straight days and essentially more or less. I'm gonna put a little trigger warning here. Like, we definitely hooked up, but was I absolutely cognizant enough to give consent? No, I was drunk off my ass. And so like, because of that, I had to like, well, I had to use the strong word, but like, confessed, and then like, oh my gosh, like I did this thing. I didn't have to, but like, my guilty conscience was killing me.

Courn:     Yeah.

Chase:     Because I'd already slept around a lot before that and so I was like well maybe I should fess up to one thing and but from there that's when it was like, oh then they announced to everyone!

Courn:     No! They're gonna out you in front of the whole congregation?!

Chase:     Yeah dude, Yep! So next thing you know, talk about it, you know they got to talk to my dad they got to be like hey, this you know, they form a committee to talk about it, all this shit, and thankfully it was like my first offense so I didn't get disfellowshipped but they definitely like basically, they talked to you to be like, are you for sure sorry? Are you apologetic and then I gotta be like yeah *in high pitched voice*, I'm so sorry, I'll never do it again!

Courn:     No! No! Uh-uh!

Chase:     Looking back, looking back, I was not gonna change. I slept with many people after that. But so they announced it in front of the whole congregation. Sister Mancia has been reproved.

Courn:     No!

Chase:     Yeah dude. So that was honestly the beginning of the end for me. It was like I worked up all of my life to be in this like high position. One mistake ruined it for me. I was not allowed to like participate nearly as much. All of that was cut down. A lot of my friends like talked differently to me and changed how I was treated. My best friend at the time kind of did some shady stuff and I think that at that point I was like, what is the point of this?

Courn:     I'm like, you know all those kids were doing the same stuff too. They just didn't get caught or admit.

Chase:     Absolutely! And no one admitted. Yes. Oh yeah. No. Like my friend and I at the time we smoked weed, not supposed to! Like we were hooking up and having fun and partying and getting drunk tons of j-dubs get drunk. You see on the bible it literally says like, do not get drunk!

Courn:     They said YEEEE!

Chase:     Yeah, exactly not us, just don't get caught!

Courn:     Shots, shots, shots!

Chase:     That was like the beginning of the end. And at that point I was just like, you know, double life-ing my whole life. I'm ready to get out of here. So here we are today speaking out against cults.

Courn:     That's pretty wild.

Chase:     It's such a wild time.

Courn:     I just, I don't know, I didn't know any of this was going on with you. And I think that was the point you mentioned that you were keeping it cool. But-

Chase:     Yeah, I mean, I learned a double life very early on. I learned a lot of code switching and like how to act around them and then how to act around people out here or outside of the church because I obviously wanted to have friends and like I wanted to hang out with you way more and stuff but like I like again, I mentioned in some of those early episodes, the church would be like, they wouldn't directly tell you don't hang out with Courn. But like, you know, the rhetoric is like, don't associate with worldly people. Like you might be ensnared by the devil and then you won't make it through Armageddon and you'll never make it to the paradise. So that we're, there's again, there's so much to cover in this episode, but when you zoom out and look at high control groups, like people are very susceptible to them as a neurodivergent person.

Courn:     I think that's what terrifies me the most. Cause I think of people who literally rely on their parents and their family to be their caregivers, to instill knowledge in them and when they are telling you this is the truth, who are you to question that as, I don't know, an adolescent? And especially I just feel like you're like, yeah, that's how it is.

Chase:     It's so normal. You don't even think about it when you're in it.

Courn:     Yeah.

Chase:     That's how good they are at hiding and masking and like looping you in because they obviously keep you very busy associating only with people of the same beliefs so you never even have a waking second to pause and be like. What is this and like to develop any critical thinking skills and honestly those, that lack of like critical thinking abilities got me in a lot of trouble in like early teenagehood and like early adulthood because like I didn't have ways to think about things and like pause. And really look to see if I'm about to get myself into some danger. Like I just went for it and then you pair that with like the impulsiveness of the ADHD.

Courn:     Right, very reckless behavior!

Chase:     It’s dangerous. It's literally yeah, it's literally, just it's so dangerous and harmful to people. So now those layers, I think what now that I'm just dissecting and thinking about it. It's scary stuff. So.

Courn:     Especially just when I feel like there's just a lot of autistic ADHD people like don't have anywhere else to go, like we don't have your family support, like you literally cannot live on your own like what do you do?

Chase:     Yeah, if you have some of the certain levels that impact your life that much like you might not be able to live without them or you might not even be able to get to a point to move out and like really protect yourself. I mean, you even throw the queer layer in there, like like obviously there's a ton of Jdubs and kids and young kids who are gay, bi, lesbian, trans, any of the things, but they are one, not allowed any of that nor are they supportive if they ever come out and like they have to often live them there, live their lives not being authentic and loving who they want to live. A lot of times they will get into like toxic relationships then because it's not people, they you know it's just like the safety of being married to someone and so they get into these abusive relationships and so I'm very fortunate to have been able to get myself out that's not like a privilege that everyone is able to.

Courn:     Oh, definitely! I feel like I also hear too that so many like survivors of cults who've gotten out, they find themselves in new cults too, which is really sad.

Chase:     Yes! The familiarity of it.

Courn:     Yeah, it's just like the same thing with going back to abusive people. I mean, I feel like cult leaders and narcissists, they definitely prey on vulnerable people and as we know a lot of vulnerable people tend to be neurodivergent.

Chase:     Of course. Yeah. Yeah, it's very easy for those like folks, like you said to fall back into it because it's just it's a comfort. It's almost it's so easy to be in it.

Courn:     Yeah.

Chase:     Until it's not, obviously, but like you just don't even think about it getting wrapped up in a lot of that stuff until it's, you're just like, what? Like something, it builds obviously to a point, so. Oh yeah, you said they like fall back into it a lot of times and like the cycle just starts all over again, right? Like you really, it's really hard to break that cycle without the right resources and like professionals to help guide you through that kind of stuff because it's very complex and it is intertwined in so much of your life. Like I didn't come out to my folks until I was old enough to like have to be on my own medical insurance because I was like, I can't afford my own insurance. Like I have to wait and like just wait it out until like I'm forced to find my own because I was like, it's so expensive. So like just didn't come out, for the longest time.

Courn:     Yeah.

Chase:     So you bring in those layers, where like how harmful those pieces are and how much that delays people's lives.

Courn:     Oh definitely, I also just think there's so much like normalization too of religious groups like not being cults. Like I wasn't even really under the impression that Jehovah's Witness was a cult, just because like we hadm I don't know, we had some Jehovah's Witness people that like worked at my dad's office and I just remember it was like, oh, they didn't celebrate holidays or birthdays. And it's just so normalized. Like, I feel like it doesn't get as much like notoriety.

Chase:     Yeah, it's just like another Christian. Yeah, exactly.

Courn:     That like people like to pick out the really wild stuff instead of like the core fundamentals of like what make a cult.

Chase:     Yeah, you think cult, and it's like you I think we kind of talked about before this like, it's like the hippies who live off the land and like just they're having like these naked big orgies and like all this kind of crap or you know it's like those things and like obviously NXIVM has gotten more popular, the Scientology one, and like you think of those bigger things or you think of the ones that have like mass suicides but like those are the extremists and those are not actually that common, it's these other ones that kind of hide under the guise. I mean we talked about Mormons, and like I think it's like the fundamentalist Mormons or it's like the FDS or there's something like that's also a cult but it's very like say it's almost like it's just normalized enough that you wouldn't really raise an eye to it.

Courn:     And I think like that's the insidious and really smart part about it, is hiding it under religion. I don't know, it's almost more insidious in some ways because it's not super overtly like, they're not like Scientology out here being like, oh, we worship, you know, Xenu, he put all the spirits into the volcanoes and that made us, like that stuff sounds so-

Chase:     God is a banana and I heard him when I ate the banana!

Courn:     Like it sounds so out of pocket that you're just, like oh like of course that's a cult, like of course worshipping some guru man, like it's weird but you're just like, oh no it's like we're worshipping God and then like and we just want to spread his word.

Chase:     Exactly, but like the worshipping God yet the information is distributed by either one person or a small group of specific people. Like what? Like what?

Courn:     And the focusis never actually on God. It's about critiquing your actions and how you live up to God and that's a red flag right there.

Chase:     And how you fit into the like identity of that group and religion. And-

Courn:     Yes, it's always like individualism focus which I think is a big red flag when it's not community focused, because I mean there's people who love going to church, there's a lot of community there. But when it's about like oh you do one thing wrong, you're not welcome in this community, that was never a community for you, it's not there for you!

Chase:     Yeah. And the fact that like you were ostracized and cut off not even like a hey, this is like a harmful thing to the group, like let's sit down and talk about how we can help you not be like this and like-

Courn:     Right!

Chase:     Support you in this stuff. No it's instead it's like, oh you should have studied the Bible more, you should have had more faith, you should have prayed harder, you shouldn't have associated with the people. It's like blaming back, it's victim blaming rather than just straight up being like wow, we failed to teach you these things, like here's how to be a better person let's do it together or something like that, right.

Courn:     I think also a very hot take for me is that I just feel like I don't know, we need to not indoctrinate children into any type of religion when they're not able to really consent or understand. Like just even in my limited understanding of like going to church and going to a private school for the first few years of my life. Like I, when our teachers, because I went to private school, when they're teaching you like about God and about like stories in the Bible simultaneously with like history and math and English it's really confusing. Like I thought these were like facts, facts, like I literally thought the Bible was a textbook and I don't know I guess I'm just really fortunate that my mom was like not super religious but she definitely believed in that stuff, my dad did not at all. This man is like as atheist as can be and I would tell him about stuff he'd be like, that's not real, he's like that's literally just fairy tales and I'm like it just instantly like I don't know, cast criticism on me. I had this very like good rejection phase where I was like and I don't feel this way anymore, but I was like a very heavy like atheist from like middle school to high school. Like I literally would just trash on people for being religious. And I think it was like, it actually was super toxic of me because I think I was really rude to people who like had a strong connection with God and I just was like, evolution, Charles Darwin. And I was-

Chase:     Science.

Courn:     Yeah, I was that asshole that I felt like was just like, I don't know, just picking fights out of nowhere.

Chase:     It's the Gemini in you.

Courn:     Yeah, it might be.

Chase:     We should not indoctrinate children. I mean, that's the whole thing. Again, you want to join this as an adult. That, It's a whole different dialogue and discussion, but raising your kids in it and giving them no alternative is a huge flag because I think that's the other thing is like obviously my parents they told me from an early age like we understand you have to make this choice yourself and like obviously we want you to make a certain choice but at the end of the day you do have to like choose this for you and like blah blah blah, they didn't say asterisks if you don't choose it we're gonna socially ostracize you and and like make fun of you and shame you-

Courn:     Right!

Chase:     But like, you got to make the choice for you and so, but that wasn't the case. I wasn't encouraged to research other groups and question things and do and like learn for myself, it was just like, I hope you make the right choice. As they like-

Courn:     Wink, wink, threaten!

Chase:     Yeah. Exactly. And like, you know, shit on all this other stuff and like, look how pretty it is over here though. Hope you make the good choice. You know that kind of crap. So that's a huge issue to like not let your kids actually pick those things until they're at an age where they can comprehend what they're choosing.

Courn:     Yeah, I think that's just confusing part and I don't know, I just feel like I've always just been a really big skeptic and I feel like there's definitely some like little autism-y stuff in there because once I learned what was facts and I learned about like, I don't know, history, how old the world is and stuff like that.

Chase:     Carbon dating.

Courn:     How the Bible was passed along. I just was like, oh, this is ridiculous.

Chase:     It's so ridiculous.

Courn:     And I genuinely just didn't understand. It's still something I don't understand as an adult and I realized I don't need to understand to respect other people's beliefs. You guys do whatever you want to do as long as it doesn't affect me. Like I'm here for you and your community. But genuinely it just kind of blows my mind as an adult now that I'm like, man people spend so much time at the church and I'm like that seems kind of nice but I'm like I've just never felt like I needed that and I don't, maybe that's a privilege, maybe it's not but I'm just like, I'm like maybe others really need that support that community aspect which I don't necessarily think has to be like faith in God.

Chase:     Yeah. Yes

Courn:     I think it has to be the community of people. But it's just interesting to me because now I'm just like the thought of going to church makes my skin crawl, not even as a queer person, but I'm just like, oh, like.

Chase:     Wow. Yeah, and then of course you peel and are you like add in all these layers of like colonization?

Courn:     Yeah!

Chase:     White supremacy and like a lot of that patriarchy. Ooof, those themes in cults and just Christianity in general. That's a whole nother episode. But yeah, I mean does someone need a strict structure of values and community to be a good person? I can't answer that question for everybody. Some people need it and some people enjoy that and some people don't want that and they don't want to be part of it and they don't want to be forced on them. But when it gets away from, like you said, the main focus of like a deity or some values and it just shifts to these people all just cornering themselves into room and pointing fingers and like judging, like what the what is the point of that? I will say though if you're a straight cis person, cults are great. Like there's no reason, like you said there's no reason to like think outside of it and like whether you have actual belief and like true belief in those stories, theology, anything, like it doesn't matter. You have community. You have people with like-minded like same value, same interests, like similar schedule, you're in the same area, like it's great.

Courn:     And I think that's like also to the point too, I think the controlling aspect of like, oh if we don't let you talk with other people outside you won't grow empathy for them, you won't understand their point of view like that's not, you this is us, like I think it's a very them-versus-us mentality.

Chase:     Oh yeah that's control 101.

Courn:     Yeah and you see a breakdown so quick it's like, oh someone finds out they're like oh my kid is queer, and there's like now I have to actually deal with all this shit and you very quickly realize like oh this shit sucks, like there's nothing I can do about it or I just talked to someone on the outside and they're actually cool they're not horrible.

Chase:     Oh yeah, I mean what another thing that clicked for me was realizing that all these people who I was told were like these horrible like demon-led satanic people full of debauchery are like these terrible people when like guess what some of these people literally treated me better than some of these quote god fearing christians. I literally got my stuff kicked out of my own home and thrown into the garage in which I was living because like the two people I was living with were like scared I was like a bad influence and when I told them I was moving out they were mad and they literally took my stuff out of the kitchen threw it in a box and put it in the garage how is that Christian like?

Courn:     It's not!

Chase:     How was that loving? Yeah, so stuff like that we're like once I saw like oh, these people are so great these quote, worldly people, they love me, they like there's so much kinder and like they are receiving me versus all these people who I was raised around who are supposed to be like the real ones. Nah man, they were not. It's pretty wild. When I first went to therapy, the first thing my therapist was like, oh, like course, or I get my background of being like, I was raised Jevohah witness, I'm a lesbian, blah blah blah. Of course, she was just like, oh my. First homework she gave me was Google the bite model, just the bite model b-i-t-e and I was like I was like okay sure whatever and I look it up and literally it's like the model describing authoritarian control everything hit the j-dubs. And I was like oh my god, oh my god, was I raised in a cult? So yeah I was. So you have no like memories or experiences of like weekly church attendings or any like song singing Christmas, like at Christmas. Did y'all go to church, did you do Easter anything like that?

Courn:     I don't remember actually going to church services a lot which I can't remember if I was just too young or like we didn't go but I do remember all the stuff from going to a Lutheran school

Chase:     Mm-hmm!

Courn:     Which we had an hour sing time every morning, which now-

Chase:     Sing?

Courn:     Yeah, so like 30 minutes of that would be like patriotic songs. But then the last half was Jesus songs.

Chase:     Of course.

Courn:     And I was like, *in singsong* I like papayas, papayas.

Chase:     What?

Courn:     And that one-

Chase:     How is that a Jesus song?

Courn:     Oh, no, cause there's like, it says something about, oh, there's nothing sweeter than like the fruit of God. But I only liked the papayas line.

Chase:     So you just said, I like papayas.

Courn:     Yes, and I hated singing in public, so I didn't.

Chase:     It's stressful.

Courn:     And then we have like Bible study built into our curriculum.

Chase:     Right, that's weird. Let me just say, that's weird.

Courn:     Yeah, I didn't think that was weird at all because I went to private school.

Chase:     Of course, of course.

Courn:     So yeah, I do remember vividly having to remember all like the chapter names that are just random names and we'd had to recite that, you'd get graded on that. I definitely remember all the concerts and like plays that my brothers did. Were all like religious themed and stuff. We do a lot of events around Christmas. I was still like first or third grade. So I don't remember a whole lot. I think the weirdest thing about going to like a religious private school was probably just like how strict it was. Cause like, I don't know, you couldn't say something like someone was like stupid or dumb. Like that was a high level cuss word all the way up through high school.

Chase:     Ooh, the S word was stupid.

Courn:     Yeah. And I just like, as soon as I went to public school like first day on the bus, people were just like, fuck you, Fuck you to the teacher. And I'm just like, the teacher's like, no, fuck you. And I'm like, oh my God.

Chase:     Fuck you, bitch and motherfucking. Yeah. And you're just like, oh my God.

Courn:     I remember I was so innocent because I would not cuss all the way up. Like even through high school.

Chase:     Of course you didn't.

Courn:     Because like, that's just how I was raised. I was like, oh, you don't cuss. I did narrowly get out of confirmation classes. What is that?

Courn:     I'm not even sure what they are, but there's something you take when you're like in middle school, I think. I think it just like confirms your, I literally have zero context other than waiting outside while my brothers were doing them. We'd wait out in the car with my mom and like, all I know I'd go in there sometimes they had like Jesus puppets and stuff. They must be teaching you something but it was like a series of classes you had to take after school every week. I begged my mom not to make me do them because my brothers always said they were stupid and I was scared of the man who taught them, he looked scary.

Chase:     Mm-hmm!

Courn:     And I got out of them, just narrowly.

Chase:     That’s good!

Courn:     Had we not left that private school, I probably would have been roped into them…

Chase:     Wow!

Courn:     But for context, most of my family is pretty religious, multiple of them have done mission-trips as white people.

Chase:     Your girl here did two of them. I'm not part of your family, but I did too.

Courn:     Yeah. I mean, at least like their mission trips are the ones where they build houses, but they also like-

Chase:     Oh, I did some of those.

Courn:     Yeah.

Chase:     I know what you mean though.

Courn:     Yeah. They build those shitty houses and then be like and now you're Catholic.  I don't, I don't know what-

Chase:     Fair! But they still actively practice, go to like?

Courn:     Yeah!

Chase:     Wow, weekend services.

Courn:     They’re very religious, my grandparents are very religious and I'm kind of the only one who's not and some of like-

Chase:     Of course!

Courn:     My siblings were not as much but of course, like because my dad's Asian and all the rest of my family is white they're all super religious our side is not, it's definitely kind of like a hush hush taboo thing.

Chase:     You with the pink hair, artist, liberal.

Courn:     My grandparents would never say anything but like they definitely are those people that would like make fun of pronouns.

Chase:     Wow, yeah.

Courn:     And I mean, my grandparents have said stuff like Oriental and things. And they're nice people, but not to people who look and act like me.

Chase:     They're like fake nice. Cause they're not even like, you could argue some of those people are like honest and respectful, but like are they really? Like?

Courn:     They’re just uninformed, honestly.

Chase:     They're also telling lies. Everyone has out here lying. No one is perfect. No and like, you may be respectful to the people in your group, but you're not respectful to the strangers. Or it's vice versa. You are respectful to the strangers, but you treat your family like dog shit. Hot take!

Courn:     Yes. I think it's just also weird expectations put on family. Like, I don't know, my grandma still texts me stuff. Just like, oh, you know, God loves you.

Chase:     Oh, let's talk about, yeah, the unconsenting messages you still get from that. I still get that.

Courn:     That's wild to me.

Chase:     My gramps over here is really the worst. Truly.

Courn:     Mine are not that bad, but my grandma always tax that on. She's like, oh, Jesus loves you, God loves you. And she knows that I'm not religious I don't go to church I don't believe in God, but she thinks that maybe I can she can get me to go?

Chase:     Yeah my grandpa texted mmm not recently but like basically being like, oh like you should think about coming to this kind of Easter-esque event. Not Easter, but it's kind of like a similar event. And I was like, oh no, thank you. Like not interested. And of course he actually asked for my wife to come. He's like, oh, like, you know, she's invited to. He doesn't know we're married, but I was like, oh no, we're not interested. And then of course he's like, well, if you, if you care about your future, you should reconsider. Yeah.

Courn:     What is that ominous threat? You should reconsider. Or you’ll go to hell!

Chase:     If you love her, you should reconsider. Again, that signs you're in a cult. Signs you're in a cult.

Chase:     If you gotta threaten somebody to come to your event.

Courn:     Yeah, I think it's just like the guilt tactic. And I think that's just like universal for so many religions that it's just like, oh, and I hear that all the time, friends who are religious, who actually really like going to church, but they're just like, oh, like there's this aspect of people like you're not going to church enough, or you're not a perfect Christian, or because like you support queer people, or you support this and that, that makes you less of whatever religion that is. And it's just so weird to me.

Chase:     Yeah, I mean you talked about like the stuff, the microaggressions or even just the aggressions that your family said to you. I mean I grew up with homophobic jokes all the time. I told homophobic jokes because I was in it. I thought it was funny. I always was really nice to any LGBTQ person that I ran into because obviously Christians are like, oh we love the person but hate the sin kind of stuff. But like you know, I was almost kind of like looking at folks. Cause I was just like wow they're so happy and like so authentic and like way to be brave and yeah like that's another layer of like having to come out and face and recognize that you might have been part of that and like I still have some internalized homophobia that we've talked about that we gotta uproot and how deep that goes and how like complex that is, so. Thanks mom and dad, you're the worst!

Courn:     Hope you're listening!

Chase:     Hope you're listening. And for those who of you who know me, you're probably like nodding like, ooooh, yeah.

Courn:     Yeah you know how I feel about your parents.

Chase:     We don't like my folks. Oh, there's a couple other like identifiers that I thought about as we talked about this that J-dubs are pretty recognizable by. They're not supposed to have tattoos. Like J-dubs won't have tattoos. They also don't salute the flag. So like in school like if a kid is a J-dub, like and if they did this flag salute, I don't know, do they still do the flag salute in school, is that a thing? I don't know, in America. Like I was not allowed to do in school so like every you know once a week or something or every morning before school we were like supposed to stand up and pledge allegiance to the flag, JW kids are supposed to just stand there and not do anything.

Courn:     That's kind of scandalous.

Chase:     Super scandalous. How do we not get labeled as terrorists Because I, feel like that's what-

Courn:     Because there's too many white people.

Chase:     Yeah.

Courn:     That's the thing. That's exactly why.

Chase:     So, there's a couple of identifiers as we talked about. I was like, oh, there's another one. Kids are not allowed to salute the flag in school.

Courn:     That one’s wild.

Chase:     You just have to stand there. You just have to stand there while everyone like looked at you.

Courn:     I had a phase where I just didn't want to do it because I found it awkward.

Chase:     It is weird.

Courn:     So, I just sat down. It's giving something. It's, I don't know if they do that anymore, but I don't know. We always had to do it for sporting events. That was the one I could not get out of.

Chase:    Yes, terrible!

Courn:     It was disrespectful.

Chase:    Because you were an athlete.

Courn:     Yes.

Chase:    So you had to stand there.

Courn:     And I was the first person like, I don't know, in volleyball you like line up to holding each other's hands.

Chase:    Whoa.

Courn:     It's very fruity. It's kind of cute. But yeah, I was always the one in front just because I was the shortest.

Chase:   Yeah.

Courn:     And I was, had to put my hand up and I was like, this is weird. That is weird. Patriotism is just weird.

Chase:   Yeah.

Courn:     That's a whole other topic. Absolutely. I could talk about that for days, but.

Chase:     Absolutely. And growing up in a cult meant that I also had to disengage from my family's origin and culture, right. I lost a lot of my like Hawaiian culture because of the cult and like I was not allowed to learn about that because it was spiritualistic or it had a lot of like demonic influence because it's just, it's just polytheistic. It's like a lot of stuff of like the earth, and like a lot of gods coming from materials, natural materials and things and so like that was a huge piece that I lost and I'm now trying to like regain and learn about again and become part of but at certain parts of your life, like if you're not around that, you don't grow up around it it's not quite the same as if you were if you had those from a young early age.

Courn:     No you can never really get that time back.

Chase:     Like, I there's not yeah there's not enough learning I could do to almost like get that back and so it's a piece I have to like learn to contend with and almost kind of grieve in a way but knowing that I can still learn about it now is really cool and like going on a journey that would probably be a special interest now as like really starting to get into some of the history and ties back to that. But again, how else am I supposed to learn about that? It's just like me reading books and like trying to connect with any family member who has information and that's not easy.

Courn:     No that's what makes me sad. I don't know especially just like cult stuff just like very colonizer vibes and instantly just denoting anything that's like exotic is like too mystical or like not part of it like I just wonder how much people lose their culture and like I know that feels like a lot of the mission trips too. They want to go and replace like these people that are uncivilized. How much just like racism-

Chase:     White savior!

Courn:     White saviorism, yeah, it's just packed in there.

Chase:     Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Courn:     Yeah, it's gross.

Chase:     It absolutely is. But-

Courn:     On a lighter note, I wanted to ask you what movies or shows you didn't get to watch.

Chase:     So many. No Harry Potter. Yeah, that's a big one. I mean, you're not supposed to watch like any violent movies or any cursing or like highly sexualized movies.

Courn:     That's every movie. Boo.

Chase:     You're telling me, dude. You're telling me. So I think that's another layer that goes into a lot of media that I missed out on, and just pop culture, because you're not supposed to be too involved in a lot of that.

Courn:     Right.

Chase:     Disney is kind of controversial with the J-dubs. I was allowed to watch some of the Disney movies and like my parents didn't care too much but the Smurfs are also one you're not supposed to watch. A lot of like kind of spiritual...

Courn:     I guess there was like a witch or something.

Chase:     Yeah, like magic. Anything magic related is like big no-no which is so weird because like tell me how angels aren't magic? Like come on, that's probably the big one or like scary movies definitely-

Courn:     Oooh, that's a big miss.

Chase:     Which that's another like tie to like a lot of hawaiian culture right, there's a lot of like not like ghost lore, but a lot of like spirits and a lot of things like supernatural like interactions that are talked about.

Courn:     Scooby-Doo, didyou watch Scooby-Doo?

Chase:     I did but I had to be on the down low. I had to be on the down low.

Courn:     You know they got those random Hawaiian episodes in Scooby-Doo with the tiki spirits.

Chase:     Oh for sure that one where they had the baby scooby-doo and they're like on the island-

Courn:     Scrappy doo!

Chase:     That was a good movie!

Courn:     I think that was a movie, yeah? I loved that movie, not historically accurate.

Chase:     Wasn't that the one where like the boy and the girl switched bodies at some point?

Courn:     Yeah, yeah!

Chase:     Guys like I got boobies, oh! Cringe!

Courn:    Those are so camp but-

Chase:     Truly, were there anything any movies, media, books, tvs anything that you were like not allowed to I guess read or watch?

Courn:     No!

Chase:     Not because, I but but like in school like did your school have any banned lists or anything?

Courn:     Well, yeah, we didn't watch it like, especially like historic movies and stuff. We weren’t allowed to watch-

Chase:     Evolution! J Dub's don't believe in evolution. Yeah, obviously so I had to like Really fudge my way through that in school.

Courn:     They loved Mel Gibson movies.

Chase:     Oh.

Courn:     I cannot make my way through Braveheart or those stupid ass movies.

Chase:     True.

Courn:     But I think the most unhinged thing is that my parents didn't have any restrictions on anything I watched, which is I found out to be a very unique thing as an adult. So I watched way too many inappropriate movies. They took me to Superbad in theaters.

Chase:    That's a good, that's a, I can't say that's a good movie.

Courn:     I saw Dawn of the Dead. In theaters. That is not, there's boobies out.

Chase:     Do you know how much convincing it took for me to be able to go see Percy Jackson in theater?

Courn:     No!

Chase:     Cause I had to read those books on the low.

Courn:     Yeah.

Chase:     Yeah. That was oh. I loved the book at the time.

Courn:     I don't know. That's like white people mystical. That’s like Greek culture.

Chase:     Yeah. But even then they're like that's kind of magic and that's kind of like gods that's not related to our gods. So maybe we shouldn't. It's trash. But yeah, that's the life of a queer Hawaiian baby growing up in a cult.

Courn:     What a unique experience, truly.

Chase:     That I hope a lot of people don't have to put themselves through. And or can leave if you are questioning and want to get out of that.

Courn:     Yes!

Chase:     To be, that would be so wild if there were actual like Jdubs or maybe people questioning listening to this…

Courn:     You never know, you never know what people are going through in their lives so-

Chase:     Yeah. Wow, what an episode.

Courn:     Truly, I think we need to watch a bunch of movies. That's what I've learned in prep for this is that you were behind on watching some really bad movies.

Chase:     I am. So all right, let's go watch some Harry Potter.

Courn:     Please don't. Please don't support transphobic JK Rowling.

Chase:     No, we don't. Harry Potter's not one we need to go catch up on.

Courn:     Let's watch something better.

Chase:     Okay, bye!

Chase:     Hey folks, a quick disclaimer here, Courn and I speak directly from our own experiences. And while we try our best to amplify marginalized voices and present accurate information, the thoughts expressed here are definitely not a reflection of all neurodivergent, AAPI, or queer folks. So, if you have any suggestions, comments, or thoughts, feel free to email at hello@neurotakespod.com. Thanks.