When Children Cast Out Demons: Cult Childhoods and Complex PTSD

Music Hello and welcome to another episode of the William Brandham Historical Research Podcast. I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Brandham Historical Research at William-brandham.org, and with me I have my special guest, Christine Orrick, former member of Daystar Ministries, but not that one. So I'll let you explain that part, but thank you for coming on, Christine, and maybe you could begin to tell everybody a little bit about yourself, but also this Daystar Ministries.

Absolutely. Thank you, John. Thanks for having me here and giving me the chance to speak. Also, thank you for giving me a chance to speak as a Gen X. I sometimes don't hear my generation as much on these types of forums, I think, because we are often in the middle zone of life with our own kids and also our own parents going through things.

So I appreciate the chance. Okay, I want to give you just a little bit of my background and how I came to where I am today. I was born into a Jesus movement commune called Daystar Ministries, and I'll explain that this is not the media company of Daystar, especially the one that everybody sees now going through a lot of issues with their leadership.

But this was a specific spin-off of the Jesus movement. So a lot of people who were coming out of the hippie movement of the early 70s, late 60s, formed communes, like hippie communes, that they were evangelical Christian and also based in, I'd say, signs and wonders, spiritual warfare, deliverance ministries, all the things that were sort of the fringe of evangelicalism, even at the time.

So Daystar Ministries had several communes around the U.S. And we all live together at as families and singles. We as staff raised support for our money. So nobody took a salary. We spent a lot of time at least the parents did.

Writing letters, maybe talking to churches, asking people for money for support. continue this ministry. So it was pretty precarious at times for some of us to pay bills, even sometimes eat good food. All of it was what's considered faith-based in that we relied on our faith for God to provide everything that we owned, every salary, every need for every child.

Within DayStar, we're a couple of themes. I would say one of the one of two main themes, the first one was discipleship schools, discipleship formation, and people would come for sort of a longer Bible school and community living experience. And this way they could kind of join in a commune, join the staff, everybody did work duties, cooking cleaning, gardening, logging, maybe where I lived at some point hunting even, and had this experience of classroom time, prayer time, and growing together. The second facet of DayStar was people coming with very floored or interesting severe mental health issues, addictions, trauma coming to live at our communes with our staff

and families for prayer and counseling ministries. So for those of us who grew up in it, our parents were considered counselors or prayer ministers, but was zero training in therapy or psychology, but still had the label counselor. So we would take in people who sometimes were actually fairly dangerous or fairly, like I said, floored or far along in a mental health capacity that wasn't coherent or safe always, or maybe coming through an addiction, and this staff would do a lot of prayer and counseling with them. Prayer and counseling was both the comforting prayer and blessing as well as deliverance ministry, which included

exorcisms and helping rid people of root cause issues. So you can only imagine the melee that was DayStar ministries and the combination of people living there. Some really right young, hopeful staff members who themselves sometimes came from a lot of trauma ministering to other very traumatized people in the middle of a lot of really difficult things.

And then us as children were sort of expected to be a part of the family ministry where we sort of, how can I put this? Be an example of the love of God, be an example of a safe and a healthy family, four people coming on the base or the commune so that they could see this is what a godly family looks like. This is what godly children and parents who love their children looks like. Consequently, though, it exposed a lot of us as children to some really dangerous and bizarre things. So not only some of the

beliefs in the theology were really harmful for a lot of us, but we were also exposed to input impositions that were actually dangerous, specifically with the way that the communes were set up. So after some time in Daystar, different communes and bases, my father started a church in a ministry kind of at the same time. And then he transitioned in and out of different ministries and churches. We moved again. And by this time, Daystar had somewhat shut down and some of it had become Y-Wam or youth with a mission. And youth with a mission as listeners have heard and John, you've heard as missions focused, youth focused. And so

a lot of the Jesus movement theology and Daystar themes transferred to youth with a mission. And so again, there were other bases and other groups like the Jesus people who ran similar things. So yeah, that's the start of it. And I, as an adult, I left and went into Y-Wam.

And that's where I was exposed to the very beginnings of Mike Bickel and IHOP and worked on the base near Floyd McClung who started all nations with Mike Bickel. And had family then separate from me, moved to North Carolina and worked with Morningstar with Rick Joyner.

So I have a little bit of cross over there with Morningstar myself with my family. I eventually went to Denver Seminary. Oh, let's add in the middle of all of this. I went to Azbury College back then. It's as, as a university to know, went through revival at the time that came to Azbury. Also some revival things with Y-Wam. And then ended up as my family shifted over with Morningstar. I ended up in Denver Seminary. And I got my degree in clinical counseling.

therapist for a while and worked in different capacities, but have been out of the field for a while just due to health and rest reasons. So that's the long short summary. Well, that's a crazy wild ride.

And ironically, it's the exact personality I've been wanting to have on to the podcast to talk about deliverance ministries. The movement that you're talking about, this day-star ministries, there's not a lot out there on the internet about it.

It is, you know, it seems to be a really small thing that didn't last very long, but there is some mention of it, and I don't know what you can believe in what you can't with what you find on the internet, but it seems that Bob Dewey was part of this movement, and he is for people who don't know who Bob Dewey is.

He's a Christian theologian, very deep into the reform theology, but he considered it to be a very dangerous movement because of the way in which they handled the deliverance, the spiritualism, and what he would, I guess he would consider it to be occult practices that were being used in the deliverance ministries.

I have actually wanted to have somebody who was familiar with psychology or therapy to talk through that a bit, because in my opinion, Dewey is absolutely correct. If you take a person who is struggling with mental health issues and tell them that there's this thing, this evil thing that you cannot see, but you have to believe is there because I say it's there, and this thing can destroy your life if we don't get it out of you.

Yeah. They're going to go down pathways that they're quite frankly their brains can't handle because they're suffering with mental health issues. So it takes a problem that pre-exists, and it makes it actually worse, when it makes it worse, they use that to their advantage, which I see I have no other name or word for this than scoundrels.

If you take a person who's suffering with mental health issues, you are aggravating those mental health issues. So you're getting them into the cycle, and anybody who is familiar with mental health when you get in that cycle, it's very dangerous, very harmful.

And then what happens is in the explosion and the aftermath of this, they say this person has a demon, and people physically see what's happening with the event that they have in fact caused in the person.

So everybody in the audience goes, oh, wow, this is a demon. Look, I can see it manifesting itself in this person, but they don't know the background that literally the guy on stage has caused this.

So I'm glad to have you on to talk to that. Maybe we could, at some point, go deeper with that, but what are your thoughts on all of that? Absolutely. I have so much to say on this, and I think at some point, I may write a book or something.

around my story to some extent, but regarding the deliverance movement and how it started and then now what it's become, it's a really fascinating story. I didn't know Bob DeWay, of course I knew his name, of course the adults knew him and we crossed over in our bases and kids and everything.

Jack Winter was another big name there and all the other Jesus movement big names were common household names or spoke or interacted with us with retreats and different things. So yeah, it was really born out of I think probably in the very beginning, at least the people with good intent wanting to bring healing to other people.

So the huge amount of trauma, addiction, mental, mental illness was seen as the root of demonic. So the way to get go after the root was exorcism and deliverance. And the way that deliverance worked is everybody gathers around somebody sitting in a chair usually. So they're sitting very vulnerable in the center usually with usually men gathered around them.

So this was a particularly interesting dynamic for women who are traumatized, have a lot of men surrounding them with their hands on them. Begin to rebuke and cast out a demon and this would be after somebody had explained their history or their story.

And they would begin to pray and sometimes have a quote prophetic word pray and their voices would rise. Hands might press in a little further person's kind of sitting in the middle or in the chair and pretty soon they would start to manifest and I say that in quotes, but show a physical example of either the demon speaking or them releasing the demonic.

So that could be shouting or whimpering, it could be screaming, making animal noises, throwing up, cursing all of the things that you may see on movies, which is fascinating. And over time of the prayers or the prayer warriors or deliverers would continue the shouting and the exercising and pretty soon that person would calm down like their nervous system would settle they become quiet.

they would feel better. They'd proclaim they were free from whatever root cause

came into the story here. As a side note, one of my very favorite games as a child with my commune cohorts was playing deliverance. So we would, my husband has me tell this story at parties.

He's like, tell him about your childhood. So it's not funny, but it is for those of us who come from it, you understand the dark humor here. At age four, we would take turns being the chair person, the person sitting in the chair, and the rest of us would gather around them, put our hands on them, and then put the other hand up and start speaking in tongues in our little voices. Like, shut about a Honda, shut about a, and then pretty soon, pretty soon the chair person would start screaming like build the screams to pitch. And as a as children, we always wanted to

be the chair person because it was a very fun thing to be able to scream while everybody was our, you know, playmates were pretend praying for us. So that's a side note of my childhood.

That was a favorite game. It's wild, isn't it? Like cult kids. Yeah, it's crazy. And so you have to also wonder, there are people with mental health issues doing this. Well, there may have also been some people who rehearsed it. A hundred percent. That ran the gamut for people, I think, who were playing along with us as the prey ease. And then the ministers often had their own trauma, mental health, authoritarianism, all sorts of issues with zero psychology background, zero understanding of how trauma works, zero understanding maybe of how addiction works. And so what a mess. It was

absolutely wild. Yeah. And the trauma is a word I want to focus on in this a bit too. Because everything you're saying, so psychology fascinates me. If I had my life to do over, I would probably have become a psychologist, not an IT guy. But I have studied the trauma to no extent because I went through severe trauma in the moments leading up to the years leading up to me escaping.

And watching the trauma on other people as I have helped them to escape, it's really odd because there are before and after photographs of the people. And we in the support groups, there was this one comment thread where it must have had two or three hundred people going back and forth about.

Here's what I used to look like. Here's what I look now. I look younger now. How do I look younger? And trauma does all kinds of things bad to the body, but the aging of trauma is unbelievable.

It causes people to look physically older. And then after you release that trauma, you get therapy, you get help, or you simply overcome it through time, you start to reverse age, which is really weird too.

But the most odd thing about it for me was, while I was in the trauma, in the cult mindset, I had no idea I was under trauma. It wasn't until after I left. And then there's this explosion that happens that I probably needed a lot more therapy than I got whenever I first left.

Because suddenly, now I'm coming to terms with the fact that I am traumatized. I have been under spiritual abuse. I have had all of these things happen to me and I'm starting to understand.

Now I also have PTSD from it. So all of this is overwhelming. It hits you. The trauma is overwhelming and finding help. In fact, I just had an email exchange with a guy today who needs to get into therapy.

So I was talking through that with him, finding the help that you need, getting a therapist when you need it, and overcoming that trauma is all part of the healing process. However, the last thing I'll say is, while you're in this deliverance type movement, they will teach you that even the therapist are demons.

So you can't go to the therapist because you might lose the spirit that you have in you or something like this. So what are your thoughts on that? Yeah, it did a tremendous amount of damage in that it kept people from maybe addressing what was really wrong and kept them in a cycle.

And I think people who got very, very deep into this, it was almost like that became the addiction also. Like, okay, what's the next demonic thing? What's the next root thing? As opposed to looking psychologically, what was going on and finding a variety of help.

Interestingly, that type of ministry turned into what's called the aphostic ministry. Paramonistry, I don't know if you've read up on that. And then it turned into, I think, the aphostic turned into transformational paramonistry.

So that's what they call this now. So people who are maybe a little more trained in psychology, not necessarily therapists, but who work with a specific protocol. In fact, back in the day, I was also trained with a Christian kind of energy protocol with some of these elements too.

And I left the whole thing. I was like, oh, no, this is too much like my childhood. But it's kept people either not healed or it kept them in a cycle where they were continuing.

newly looking for the next demonic thing. And the profound discouragement of saying, I thought I had this moment or this breakthrough. And then all of a sudden the trauma symptoms are back or the mental health issue is back is pretty demoralizing for people, especially people with more severe issues.

And this is all separate from those of us raised in it. A lot of us could be diagnosed with complex PTSD, CPTSD, which is more than one or two or a big trauma. It's a constant feeling of fear, where we are trying to survive a setting.

So our healing may look a little bit different from somebody, let's say who goes through a tornado or one assault, our healing is a different thing. Interestingly, in the deliverance movement, there were always a few people who, let's say, their trauma or their mental health issues weren't that huge or significant.

They could experience in this paramount a sort of a release, like a physical psychological spiritual release, I guess you could say, and have the ability to walk away feeling somewhat changed and somewhat more solid.

And I do want to say that there were people like that who walked away and said, I absolutely, there's a before and after this ministry. But I also don't believe that they had some of the complexity of mental health and trauma that everybody else walking through that had, if that makes sense.

It does, I've thought through that. Like I said, psychology fascinates me. That's why I've hijacked your story. But I have studied into this because I have been in situations where we didn't call it deliverance, but that's exactly what they were doing.

There have been places where I have seen people who had real issues, and then they would walk away better from those issues. And I've always wondered after leaving, what was this? Because if you really look at the God that was being served in the message, it's not the same as the God of the Bible.

So was this a demon? What was this? And I have come to terms with the fact that most of the stage act was just simply that. It was stage act. There was no angel nor demon that was involved.

But the people who went, who found the release, there is a psychological effect. And I'm not very, very good at remembering the names of these things. But there's a term for it, whenever a person finds something that they can focus all of the...

their thoughts and mind into and then find a release just simply by accepting the fact that this is a condition that I have, I'm giving this condition to whatever is the cause of my release and that could be a variety of things. It could be painting, it could be music, it could be, you know, depending on the severity of their trauma, they could find something that they can displace it basically, they're displacing it and it isn't a permanent displacement, but it gives them a feeling that something has happened. And so if you're in a spiritual

setting, you think, oh my gosh, I've been healed and you walk away, you still kind of have it, but you remember that thought, that feeling that you had whenever this happened. And so you go back from more and it becomes like an addiction to this release. Yeah, I think that's absolutely a path that a lot of people go down. But there are instances where like I said, it didn't even have to be even now people doing rituals or art or music, there's a million ways to heal. There's a million ways to shift out of certain traumatic zones where people

can create. I mean, she should say the human mind is amazing. The human mind is absolutely amazing. Create a setting where there are nervous systems and their neurons may reconnect in a certain new way in that moment for whatever that ritual or artistic thing is. And they do have some lasting change. Because we're healed from trauma in a million ways. It's not just therapy or groups or a million ways to heal. But this particular deliverance ministry was so, so dangerous because there was no distinction between people's level of trauma. There was no accounting for not only maybe it didn't work, but that it caused more complexity of trauma. So now on top of

somebody not being healed from something, they had the fear of knowing they had a demon or the fear of knowing a lot of people were going to gather around them and touch them and yell.

And so it complexified the trauma on top of not being better. And so that's something that's really, really been heartbreaking to see with people when I was counseling in my later adult years. And people came to me from YOM and different places. And just for you and your listeners too, I have left the church system and I, in order to find my own healing, I've needed to be outside of a system.

So, we probably have a little bit different theology in that regard, but I was watching people come to me from similar things that I was raised in, and their attempts to find healing in the system had complexified their original trauma.

And this just broke my heart because I can say this for you, John, and for me too. We were fearful as children. We were put in a double, what's called a double bind. Like if you experience fear or bad things, it's usually from the enemy.

It wasn't considered trauma. You didn't get help from it. So you were put in a double bind every time you showed trauma. And this is what deliverance does in many cases for people. And double binds are what causes insanity. They're what causes complex trauma, the continuation of trauma. So you know that feeling well. As do I.

Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started or how the progression of modern Pentecostalism transitioned through the latter reign, charismatic and other fringe movements into the new apostolic reformation? You can learn this and more on William Brandham Historical Research's website, William-Branham.org. On the book's page of the website, you can find the compiled research of John Collins, Charles Paisley, Stephen Montgomery, John McKinnon, and others, with links to the paper, audio, and digital versions of each book.

You can also find resources and documentation on various people and topics related to those movements. If you want to contribute to the cause, you can support the podcast by clicking the contribute button at the top. And as always, be sure to like and subscribe to the audio or video version that you're listening to or watching. On behalf of William-Branham Historical Research, we want to thank you for your support. Well, like I said, I'm very fascinated by psychology and all of the effects. Combine that with the fascination that I have of the deliverance movement, because in the deliverance movement, it is escalating these things. And people really don't

understand how dangerous that is until they get involved with it. So anyway, I definitely hijacked your story. So let's shift focus back to that story. And I know the listeners don't want to hear me. They want to hear you. So let's let's continue with the story. So as a child watching this growing up, and I think I'm repeating a lot of themes that maybe some other guests have said, I think Jed Hartley, Jedadiah Hartley, somebody I can relate to a lot, because my father considered himself a prophet of, in some ways, he still does, I think. He didn't get the notoriety that some other

fits get. So as a child watching this, it was very fearful and bizarre. And we were required as children to be warriors. And we were required as children to maintain a level of acting like and living like we were in a war. This is traumatizing to children. So everything was spiritual warfare. Every bad dream, every night, trauma nightmare, every anxiety, which a ton of us have been diagnosed with anxiety and trauma after leaving all of this pretty normal.

And we were left as children to be warriors from a very small age. And none of us had this capacity. We were children. We needed to feel really safe. And I think at the heart of what we grew up in, it didn't feel safe at all. And like I said, we were put into double binds.

Like, well, did you experience fear or anxiety? Well, that's an attack from the enemy. So where do I go with that? Well, if you, if your life was going very well and things were very good, this is especially with the adults, you may have heard this in your group too, John, is if everything was going too well, it meant that Satan's eye was not on you. So you weren't a good enough Christian to receive the harassment from the enemy, so to speak. So it's like the are the eye of Saran did not come upon you. Absolutely. You know. And if you didn't have the eye

of Saran on you, you weren't a good enough warrior. And so as a really sensitive child who was really perceptive, I think that's probably my, just the gifting I have not because

I'm better at anything. It's just probably the wagering I was a watcher and I was watching and I'm like, oh my god, like this is, I don't know if I, I don't know if I can do this. This is too much.

But requiring us to be pretty much like adult warriors from the time we are very small. So that really did a number on a lot of us. And then shifting to YWAM, there were a lot of similar themes and the prophetic movement came around. One of the main themes, the leftover is from the shepherding movement and the discipleship movement was the outright authoritarianism that should never be questioned. So on top of the fear, on top of the complex trauma, on top of not being able, maybe to find who you really were as a person.

Sun, you also had a structure that didn't let you move outside of that and absolutely an unchecked structure. So I've seen it all. I've seen probably some decent leaders in there who really cared about their people and some radically unsafe people who abused everybody.

So from all the groups I've been in, every single group and every single system, I went to a Baptist school as a child, Christian, I went to Bible schools, all kinds of different places.

I've seen the gamut of everything. But absolutely one of the themes was authoritarianism and within the system of authoritarianism was specialness. And you've talked about this on the show too. In addition to being warriors, we were all required and sought after specialness of secret knowledge. And this is the prophetic, this is whatever your skills as an exorcist.

So the specialness kind of bred, I would say a corporate narcissism, even if not everybody was a narcissist, it would be like our group is better than others. Our group does this better than others. Oh, I'll also say I was involved with the vineyard for a little bit too. And vineyard came along and when Wimbledon announced things, they were all like, we do this better than everybody else.

And my own therapist came from all these movements, which was a huge blessing for me to have her. She was within the vineyard movement and no hate to people in all of these groups.

There's many earnest, wonderful, godly people in these groups. But within the structures, it was toxic. Anyway, this is a side note. She said, coming out of the vineyard, she said, it's like we were trying to sell tacos. We're better than everyone else. It's like she's like got that feeling where she was like, what? It's the same. You know what? So as you know, it's urged denominations. This is a problem in general, but really shows forward with this.

So yeah, so there's this movement from shepherding, from discipleship, then to the prophetic and the structures within the mission movements that I was in. And then being raised in all of this, trying to figure out who am I, but I don't really have maybe a center that I was allowed to have or create a part from this group. So this is what sets apart cult kids from people who maybe joined cults later as young adults.

So our healing work is different. To find our development and find our center takes a little bit a different form, different type of work and complexity as opposed to somebody who joined later who said, oh, I can go back to this, I can remember the person I was.

I can remember my personality when I was nine or I can remember how it was for us who were raised in it. We really have our work cut out for us to basically go back to the very bare bones of our scaffolding, take a lot away and then rebuild it again.

So that is the psychological side of us raised in it if that makes sense. I can relate to every single thing that you said. In fact, I would say that Branemism is probably the foundation for most of what you said.

Or actually, I should take a step back from that. Christian identity mixed with Branemism was probably the Joel's army concept, all of this thing, it seems to dominate the movements. But I love the most that you use the I have saw on because that analogy, if you think, when you're raised in these groups, you're a very programmed to have a black or white thinking.

There can only be one answer and one false answer. That's all it is. But there's this wide variety of problems that exist and there's this wide variety of personalities that exist. And the problem with these types of movements, exactly like you describe, and you're the first person that has.

So I'm applauding you for this. Whenever you're in this kind of movement and you're being raised as a child in it, almost every child wants to become a Gandalf. Everybody wants to rise up to the top because if you give a child a pyramid scheme and you tell them that at the very top of this is the Apostle and then there's this letter of this five-fold ministry letter, everybody wants to get up to the top.

I want to be Gandalf, but not everybody's personality has that ambition. You also have another subset of people that they want to put on the ring and hide from all of it. And that's exactly, I was more in the ring side.

I wanted no part of all of that. I wanted to stand in the corner, sit my coffin, watch everybody make fools of themselves. So the problem is whether you take the path of building your narcissistic personality disorder by training going up that ladder or whether you're being the victim of the spiritual abuse and often verbal abuse, even by your peers who are trying to make it up that ladder by putting on the ring, you suffer in both ways.

So I found that during my childhood I would take these tests often. school, I think they were trying to probe, is there any kind of problems in the family home? And they would ask you your stress levels and this kind of thing, always would write that I had almost zero stress.

But in hindsight, I'm writing this because I'm in this movement where I'm taught that I can't express my feelings, my emotions, because that's a demon. So I had this picture perfect life according to what I wrote in these tests.

And then I found out I was suffering from depression, probably from age 14. I had all the symptoms of deep depression from age 14. And almost 100% of that depression came from the cult, some of it from hereditary issues that exist.

But most, I would say 80 to 90% was the cult-related trauma. And dealing with that trauma was very difficult, finding terms with you, when you realize that you're angry at every single person who was part of this trauma.

From friends who were trying to climb up the ladder and become Gandalf to family members who should have protected you, and dealing with that is difficult for everyone who escapes it. Absolutely. I really love what you said about becoming Gandalf, because that was the highest of order.

You shall not pass. And like, people who use that in sermon illustrations, now I kind of roll my eye. I'm just like, OK, you're not Gandalf. That was the highest thing we could attain.

And I think it also because of the structure, not only did it breed like a corporate narcissism and the double binds. Like you described perfectly, like you had to report on your tests that I'm fine, everything looks good.

It's a godly home. But you couldn't go no way. There was no way out, absolutely, until you understood there was. But the feeling is, is there's no way out. So not only do we have this corporate, you must become Gandalf.

You must not show the actual harm that's taking place. But it opens up for leadership who are actual narcissists and predators to come and be the super, the superheroes. Of course, as you and I both know, predators thrive in systems that are closed, authoritarian, and patriarchal sometimes, because the devaluation of victims is always present.

So they can always get away with things. So the attraction of actual narcissists to those systems is really high in predators. So that's been something I've really studied and worked on for many years as understanding.

narcissism and predators and group dynamics and what types of groups they're attracted to. I will add another psychological side to this, to those of us raised in this and have the double whammy of parents or family or friends who also have other mental health issues who are attracted to these types of groups. And oftentimes, narcissists is the foremost because they leave the biggest trail of damage. The widest swath of dead bodies is what predators and narcissists will leave. But the type of people that these groups attracted were often first and foremost maybe people with their own trauma who were looking for a family, right? Who didn't have that growing

up? People who may have had schizophrenia, personality disorder, which I can explain if you'd like,

maybe bipolar with the mania to it. A lot of neurodiverse folks also attracted to these types of things, also risk taking things. And so you see this mix of humans that probably needs to be studied more, you know? Absolutely. Yeah, I can speak to that. Another problem that exists, which I know because of my age, but some of the younger generation doesn't know, whenever you're watching people come in with all of these mental health issues, and if you're in tune with this, if you have family who has mental issues, you are in tune with it. Yeah. And I did have family like this. You know who has it

and who who's struggling who's not basically? Yeah. And you watch all of these people come in and some of them have mental health issues could have gotten help had they not been in this movement.

But the problem that gets worse is that they have offspring who can now have genetical tendencies to become like this. And they try to marry within the movement because the outsiders might have the evil spirits. So you have people with mental health issues breeding with other mental health issues. The genetics turns into a disaster. And then on top of all of that, the people who are now bred like this, whenever they have these ecstatic experiences, they attribute their mental health issues sometimes to the spirit. And it's not really spirit. They're just in an episode in some

cases. Absolutely. Yep. Yes. So can I go a little bit into a couple of those diagnosis? Absolutely. Okay. A really good example of this. And I see this a lot now from people who come from not only these groups, but also some really some maybe some fun heavy hitter fundamentalism in general or or just high control.

Oops, is OCD. So let's say somebody has an OCD family brain and anxiety, family brain. They always go together usually. You get into a group like this and let's say your brain is already set up like this.

And pretty soon it is flared to an unmanageable level because of rumination on either being very scrupulous with morals and never breaking a rule or just the absolute fear and rumination on God watching, on the demonic, on evil things happening.

And so you see the combo with the heavy hitter high control specifically that walks into the counseling office later and says, what is what? And we have to take the time as therapists to say, okay, let's talk about what you were brought up with and also maybe what is the family brain that you were gifted with.

I tell my own kiddo, we all, you know, we were all given both the good and the bad from family. So OCD is one that comes up a lot. Also, it's a triple personality disorder.

If you were to take this out of the context of Christian religion or some of these high control groups, you may find it more in people who let's say believe in UFOs or believe in, you know, that they were abducted and they're just super interested and they're really into it.

And maybe they're kind of off and not as attuned relationally kind of in their head more. And a lot of people are functional like this. They're fine. They're getting through life fine. But you add it into religion like what we came from and pretty soon somebody with this may struggle with saying that they have all of these special powers.

And so while it may look like they have prophetic things, it looks again like a psychic. I'm not talking about the people who trick people. I'm talking about legitimate mental health issues. So you see that side of it too, a manic episode.

Also the high risk takers and compulsive and the ADHD, at least a portion of ADHD, we have a lot of neurodiversity and mental illness in my family. I have zero shame about it. It's a topic of open conversation with my kiddo.

I have a daughter, but in my family, because I've had to unwind so many of these things. So. coming to a place where you're watching people with some of these things then minister to other people is it's really quite something so i tell people sometimes that i was raised in um or my the way my head works it's like Tim Burton circus all the time um like very bizarre and dark i'm like i don't care that's my brain that's what i was raised in but um i say you could probably say the same in some ways yeah definitely and there's with it comes

so i'm i'm deeply into and everything you're saying and like i said it's not only is it fascinating it touches home i have friends and family who some of them sadly suffer with bipolar disorder and even more sadly are in the religion so what i have it becomes this chicken or egg problem most times whenever somebody has bipolar disorder the onset is around age 18 something like this but then there's this question that you'll never get the answer to some people have the genetic disposition where they can develop bipolar disorder however if given a very healthy environment where

the the environment itself did not push them over that edge they may never have developed it however they're in this high demand high group this cult mentality and the group itself can kind of trigger this thing and so they develop it and the question will always exist would they have bypassed this entirely had they not been in the group and my opinion at this point is that the group is pushing a lot of people over the edge who could have had healthy lives yeah and i think this is true of almost any group that is on the extreme whether they are a fringe Christian

group or not is i i think that's always the question and obviously in some cases there are people that no matter what their brain would have gone that way to an extent and they would have needed help but absolutely environment is going to worsen some conditions and and and trench them to sometimes a debilitating point you know um and it's probably like you said if you have that in your family um it's hard to know what person would have been debilitated or not had they not been in this group and we can't know sometimes you know yeah it's for me it's a difficult thing i

i would like for all of my friends who have this to have never had this is yeah not only for them i mean they're suffering but the family suffers with them in such a terrible thing and think that they're in a movement that could legitimately cause it really bothers me and the fact that the leadership some of them who aren't in this mental state they're aware that they're causing problems But yet they continue because of power, sex, money, whatever the drive is.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I would say for cult kids, I mean, anybody who's walked through trauma, of course, like that is an ongoing thing, but it's a level of holding grief and it's a level of continually holding grief.

And I don't mean grief where your life has to stop and you live in continual sadness. But in the maturing and in the developing of your adult self is the acceptance of that you may never see this made right in this lifetime.

And the profound grief that you see coming from this suffering is something that you can't change. And the best that we can do is we can find our own healing and speak out about it, like you're doing.

But it is really, really heartbreaking. And I joke a lot and on and off those who know me a lot of dark humor and humor, which is I think an excellent coping mechanism. I can always find fellow traumatized kiddos in a crowd because our humor is a different thing.

But it also comes with profound sadness. You know, we're watching people who are still not out of it. I've mentioned on the podcast many times my cartoons are my happy place, but I don't talk much about the dark humor that I do like.

There are things that I like and it's because of the trauma. Like you said, when you have this, there's this deep sadness that goes with it. In fact, for me, it's not just even happier sad, it's this flood of emotions that come.

And it's uncontrollable, which is why I gravitate more towards the cartoons because then I can control it to the laughter. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Like I said, there's a million ways to heal and manage another something I wanted to bring up.

And this is for listeners and for you too, is the concept of healing and post-traumatic growth, which is something I'll probably always be working on as many of us will, because we've seen so much and we've experienced so much.

And some of it is unspeakable, you know, absolutely unspeakable. And I think that there's been this really, this commodification and capitalistic notion of healing probably in the last 20 years that has really risen.

Like everybody, everybody's got to find healing or find a protocol. You know, go to this therapist and this group and the next self-help book. And for those of us who came from a high pressure situation, where we were always pressured as children, this isn't very helpful. And it can actually sort of reactivate our trauma to have the pressure. So even in these groups, we were pressured for healing all the time, healing and power, healing and power. And so now that we're out and we see the world of healing and mental health, there is a huge pressure to have this figured out and to walk in freedom and

walk in healing. And that's just not how it works. And when people go through these processes of healing, I think the first stage is when they're out, you know, of course, it's like a super angry stage and they're going to blast, put everybody on blast. And then it's like, I got to, I got to get all this healing out of the way so I can move on with my life. And it absolutely won't work that way. And I think there's such a place of grace and kindness that we can give to each other to say, um, healing is never linear. And when we are triggered or when we think we're set

back, it absolutely doesn't mean we've lost ground from the last healings that we have not had or known or the solidity. And that sometimes we have to be in those, like you said, a lot of emotion states. And that doesn't mean you haven't done the work. It doesn't mean you don't understand things. And so there's this sort of this slowing down of your nervous system where you have to say, okay, the way that I am going to approach my life and my healing may be different from somebody who experienced one big trauma who consolidates that to that thing. And we can get caught up in all of

these self-help things or all of these healing therapeutic things. It's the same for, it's same for health. I have a lot of chronic health conditions which we could do a whole other thing on chronic health and trauma and the pressure to be well all the time feels a lot like the pressure we grew up with.

So I just wanted to say that as a point of encouragement and kindness to everybody listening that

none of us has to have this all figured out. And if we are working on being a safe person to the world and working on finding who we were supposed to be, that's that's good, you know. So that's my little side thing on people who have been harmed a lot to take a step back and have grace. The other side to this I want to talk about a little bit is post-rantic growth, which is the notion that after trauma we find meaning and forward movement, not necessarily because trauma was a good thing or it should have happened. It

never should have happened, never, never, but that we can absolutely define for ourselves that this is who I want to be. This is where I want to go and this is the creativity that is going to come out of this and we ourselves get to define this. Nobody can tell you, John, God meant for you to go through all of this so you could become this. If you believe that and that is your forward movement, I'm like, do it. That's awesome. Nobody outside of you can tell you what your forward movement and your progress looks like or should look like.

I think there's a lot of that now that we should be at a certain place and I'm like, no, post-rantic growth is we have found meaning despite an aside from and we've created a self that can move forward with joy and creativity after all of this. There's a piece of all of us who've walked through this that has absolutely never been touched. There is a piece of you that is quarter who you are absolutely good and the thing that has not been this is my belief. Let's put this on me. Not everybody believes this, but it's been helpful

for my healing that has never been torn to shreds. Like my nervous system was torn to shreds. A lot of us, but there's a piece of me that absolutely came into this world was created to be whole and as whole. That's my therapist encouragement for everybody here. Well, that's very good advice and encouragement and there's only two things that I'll add to this. Number one, yes, we are going to do another one and talk about health because that's another thing that fascinates me. I want to talk through that and I've been waiting for somebody to say,

yes, I want to talk through this. You are now this person. Number two, there is an indoctrinated sense of urgency that goes with the setbacks. When you're in these groups, they teach you that either the rapture is coming, the end of days revival is coming, Armageddon is coming. There's different ways that these high control groups tell you this and that's why they're called a high control group.

They're using this to control. you this theology. And so when you leave the first thing that I get that comes in the email, I can tell when somebody is just left, they always say, where do I go from here? Who's our new prophet? How do I live? What church do I go to? They're not wanting to figure it out for themselves. They want all the answers because they have to have it now. But then what happens is whenever you have your first setback and you will, whenever you have all of this, you go, you do really do really well unwrapping and deep tangling all of this in your head.

Then something triggers it and you go into that emotional state where you're as though you just left. Well, then that sense of urgency fights against you coming back out of it. So for me, my advice to people is whenever they have this, the first thing you must get rid of is that sense of urgency. You've got a lifetime to figure it out. Do that and find healing while you do it.

Absolutely. That is right on and people who are wanting to find another group or another head ship or authority or another system even or another set of beliefs. I'm like, no, let's just settle here for a while and then you can try out safe places very slowly. That's excellent advice.

Yeah, because I like what you said too, but the rapture, like everything was urgent. For those of us raised on a thief in the night and all of those movies, did you watch that whole series? Well, interestingly in Branemism, you weren't supposed to watch TV. Oh, that's right. That's right. Okay.

Now, we were in the realm of the high creatives, of course, shifting into IOM. All about drama and theater, literally in music. At least we had this outlet of movies and theater and all performance, I should say, actual performance. Yeah, what you said about the that it's coming, it's coming, the end times, the rapture, Jesus is coming back and the pressure that that creates on your nervous system. So yeah, I like what you said, like just like notice that urgency and step it back. Well, thank you so much for doing this. I probably could talk to you for the next

three hours, but yeah, we both have work to do. This is fun. Yeah. Great. Anytime,

anytime if you have another topic that fits within my realm, okay, said I have, I think you and I both have a very specific realm of what we group that it's hard to explain. So it's nice to talk to somebody who gets it. So yeah. Yeah, it's fun. Well, this has been fun. We'll do it again. And thank you for, thank you for joining me. Okay. Thank you so much, John. We'll talk to you later.

Well, if you've enjoyed our show and you want to share your story, you can check us out on the web. You can find us at William-Branum.org. For more about the The dark side of the new Apostolic Reformation, you can read Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR, available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.

You can read Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR, available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.

You can read Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR, available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.