Nancy Charles: I Escaped the LGBT Lifestyle to Live a Chaste Catholic Life

She was alone, spiraling, and ready to end her life. Then a single thought cut through everything: “What if the pain doesn’t end here?” That question didn’t just stop Nancy, it started a chain of events she still can’t explain away: five days of praying the Rosary, an unmistakable push to go see a priest, and the terrifying walk into a Catholic church where she felt like she didn’t belong.

We talk with Nancy about the real backstory leading up to that moment: childhood trauma, secrecy, same-sex attraction, family upheaval, and years of addiction that moved from “normal” partying to isolation, overdoses, psychiatric holds, and repeated rehab cycles. She shares how the culture’s identity scripts can feel like relief at first, whether it is coming out or experimenting with gender transition, and why that “freedom” often collapses into deeper confusion when the underlying wounds stay untouched.

Then we dig into the bigger questions her story raises for anyone trying to live and speak the faith clearly today: What is identity, and is it built from desires or received from God? Why does language like “gay Catholic” create a conflict of frameworks? How do we tell the truth about confession and Communion without turning it into a pride project? Along the way we get practical about healing, shame, conscience, and why the sacraments are not a side detail but the center of recovery and conversion.

If this conversation helps you, subscribe, share it with someone who needs hope, and leave a review so more people can find it.

Transcript

Alien Banter And Cold Open

SPEAKER_08 0:11

The grays have the superior cranial capacity for interstellar travel. But the xenomorph is the only species cool and actually looks in a tactical combat scenario. You are just saying that because it isn't a langated morph has a phallic, Josh. It's an aerodynamic.

SPEAKER_00 0:30

Josh, what are you and Daniel doing? You know aliens are fake, right?

SPEAKER_02 0:43

Get out of here, Nancy!

SPEAKER_00 0:46

Much, much, much later.

SPEAKER_07 0:48

Aliens do not exist. This is a demon diabolical attempt to uh basically counteract divine revelation.

SPEAKER_03 0:55

And that was so dumb. First of all, I had Josh calling Daniel Josh. It was so bad.

SPEAKER_04 1:06

I love how like I get why we made fun of Josh on that, but why did Daniel catch some strays there?

SPEAKER_03 1:12

The idea is they were gonna so totally be alien nerds, and Nancy is the is the genesis of them changing them.

SPEAKER_09 1:23

Finally, the real story is told. That's so true.

SPEAKER_03 1:26

So true.

SPEAKER_09 1:27

Um, I've been uh pretty good, actually. How are you guys?

SPEAKER_03 1:33

Um you get the honor of being one of two girls who we allow on our program. Uh you and Catherine Bennett are the only two ladies that we allow on Avoiding Babylon. So I love how Angela Erickson has just been memory hold. Oh, but I mean now for Angela. Yeah. Well, we trivia days are you know different. Um, but yeah, we uh it's been so long since we had you on. I thought it would be a good idea just to kind of give people a bit of a recap of your story because it was such a powerful conversion story. It's probably one of the best I've ever heard.

SPEAKER_04 2:10

And um Keith Nestor said that today too.

SPEAKER_03 2:13

Yeah, it's what it's one of the best one of the best I've heard. And um then I I then we're we're gonna go a few different places tonight, but I also want to get into maybe relationship dynamics because I know you work with your brother, and I know you guys probably have well. I think you you I remember you telling me it was a pretty tense relationship before your conversion just to see how that kind of works. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_09 2:38

God, okay. I thought you were making a joke. No, well, but I heard on your last stream you wanted me to spill the beans on some family.

SPEAKER_03 2:46

Well, that's too. We definitely want her for sure. Like for sure, definitely, but I also locals is for I don't I definitely know Josh is a difficult guy, like he's not an easy personality to deal with. So I would imagine that's probably challenging. So we'll get into all that. Um, so but uh from what I'm hearing though, you only converted once you tried Knickknacks. That is what I'm hearing. And we're gonna credit Nancy's conversion to knickknacks.com. This is the ultimate knick conversion story.

SPEAKER_04 3:23

So if you want a family mode to convert, not only do you hide a green scapular somewhere, you hide a pack of kickbacks too.

SPEAKER_03 3:31

So if you wanna this is this is better than pray the gay away, guys. You give nicknags. You can dip the gay away. The gay away with nicknacks.com, guys. Nick necks is a product that contains nicotine.

SPEAKER_04 3:59

I like the smoking because I use nicknacks.

SPEAKER_03 4:04

That's not a smoking sensation aid. Not a smoking sensation aid, but it definitely will make you straight. So go to it worked for Jim. Use code AB25 for 25% off your first purchase. Uh use code AB10 for 10% off all subsequent purchases. But in all reality, uh you can pray the gay way with your Black Monk Rosary. So go to black monkrosary.com and use code avoiding babble on a checkout and start hammering away on those beads and let's pray the gay way. And everybody, guys, I know I'm making light of this subject, but it's very it's gonna be a very, very deep conversation. There's no way I'm gonna be able to monetize this episode from the ads we

Sponsors And A Serious Warning

SPEAKER_03 4:50

just did. The ultimate conversion therapy, our sponsors, knickknacks and black muck rosaries, guys.

Childhood Trauma And Early Attraction

SPEAKER_03 4:56

Um, all right, so Nancy, why don't you take us back a little bit because um I don't know how much you're willing to share about your childhood, but I part of the thing we want to get into tonight is how you're not born gay, but like um with that we we don't know this the the the genesis of it, but a lot of it has to do with childhood trauma and and coping mechanisms and things like that. So I uh it whatever you're willing to share about your youth and what like where this whole story begins would be awesome.

SPEAKER_09 5:30

Uh yeah, so just a brief background. Um, I was raised in a Protestant home uh initially. Um I do have some sexual abuse in my past, so you obviously can't separate that as an effect that would probably impact the outcome of what happened to me as time went on. Um, but also I would say uh, you know, obviously we all none of our families are perfect. So I'm I try to be careful in this area because I have a wonderful family and we've actually mostly all come to the church by this point, and it's just been incredible. But you know, I think naturally, um, you know, the dynamics in the home can sometimes affect uh certain things as well. Um and uh as I was growing up, I remember having same sex attraction as young as third grade. It could have been earlier, but I I mark third grade specifically because I had a crush on my third grade teacher. Um and you know, I don't think that the crush was at the time it wasn't like sexual because I was in third grade. You know, I wasn't really thinking that way. It was just more of like a safety thing. I felt safer, I think maybe in some ways. Um, I also think I learned this is kind of an interesting feat. When you learn about, I learned about, you know, same-sex attraction, uh not with that verbiage, which I think is actually super important um to pinpoint, because when you don't learn about it in the correct terminology, um, as we now understand it in the church, uh, you do start to see it, um, you can understand how easily it could become an identity category later, which would be just a false, a false anthropology. So essentially I learned about it in this in the context of like, you know, homosexuality, gay, you know, the these terms, and they were always associated with like sin. And it's like um, I think that made it hard for me to, I kind of equated if I came out and said anything, then my family would leave me. Now, that wasn't completely true, um, but that was a huge driving force. And I think in many ways, had we known the true teaching of what this was, like if I had a kid now who had displayed disordered affection um or you know, desires or temptations early on in life, which many children these days do because of the culture we live in, I would have I would want my child to be feel comfortable talking to me about it so that I can explain what is actually happening to them because it's actually far less shameful than I think we end up feeling when we're isolated in those things. So I think it was the isolation of feeling like I I couldn't bring these things up um out of fear of total abandonment.

SPEAKER_03 8:08

And um did you were you guys like a church attending family when you were younger though? Or were you just kind of like nominally Protestant?

SPEAKER_09 8:16

No, I think when I I remember being really young and being a very church-oriented family. So I mean I actually remember having a lot of fun too. Like we had a lot of uh church friends, barbecues on you know, Fourth of July, you know, all the whole thing. So I mean it wasn't, but I I would say as I got older, it became more nominal as I remember it. Josh was the only one who really stuck to being a pretty um, you know, pretty good Christian, I guess you could say. Um so as I got older, as in probably like high school, uh, I don't recall going to church regularly in high school at all.

SPEAKER_05 8:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 8:54

Um but I would say through middle school, yeah. We went every Sunday and we had church family, friends, stuff, stuff like that.

SPEAKER_03 9:00

Did your Bible, Bible uh uh boot camp?

SPEAKER_09 9:03

Like the the Yeah, we went to we went to Bible. Yeah, I actually really enjoyed camp.

SPEAKER_03 9:09

Yeah. So um, so all right, so now as you so as you get into high school, your parents don't force you to go anymore and you start to drift away from it. And how are your teen years? Are you just uh like do you start acting out as a teenager and that's what kind of like um maybe begins a gap between you and your relationship with God?

SPEAKER_09 9:32

Um, I think my relationship, I mean, more rigidly, I don't I would actually say that I never really had a relationship with God. I would say I had no idea what that meant. Uh I would say that my best understanding at it at the strongest point when I was considered somebody who'd go to church all the time, or my family, uh uh going way, which is when I was very young, I still only heard, you know, the I only heard about God and understood him as a story. I didn't understand how this, I didn't had any understanding of what relationship was. He wasn't a personal connection to me ever. I mean, we prayed, but I wouldn't feel anything. I just kind of was going through motions, you know what I mean? And so I thought for a longest time that was just what it was to be a Christian, which you can imagine later on if you don't understand um relationship, then it could be really easy to just dismiss God altogether and be like, I don't understand why this is even necessary. Um and then you kind of just banish.

SPEAKER_03 10:30

So like growing up, growing up, even even with the church you were exposed to, you never had like any kind of a relationship with Jesus, right?

SPEAKER_09 10:38

Um, no, but I I want to say there's a probably a real specific reason as to why. I want to say, and I can't speak for my brother, but my brother probably would say that he did, and it I would say his story seems to point to the that as evidence. So I want to say that this probably isn't a failing of uh like anything that happened in our family per se, of why it impacted him one way and impacted me another. I want to say that I'd internally struggled, like when I was going through, and I'm just gonna be honest, when I was going through the sexual abuse years, um how old were you when that was going on? Uh I always say five, six years old. Um, I but quite frankly, I don't I don't know. I don't really have a good memory. That's what's partly hard about telling my story um is that I have a very, very poor memory. Um but we'll say six. Um that's kind of the usual age I have tracked it back to. Um, but when that was happening, you know, that was not something I can share. And not only was it not something I could share, so as a young kid, I learned that I had to be secretive. I and and it's also really confusing because the person that I was, you know, kind of having these experiences with, you know, I had a love and a loyalty for. I mean, that was the other thing. I had confused um, you know, love very early on with like secrecy, with um, you know, doing what I needed to do to receive love a certain way. Um, it was just it messes a kid up. It's it's far beyond just the sexual attraction. That's very different. Um, but just even your understanding of like love, of uh connection. Um, and then when things were found out, I remember, you know, you can imagine a young girl um wanting to protect the person who's doing some of these things. And by the way, I want to just make it very clear that I've completely forgiven this person, I love this person, I pray for this person all the time. And not only that, but they were also a victim themselves at a very young age. And um, and this is just the cycle, you know, and so I'm not excusing it.

SPEAKER_03 12:44

Was this person an adult or another young kid or uh an older an older child?

SPEAKER_09 12:50

Okay, I would say older, oh old enough to know, uh, old enough to be more uh over me as if they to me they felt like an adult, you know, because I was so young.

SPEAKER_03 13:03

Is it a male or a female?

SPEAKER_09 13:05

Male. And I actually don't know their direct age, to be honest. So that's another reason why I can't answer.

SPEAKER_03 13:11

But they I remember Yeah, I'm just trying to get like an idea because I would imagine what something like that does is distort your view of of what a man is, right? Like a man, a man becomes scary at that point, right? And and that probably affects your view of men in general.

SPEAKER_09 13:32

Yeah, that well, and it wasn't even just well, here's the weird thing. I um and this is the difference I think between being forced down and sexually assaulted against your will, and being cor like being love bombed into something. Yes, that's because that's that's where you get like Stockholm syndrome and things like that. Now I'm I was never diagnosed with that, but when I when I when things were found out, I remember um that was like the first day I actually couldn't say I I actually dissociated because I left my body completely. I felt like because I could hear this other person um uh you know basically being dealt with. Uh, we'll just leave at that. And I my parents were asking me like what happened. I wouldn't say a word. I was silent. They took me to therapy for like for quite a while, they said, and I have no memory of them taking me to therapy. In fact, that was later on a resentment that I had. I thought, like, how come you guys never tried to get me help? You know what happened to me. And they're like, we did, and I have no memory of that. It's amazing what trauma does to you. Um so I had a loyalty in many ways to this person, and you can understand that, like, how that messed me up a little bit. It's then you think, is this my fault? Now this horrible, this thing has happened to you as a young child that you don't, that it's just already very disordered. And then on top of that, you don't know how to you feel like you're responsible not only for what happened, but for this person being caught, and you live with that in silence for it, didn't it didn't really come back to bite me in the butt real hard until about 18 when my family got divorced. And that's when it just like blew up.

SPEAKER_03 15:11

And yeah, I I because I okay, so I had um I had family members that dealt with stuff like this, and they they were young kids. It was basically two young kids that got into something in in my family. It was two young kids that went into something like that, and like an adult walked in on it, and I don't think adults knew how to handle it, right? So there was a lot of yelling, and kids were in trouble, and then I think that brings shame into it, and it has an effect on that kid, and what and one of the kids ended up um dealing with same-sex attraction himself out of those two kids that I that are, you know, and like that. It's it really is these things that happen to us when we're kids have such a deep effect on us as we grow into into adulthood, and we don't even and like you said, you you disassociate it to the point where you don't even remember going to therapy and trying to deal with this stuff. So the the amount of things you block out of your memory when trauma happens as a young kid, and you don't even know that these are the things that are affecting your whole life. So um so your parents get divorced when you're around 18, you said.

SPEAKER_09 16:22

Um, I want to give or take, yeah. I remember I was when the I had basically just gotten into college out of

Divorce Shock And Going Off Rails

SPEAKER_09 16:30

high school in that time. The divorce was very long and drawn out. So the official divorce, I was probably I don't know what how old I was, like 18, 19, maybe. I don't know. But um I remember there being like three ruin years of just what's the age difference between you and Josh?

SPEAKER_03 16:45

How many years apart are you guys?

SPEAKER_09 16:48

Three.

SPEAKER_03 16:49

So he's three years older.

SPEAKER_09 16:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 16:52

And okay, so he's already probably off to college wh while that's going on, also, right?

SPEAKER_09 17:00

Yeah, he's in Kansas, I believe.

SPEAKER_03 17:09

What's it like dealing with a your family splitting up when you're when you're that old?

SPEAKER_09 17:14

Well, I'll tell you what it felt like for me. Um, you know, one I like to if you start with the premise that I here I am as this kid, I as long as I can remember, I have this hidden world that I've never spoken about. And I'm doing that so that in my head, I'm not saying this is the truth of the situation, but in my head, my belief was that if they know who I am, they will leave me. Um, and you can understand how the devil can get inside that fear, and that fear just grows and grows and grows, and it's just like if uh it got to the point where it turned into like a personality disorder, um, you know, which is this, you know, basically like when I would have abandonment wounds where if if somebody left, I would actually feel like I was disappearing. Like it's it's horrendously painful. And so my point is is that so with that being the premise, when my parents got divorced, we always grew up hearing things like, you know, at least you have a two mother, uh a mother and father that love each other. You know, I I never thought my parents would get divorced, ever growing up my whole life. And then all of a sudden, just things just started to unravel. And so what I saw, I I took it as one of the the biggest betrayals of my life, to be honest with you. Um, not that I didn't support it. That's actually funny. Uh it's it kind of seems counter counterintuitive. I actually at the time was very upset with some of the things. I'm gonna have to get into that. Um, because you know, I love my family and it's not really about the details, but the point is is that the point is is that I actually wasn't even against it. There was a lot of things going on, a lot of anger. I think all of us were angry and for whatever reasons. Um, but I still saw, I guess I saw it as a a rupture of how I had perceived what I thought I had versus meeting the reality of what actually was. And that was the betrayal that I felt. And it hurt me deeply, but I don't know that I would have been able to articulate that at the time.

SPEAKER_03 19:12

Yeah. Quite very quickly. And you so now, all right, so now you're off at college, and I I think I remember last time we spoke, you you took you told us that you you wound up getting into drugs and stuff too while you were in college, right?

SPEAKER_09 19:27

Pretty quickly, yeah. Because once again, once the idea of what I thought I had in my family had broke, remember, this is all built on the premise that I had I had done in my heart what I what I perceived as a huge sacrifice, which was I, and this is all false, a false way of thinking, but just to kind of dive into that framework and that mindset, in my mind, I had spent my entire life hiding from this self that was inside so that my family wouldn't leave and that I would be somebody that they were proud of. And I saw that as I did this for you, that's how much I love you, it was a sacrifice, you know? And so when they when I realized that my family was breaking apart, all of a sudden I went into this like, well, if you guys don't care, then I don't care. And that's when I finally was like able to experience, you know, I kind of went off the rails. I kind of uh all of a sudden these things that I would have that normally would have like kept me away from those things. Like if I if my family was still together and we were still the family I had known growing up, I would have not gotten into drugs, uh, quite frankly. I mean, you can't for sure say that, but realistically, I I was really driven based off this, like I had, you know, I had really saved, um, I had really pushed down something that was inside of me for a long time to make my family proud. But when that when that breaking up happened, I felt abandoned in many ways by that breakup. And so I thought, well, if you're gonna leave me anyway, nobody really left me, but that's how it feels. If you're gonna leave me anyway, then I'm just gonna, you know, this is my way of leaving you, even though I wouldn't have probably articulated it that way. And so I, you know, yeah, I got into drugs. I mean, I it was started really innocently, you know, uh partying. I finally came out to my mom for the first time, even though that was still very difficult. She actually had to say the words um because I couldn't even bear saying them to her. Um, but I was so suicidal.

SPEAKER_03 21:25

Did they suspect did they suspect it? Like that, like was your mom already kind of because a lot of times parents will kind of pick up on it before you even do verbalize it.

SPEAKER_09 21:34

Yeah, I I I would say they did. Um, I remember actually hearing a conversation. This is part of the fear. I remember hearing a conversation between my mom and my dad, and uh when I was in high school still. And um I let's just say I heard one of them say that I I think that this might be an issue. And that scared me. And I was like, oh no, they know. And we never talked about it. And so I just went straight into I tried, I was actually pretty like, although my family would probably disagree with this, in my mind, I was hyper feminine uh in high school. If you look at any of my like high school pictures, you know, I wore uh points of prompt. I was actually the homecoming queen, you know, which is which is actually really funny. Um, yeah, I had the football uh what do you call it, captain of the football team on my arm and everything. It was kind of funny. Um, so I use my feminine my so my femininity now, which is actually the truth about me, I'm using as a shield to protect what is actually going on inside me so that nobody knows. Um, so yeah, I do think they both suspected, um for sure, because my mom was the one who had to name it. If she hadn't suspected it, she wouldn't have been able to name it. But I basically called her one night on the verge of like just wanting to die completely. And um I said, I have something to tell you. And you know, I don't remember verbatim the conversation, but and I said, I can't say it. I said, I can't, I'm crying, you know. And she's uh I said, you have to, she's like, I think I know what this is about. And I said, You have to say it. Then she's like, No, I want you to say it. And I was like, No, no, no, you're like, you have to say it. And she finally did, and I said yes, and then she assured me that she loved me and that she didn't agree with the lifestyle, um, but that she did love me. And you know, that's really hard to hear from a parent because when you're in that place, once again, the part of what you see in the world nowadays, and what the issue is and the friction between people is that gay is seen as an identity. You think it's who you are. So when you say, you know, when you hear your mother say, I don't agree with that lifestyle, in their head, they're saying, You you don't agree with me. Not just like a something I do, something as like my who I am, what I my being. And that is like, so it's it feels very conflicting to hear, I don't agree with this, but I love you. It's like you can't, you just said in the first sentence that you don't love me. You can't, you know what I mean? So that's the sort of uh friction there, I would say.

SPEAKER_03 24:03

Yeah, as we go through this story, because I want I want to get into that a little bit because I I have a a thing that I'm dealing with in and with a with a person in our life, it's a it's a similar thing where like like how do you how do what is the appropriate way to uh approach something like that? Because you don't want the person to ever feel like you're you're you don't want the person to hear what you heard from your mom, right? Like, so it's a it is a it is a tricky conversation. So um and all right, so how uh what year is this, by

Coming Out And The Illusion Of Freedom

SPEAKER_03 24:35

the way? Like uh uh what year, like I'm trying to gauge what year it is because like the insanity culture, what 2010, right?

SPEAKER_09 24:44

Yeah, I would have well if I can't let's say I came out around I think I was I don't know, we'll say I was 19, 20. It would have been yeah, 20 20 uh 2009, 2010.

SPEAKER_03 24:56

Okay, yeah. So it's before like the culture hits full pitch insanity, like it's still yeah, I mean it is you know, the couple years before uh Oberfell, for instance. Yeah, marriage isn't universal yet or anything. So um yeah. Okay, so all right, now now what are those years like for you after you after you come out?

SPEAKER_09 25:18

Well, after I came out, I um I kind of just was like I felt uh I felt a weird sense of freedom. I mean, you know, my whole life I had like and the freedom that I felt you know came from the idea that I just wasn't hiding this thing that I'd had taken so much uh effort to hide for so long. And so to be honest with you, this the the really um dangerous part about this experience is that uh what is actually a cage uh as we know it um is actually something that does really feel like freedom for a little bit. Um and so I will uh start.

SPEAKER_02 25:56

There's something important about that, right?

SPEAKER_03 25:57

Like it like it living uh uh a lie, right? Like living a lie, no matter what the lie is, has psychological damage that occurs, right? So if you are if you're presenting one way, but inside you feel completely different, like to to come out and finally just say, look, it's because keeping things hidden from the world is a dangerous thing. It's this this very reason why sin sins in the dark, it's why confession feels so good, because you finally come out and you admit something and you're forgiven, right? So there's it's it's it's it's common sense that if you're hiding this from the people you love the most and you're not sharing this, when you finally do get to open up and say, look, this is what's going on, there is a freedom in that, even though it's not true freedom.

SPEAKER_09 26:44

Right, correct, yeah. And um, unfortunately, it gets perceived as real freedom because most of us don't have the framework for what true freedom really is. I mean, yeah. Um, and and so, you know, I went on to live my life. Uh, started um now I had nothing to hide, but you know, it's really interesting because I had I still had been going on this party road. Um, and what I'd like to say is that it's funny uh that I when you reflect on it because my experience internally was still a mess. I mean, I freedom you can say in one regard that I didn't have to hide this stuff anymore, but in the other regard, it's very clear and evident that it wasn't um I wasn't I was messed up on the inside.

SPEAKER_03 27:27

Um and the reason drugs Can I give you a small example of that? Yeah, I had quit smoking in January and um I went a few months without smoking, and then like a month ago, I started sneaking cigarettes and I was hiding it and I wasn't telling anybody, and then when I finally was we were away one weekend, and I like just was like, I'm having a cigarette in front of my wife, and she was like, You're smoking. I'm like, Yeah, I started smoking again, and I smoked like a pack of cigarettes that day in front of because I was like, I finally don't have to hide it anymore. Now, the thing is, I felt free because I don't have to hide this thing anymore, but I'm killing myself with cigarettes, right? Like, um now it's not killing myself with this.

SPEAKER_04 28:15

It's it's a very shipment of knickknacks and was fine after that.

SPEAKER_03 28:20

I'm throwing them out again, but it's just a very small example of what you're talking about. It's like it just because I'm I'm not hiding that thing anymore, it like I feel like all right, I'm free, but then like you're just over. Imagine living a completely different months, like literally a couple of weeks, and it wasn't even like I was back to full-blown smoke. That's what I mean. I would have a cigarette here and there, and then once I said to her that I had a few cigarettes, it was like I bought a pack and I just went all out because I was like, I don't really care.

SPEAKER_06 28:53

Right.

SPEAKER_03 29:00

I'm throwing them out again. I just it was just uh yeah, I I caved in like two weeks ago and then I just kind of had it out. But I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt the story.

SPEAKER_09 29:10

No, it's okay. Um, but yeah, no, that's actually a really great example. Um, and that's basically how it felt. So inside I was feeling I wouldn't have connected that to my my disordered uh choices, obviously.

SPEAKER_04 29:23

I don't think anyone would have Nancy.

SPEAKER_09 29:26

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_03 29:29

Sneaking cigarettes for three weeks, living a completely different life. All right, not the worst.

SPEAKER_09 29:38

No, no, I love that example. That's I like simplifying the example. It's true. Um, so yeah, I went down the path. And I think the thing with drugs, and I think uh I think you've shared in the past, even on the past, that like uh didn't you say you had a brother, Anthony, who struggled uh with drugs and stuff.

SPEAKER_03 29:57

And look, even I like look, Nancy, like I did have a relationship with Jesus as a kid. I was raised in a very Catholic home, and then I had a period where I lived as though there was no God. I was never an atheist or anything, but I just lived as though there was no God. I went through a very similar party phase as you did. I went every weekend, I was getting trash and I started smoking pot and then I started taking opiates, and then like I mean, I had a pretty bad like my life spiraled pretty quickly out of control too. Just because when you're when you're when you don't have God present in your life, it's amazing how quickly things spiral out of control. And I left the sacraments for this period of time, so it got really, really bad in my life for for several years. So that's why I like yeah, don't feel like you're being judged when you share this stuff. Like it you can't you don't know how many people when you talk about this are went through something similar and they can relate to it. So, you know, don't don't feel bad. You know, we're all messed up.

SPEAKER_09 30:54

Yeah, no, and I uh I appreciate that. Yeah, so I mean when I I I attribute it to you know the internal suffering that I was experiencing wasn't actually fully able to be felt um or processed or any of that, so it was just compounded because drugs made me feel better. And um, so I learned really quickly that if I did some, you know, put a drug in me, I didn't have to feel any of that. Now, I don't think addiction articulates itself like that to you. So you kind of just spiral and before you know it, you're like, I mean, so it started off as in college, I was just partying with my friends, you know what I mean? And then it turned into uh about two years into that, uh, it turned into now I'm buying drugs and I'm going home. I'm not going to class, I'm going home and I don't want to share with my friends anymore. I'm not trying to go to parties because my addiction has taken full force. So all my money is going towards, you know, this thing. And and I uh, you know, I can't afford sharing with other people, um, or else I won't have enough for myself.

SPEAKER_03 31:57

We're like when you're when you're hanging out and doing drugs with people, that's one thing. Once you start doing drugs alone, that's when you have a real problem on your hands that you got to deal with, right? So if you're just alone and doing those drugs, that's when the problem is real.

SPEAKER_09 32:11

Yeah, and actually um at the time I was I had moved into I didn't really have any money, so and I had spent all I never know if this is a good thing to share online because you know I took out student loans, but a lot of those loans uh were used for drugs, you know. Um and I so I didn't really have a lot of money, I didn't have a place to stay. Um, I ended up living in this uh party house, is what we called it. Uh it was right off Main Street, and it was this old brothel. It wasn't an active brothel, but you can imagine it probably wasn't blessed, so you can imagine the types of entities hanging out there. Um and uh I I they didn't have any extra rooms, so I I paid them I think a hundred dollars a month to live in their pantry. So I was literally Harry Potter for like over like a year.

SPEAKER_04 33:07

Yeah, I had just Father Isaac on with the Harry Potter books right above them.

SPEAKER_03 33:13

Harry Potter, Harry Potter lived under the the the people's uh pantry, like under their stairs. So so I mean it was that's pr that's pretty bad though, right? You like you're living in you're living in like a a party house essentially, just living in their pantry. Wow, that's that's pretty crazy.

SPEAKER_09 33:32

Yeah, so there's like uh and I actually never owned a key to that place. That's how like party central it was. Like people were just coming in all day, half the people I didn't even know. Um, they would just show up for, you know, there's always like somebody in the room and in the living room, a bug circle table of smokers or doing some drugs, you know, whatever it may be. And you know, it was a typical like uh you have like all your weird uh psychedelics. Uh psychedelics were a big thing back then, um, psychedelic posters on the wall, and just like, yeah, just a bunch of weirdos.

SPEAKER_03 34:05

But uh what is your what is your relationship with uh your family at this time? Are you even talking to them? Have you like cut them off? Are you hiding everything from them? Like what's your relationship with your brother at that time?

SPEAKER_09 34:18

So my brother's gone. So we don't really have, to be honest, that big of a relationship. Not I wouldn't say because of anything other than the fact that he was just at a different point in his life. He was just uh, you know, he was off to college. And you know, um, my sister, I try not to talk about her actually on on online too much, um, but she had her own friends. I think we were all dealing with the the divorce in different ways. So she was really uh kind of doing her own thing. And then uh my dad, I wasn't speaking to my dad at all um at that time. Um, and then my mom, uh she I she had my mom always I was always very absent, like she, but I think my mom and I always kept a good rapport. Like she was the one I kept I I most consistently was always in touch with, but mostly, mostly because she would just reach out to me constantly and see how I was doing, like if I, you know, didn't have something. Um, I remember a couple times, I don't remember a lot to be honest, but I do remember a couple times that she like she seemed like she would sometimes try to bring things to me just to like peak the situation. Um I remember one time I was I was doing such high levels of uh just a lot of different drugs and I wasn't eating very much and my legs would get like just straight purple. Um and uh I would walk out into the car because I didn't want her coming in the house necessarily all the time.

SPEAKER_03 35:43

And uh she knew you were living in this party house like this.

SPEAKER_09 35:48

She didn't really know the extent. I mean, it to her it was just a because she knew my some of my roommates, and so she saw them as just like college roommates. She the thing is, is I kept a lot of this from all of them. Like I was an adult, you know, they weren't like in my business like that anymore. Um, so you know, it wasn't no, she didn't really know anything. She had no idea that it was a party house, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_03 36:13

Um, so so you're all right, so the so do you have girlfriends at this time? Are you like what's going on with that?

SPEAKER_09 36:23

Um, it took me a little while to to for that to happen. Um, just because I was such a mess. Like I wasn't somebody who was like fun to be with, regardless. Doesn't matter if you're gay or straight. I was just kind of a mess. So um eventually I would say I actually I mean I had relationships, yeah. Here and there. Nothing serious.

SPEAKER_03 36:49

And is there like a turning point in this in in this period in your life where like you you start to go to like therapy or anything and try to work through this stuff? Like what what what's the what's the catalyst that changes from this from this point?

SPEAKER_04 37:03

Like what's rock bottom?

SPEAKER_03 37:06

Yeah, like you hit a rock bottom where you wanna where you want to change things or yeah, so I basically um the rock bottom was my first ever overdose.

SPEAKER_09 37:15

Uh

Overdose ICU And Psychiatric Hold

SPEAKER_09 37:16

I have been going to therapy. I've been going to therapy through high school. Um, I was seeing some therapists out there who's pretty well known. Um, so therapy was a consistent already at that point in my life. It was on and off, but I am not new to therapy. Uh, what happened was I ended up having an overdose one night. And um my I actually called my mom. Uh, and apparently I passed out on the phone when I was with her. From my understanding, people have to tell me their versions. So the people that were with me and other people, they tell me what happened because I have virtually no memory. I have one memory, and that's when I was in the ER very briefly, and I went to go pull out the drugs that I had in my pocket. I remember the nurse saying, if you pull that out, we'll have to arrest you. And then my my friend he said, Don't worry, we took all the drugs off you. And I said, Thanks. And then I remember nothing. Um, but I ended up waking up the next day in the intensive care unit with like monitors and you know, breathing tubes. Um, and I had like no idea what I was so out of it. And I was like, Where am I? Yeah, um, I had so the day before I had been struggling with anxiety a lot. So the day before I had gotten um prescription, you know, I went online, figured out how to get a prescribed doctor because I couldn't get enough street value, it was just very expensive, so I would always double up on getting a doctor's um uh prescription as well as what I was buying on the street. So I I got Atavan prescribed to me, and I had taken two or three of them, and that's like the same as Xanax, essentially, um, pretty close. And I had taken two or three of them just to alongside with the um we were doing Coke, Molly. I mean, that was a pretty hardcore party night. So I was on Coke, Molly, uh, we did shrooms later on that night. I mean, it was just kind of like a binge here for like three days with like a lot of different things. Obviously, weed came with everything. And the problem was when I took three, I thought I could handle three uh anxiety, but I apparently with everything else I had blacked out already. And so I kept taking them. And I don't remember that I I because I will look back and I told my friends, I was like, I've only taken three. But my one of my friends was a CPA, and he had done a pill count on me when I passed out, and he saw that there was nothing left, but the it was prescribed the day before. So I've taken like 30 out of him and had no memory. And the problem was is that I I had taken that over the course of like eight hours, probably give or take, but I was mixing it with alcohol. And so I was drinking, I had two 40s um that night. And I remember because I do remember very little because when I had gotten um earlier that night, I had wrote written a post on Instagram that I don't remember writing, but it had worried one of my friends um enough to call a welfare check on me. And so we had the cops show up to our house, and I had this is how you could tell. By the way, in Idaho, weed is like serious. Like I actually had to, I got a I had to appear in court for having possession of marijuana uh once. Thankfully I had it. And this is prior to California being legalized. Like there was a time where lee weed was really actually like people don't remember those times because now it's like everywhere. But I mean, the time uh if if it was no joke in California, it was absolutely no joke in Idaho. Like they will, they will get you. And so I had come out in the front porch when the cops called what were called, and I had started smoking like some pot in front of them. And thankfully they were really there for the for the checks. They asked me to put it away, and my friend grabbed it and like was like, What are you doing, you crazy? And um they said not to have any more alcohol, and then if I were to give be given more alcohol, then they would have to come back. And so eventually they didn't have to come back because my friends had to drive me to the uh emergency room once I was found passed out downstairs. Oh it was intense. So that's what led to the change.

SPEAKER_03 41:11

Yeah, so you wake up in the ER the next the next thing you see you, not even the ER, you wake up in the ICU. Um is your whole family called at that point?

SPEAKER_09 41:20

And yeah, everybody knows. Um my mom, my brother is still in college, every nobody's in town. Um, everybody's out of town except for my dad. But mind you, I'm not really talking to my dad at the time. And so he's quite frankly, at the time, he was like the last person I wanted to talk to. So I remember I actually yelled him out of the room, and I said, I don't, you know, even at that point, he was the only one who showed up because he's the only one available to, and I just wanted nothing to do with it. I just I yelled him out of the room and um and he he listened, he did it and he eventually came back and I was a lot more, you know, I chilled out a little bit. But afterwards, because the night before, I apparently I had told them that I was trying to kill myself, which is funny because I have no memory of that, but it actually makes sense because I always wanted to kill myself. I was always that miserable, and I think that's what the drugs did for me is they kept me on earth a little longer, oddly, you know, um, because I was scared to kill myself. Um, but I that's how much pain I was in. I always wanted to die. I just did not want to live anymore. And so they sent me from once I was stabilized in the ER, they sent me automatically to a 5150. That was also the first time I ever spent in the psychiatric ward. And after 10 days there, I had to stay up for 10 days, and that was the point where my family was like, you need to go to rehab. And so that sent me out of state to my very first rehab, and that was sort of the first starting point of a change.

SPEAKER_04 42:48

A 5150 is an involuntary committal, right?

SPEAKER_09 42:51

Yeah, it's a psychiatric hold, but it was actually more than a 5150 because 5150 is only three days. Um, but they can hold you longer if they feel they need to evaluate you more. So I actually stayed for 10 days, which is pretty abnormal. That's a pretty intense hold.

SPEAKER_03 43:06

Wow. Okay. So all right, keep taking us through the story.

Rehab Hope Then Fast Relapse

SPEAKER_03 43:10

So gosh.

SPEAKER_09 43:14

Um, so after that, I went to a rehab facility. Uh saw my parents' insurance, and uh, they were looking for rehabs that would take me. Rehab is it's ridiculously expensive. Yeah. And um, but my parents they found one, uh, a really good one, actually, in Las Vegas. And um, Vegas, I thought was a very interesting choice to go get sober.

SPEAKER_04 43:36

Um yeah, I don't understand that at all.

SPEAKER_09 43:40

Here's the thing we had very few options, so it was kind of like our hands are tied a little bit. So that was one thing, but two, surprisingly, there's actually incredible recovery in Vegas. You can imagine that where those big in Vegas, right?

SPEAKER_03 43:57

So a lot of people probably need the help.

SPEAKER_09 44:00

Yeah, precisely. So I actually um so I I was shipped out to Vegas. I stayed in an in-house um residential facility for three months, uh, got clean, got sober, uh, was able to kind of understand what addiction was a little more. Um and, you know, I actually really enjoyed it. I mean, I actually tell people all the time I actually love rehab. I wish I can go to rehab without having to actually need to like be sober because it's like you go out for it was the first time you get close friendships. It's also like life is so busy, so ongoing, and the stress of life, you never get a pause. And this is like a pause. This is like all of a sudden you don't work anymore. You don't, you know, and when you get there, you have to earn privileges. Uh, so you don't get your cell phone. You're coming, it's the first time in my adult life I've been disconnected from like any social outlets. I have to have good behavior and things like that to use the phone. Um, and even when I can call certain like certain approved people on the phone, I like my family, I can only talk for like five minutes or 10 minutes. And then you kind of, as you get further in the program, you could talk a little longer, but never more than I want to say, I want to say I remember never more than like 20 minute phone calls. And um, you know, you only have certain times that you can call. So it's really rigid, you know, and um you're pretty much out there by yourself, completely alone from every away from everything you've ever known. And it's kind of scary, but it's also kind of like what you need. So I do that. Um, come back home, and right afterwards, I'm thinking, like, life is just gonna, I'm great. This is great. That's all I needed. I just need to get clean sober. I could start life again, we're good, we're good. So I had always wanted to move to Los Angeles. And, you know, nobody in my family really knows anything about recovery either. We are all kind of ignorant to like what this is, and you know, uh completely. And so I'm thinking, well, I'm healed now, you know, uh drugs are away, just don't do drugs. I'm not really understanding that like there's a deeper issue uh at hand here and that drugs were inevitable to come back as a coping mechanism um without those things being addressed. And so I get out to LA, I'm living with my uncle uh who have a place out of San Pedro, and I start working. And pretty quickly after I get out there, I uh I start smoking weed again. And now at this time, uh, if you have it's now it's right on the cus that California actually allows you to get weed with a doctor's appointment. So these aren't real doctors, they're just people that you go and you're like, I get headaches or something, you know, and they're like, okay, here's some weed. Um, and so this is like the time. So I have some friends, I'm falling in some friends, you know, groups that are just doing the same stuff. And before I know it, I kind of I it was crazy how how quickly it moved from just smoking weed to like now I actually go hardcore into uh very for a very pretty brief period of time, but I I'd gotten to the place where I was doing where I kind of I was doing heroin for a little bit and not for very long, uh thankfully, because heroin scared the living crap out of me, if I'm being honest. Um I remember the one well I started I started with uh smoking, I never snorted it. I started with smoking it off just tem foil, but I never could feel it. I thought it was like not I didn't, you know, and so then I I never shot it myself. I had people who shot me up, but that's when it scared me because I remember taking my like you know, I mean the thing, yeah. I had friends, like we would go to Skid Row down there um to get the stuff. And uh it's just a dirty, it's a dirty little world. It's just I I yeah, um, and it scared me. And actually, like I said, I didn't do it very long um because I was so terrified. Because I one thing I always said to myself is I would never ever ever use a needle ever. And here I am, and I'm telling you, when that hits your stream, the bloodstream, it's unlike anything. I understand why people do it, it's unlike anything. It you feel the warmth just go through every single vein in your body, and it just takes over your whole body instantly. There's it's instant, it's not, there's no, it's it's messed up. And um, and quite frankly, you don't I I never felt more low in my life than in the lowness was the shame. I felt so ashamed. I knew what I had just done, and I knew that I was like, oh, I'm that person now. I was always very aware of that, and that's what I just couldn't live with that. And so I called my friend in Seattle, who actually was in recovery himself, and I told him, I was like, I didn't know who to tell because I had just gotten out of rehab. I've only been out for like three months, four months, five months, I don't even know, not even a year. And here I am, and I just shot heroin.

unknown 48:56

Wow.

SPEAKER_09 48:57

I said, I gotta nip this in the butt before this gets worse. And but I was too ashamed to call my mom. I mean, they were all just so proud of me. I just, you know, gotten out of rehab and I didn't know what to do. Um, and so I called my friend in Seattle and I told him, and he basically just told me, he's like, You gotta woman up. He's like, there's no easy way around this. You gotta tell them what you did, you gotta tell them you need help, and uh, you gotta leave LA. And I said, bro, you do not understand. And he's like, Yeah, I do. He was like, What do you want? And I and I needed that. I and the his funny thing, I actually I wanna I wanna be very clear. Uh, this is actually an uh a really interesting experience, right? Because this is kind of ties back into some of the things that we'll probably touch on a little in a in a little bit about being sensitive with the truth. So somehow this the truth is uh offensive in itself. No, no, no. See, this is an example like um of how truth is absolutely needed. I needed somebody to stare me in the face and say, no, no, you know, this is the truth. You're gonna destroy yourself. And so, because of that conversation, I called my mom right after and I told her. I told her it happened. I probably destroyed her in that conversation. That woman has been through so much on my on my oh man. And uh she told me I can come home, which was Sacramento. And so I I went home to my aunt and uncles. I put as much as I could in my Honda Civic. Uh it was like a 97 Honda Civic I had at the time. And I never moved away from a place. So I called my my boss at Pinkberry, which I was working at a Pink Berry right there off the coast of Hermosa Beach. Um and I said, I I quit. I I'm sorry to do this. I normally would put a two weeks in. He understood. Thankfully, he was a good guy. Um, and I left and I drove back to Sacramento uh that next very next morning. Um and here I was now, I had no job. I was at my parents' house. And you know, it's like, well, do you go to rehab again? We decided that, because we don't know anything, you know. We decided that, you know, we would I just needed a job and I would go to like outpatient rehab. So I went to like outpatient rehab through like I want to say it was Kaiser maybe, or I don't know. I've been to so many outpatients. Outpatient rehab is a joke, by the way. I don't know anybody it's worked for. That's not to say it hasn't, but you know, you need to lock me up. Um, you know, because uh I will not show up um in those circumstances. Um I will for a while, and then eventually, you know, so I kind of went through that, I got a job, but then I started kind of the party scene again. And what happened is like my parents weren't really aware of it. Eventually I got um into my own place again and um it just got really bad. And then eventually I had to um I kind of had a blackout, another blackout like years later. I could probably wouldn't say there's probably a few years now going on where I'm just running, you know, going out there to the you know, party scene down, you know, midtown Sacramento, uh living it up with my friends, doing whatever crazy stuff. And uh I had an incident where actually um I was living with my stepsister and her uh her uh husband. Uh we had it was like a little three-bedroom apartment, but I had already gone back on like speed stuff, and so I was like not sleeping. So I would stay up for like days at a time and one night, and I think it I was like blacking out at times, so it was also combining with uh like use annex and stuff. So I um I thought I had a middle on a bed.

SPEAKER_03 52:35

You gotta fall asleep, so you take Xanax to go to sleep and you're mixing stuff messed up, just such a messed up.

SPEAKER_09 52:42

Yeah, and so I long story short, it came to the part where they, you know, um, they were worried so they called my parents and they're like, we think Nancy's using again, blah, blah, blah. I don't know the full story. Once again, this is a part where my memory is just completely shot. But uh, it led to me getting arrested, kind of. Um, the cops had to come and like uh because I was kind of making the scene. And uh they this is actually like out of a movie. They I remember they they didn't really arrest me. They cuffed me and they put me in the back of the car, but they didn't take me to jail. They took me to the mental health hospital uh because they knew I was like out of my mind. And so I remember getting to the hospital and I was like kind of freaking out like at people, and it took like six men to hold me down because I was making a scene in the uh ER, and all I remember is getting stabbed in the leg and I was out, so they had actually tranquilized me um to calm me down, and then I woke up in a mental health hospital, which is a completely psycho hospital, and so that happened, and then I basically had to go back to rehab. I came home to an intervention, and um uh all my whole family's around, they have their like little like notes prepared, and and I was like, Oh, I know what this is, and I didn't fight them. I you know, I never thought that would happen to me.

SPEAKER_03 54:08

I never had to deal with one of those, thank god. Well, ocean's saying ocean's saying he says and sounds like he's very familiar with this. I mean, I've shared on the show before, like I my thing was Adderall, uh, because I was working night shifts. So I started taking Adderall to work these night shifts to like get through the night shift. And the problem was you would take an Adderall, the night shift would be over, and you'd be wired out of your face. So I would then go and take like trazodone to come down, and like I was doing something very similar. It was like because I would be up for two days and then I'd be so like strung out from not sleeping that my temper would flip. I mean, this is what led to the most difficult point in my marriage, um, maybe a decade ago. Like, this was yeah, that's that this it's very similar to what led to my conversion. Like, not my I don't like saying conversion. Like if like I was away from the sacraments during this time, and I was working like a maniac working night shifts, and I was taking Adderall, and then it led to like the disintegration of my marriage because of that stuff. So it's you know, it's a I I I very much relate to the stuff you're talking about.

SPEAKER_09 55:10

Yeah, and um, so I mean, yeah, long story short, I I ended up going back to rehab, and I I had a a period there of four years where I was actually clean and sober. I was doing pretty good. Like I had gotten a job working at Amazon, I'd worked my way up in um, you know, to an you know, to being a supply chain manager, um, you know, which I was pretty proud of because that's a job that most people had to, you know, they got it because they got college degrees. Now here I was, I have no college degree, I have, you know, no, but I'm a hard worker. That's the one thing I always had. I was always a hard worker, thankfully. Um, and so I was I, you know, got this professional job now, and then I became a general manager. Um, and you know, I'm I'm realizing like, hey, I actually'm not like completely as stupid as I thought I was, and you know, I'm feeling pretty good. And then um I was in a relationship during this time. This is like the longest float relationship I had, and um that relationship dissolved, and then we went right into COVID. And I'm living alone during COVID, and uh that was like the worst probably period of my entire life. Um, I lived alone, you know, COVID, nobody's hanging out anymore. I'm like so isolated, it's not even funny. All I do is work. Um and you know, Amazon is not really, you know, they believe that your whole life should be work. So when I say I was working, I mean I was a salary manager at the time. So, you know, running a team of like 250 people, so it was nothing but work. So my life was literally just survive work and then come home and then have nothing. And on top of that, you go through this breakup and you just feel destroyed. And and um, I'm not doing drugs, so I actually do feel everything, and um uh eventually it turns into it just gets worse and worse and worse, and eventually I do relapse again. Uh, and this time it was with methamphetamine. And thankfully that was a very short period. I had like a three-month run. And oh, I think we're skipping a major

Gender Ideology Enters Therapy

SPEAKER_09 57:20

point though. So the question I think that should enter now is when did uh the transgender discussion kind of come in? And this I would say the period between so as far as we know at this point, I'm I'm only a lesbian.

SPEAKER_03 57:31

Um, because now you're getting into the craziness of what's going on in the culture, right? So the earlier part of the story we're talking about, like the trans thing isn't really coming into it, right? But that's why I was asking before, like you going to therapists and stuff. So now it's 2020, the insanity of the George Floyd thing just happens, and then the trans stuff just explodes everywhere.

SPEAKER_09 57:56

Yeah, sorry, I'm laughing because the some people in the chat are funny. Um like your brother looking at the chat. I actually pushed it off to the side so I wouldn't look at it.

SPEAKER_06 58:06

Yeah, forget the chat because the new Charles is in the chat.

SPEAKER_09 58:12

Sorry, sorry. Dang it. Um so yeah, I the transgender thing came. So here's the crazy thing. I would have, I really only started feeling so when I went to my second rehab, the one right before I had a four years claim. I had gone to a rehab. Actually, a friend of mine uh had paid out of pocket for me to go. I had just huge blessing in that. Um, and they first sent me to one rehab and I ended up getting switched over to another one. We don't need to go into the details of why. Nothing bad, just money, finance, stuff like that. So the first rehab I went to, uh, the very first therapy session that I had, I had walked into this lady's office for my session. And, you know, mind you, I have short hair. I have um, you know, you've seen the pictures, I'm sure. I I have a buzzed head. I look like a little, you know, boy girl. I I don't, I certainly don't look like a boy, but I look like a boyish girl. And so I walk in there and she literally doesn't even let me say anything, literally, like not doesn't let me say a single word. She literally just looks at me and says, um, you know, basically, like, I I think that you're struggling with I know what the problem is. I think you're struggling with gender story or something like that.

SPEAKER_03 59:30

That's the answer, right? Oh, all this stuff, it's because you're a boy.

SPEAKER_09 59:34

Well, and I to be honest with you, the transgender conversation wasn't really super big yet. And I hadn't really heard much about it. The only reason I knew anything about it was because I had a friend in high school who who ended up fully transitioning and still transitioned to this day. And um, and I knew about it because they used to always tell me that I was transgender. Like they they they diagnosed me way early on. So I guess I kind of always had the planted seed from a long time ago, but I never paid any mind because I never actually felt like I wanted to be a boy. Um, but as time went on, I would start questioning why I'm dressing like a boy. And I do, you know, I'm more attracted to this. I don't even like saying it out loud anymore because it's just so far from what I feel in my heart anymore. Um, but you know, I started toying with the idea, and and um, and then when this therapist told me this, I actually pushed back on it because I was actually really uncomfortable because I had already had thoughts. It was like a secret conversation. Once again, I'm kind of in that secrecy again, but now it's with this like trans issue. Like before when I was growing up, it was about the gay stuff, but I had already come out and that was already established, well established in my life. I had been living that way for a long time. And now I have kind of back in the secrecy of like this internal feeling of something. I'm trying to make sense of this new narrative that's sort of breaking the scene of like now, there's this thing called transgenderism. And I remember seeing, like I knew there was something like a transsexual, because I remember we'd go to Mexico and I would see men who would be dressed up as women, they were like the kind of the prostitutes. And um, I remember being confused by looking at that when I was a kid in like Tijuana, and I was just like, what is that? Like I didn't know, like I really didn't know. And I so I remember that being a thing, and I thought now it's like this mainstream thing, and I have no idea. And I'm like, Am I really that? And so, but I met this therapist, she told me this, and I pushed back mostly because I was not willing to have that discussion. I had thought about certain ideas of it, I would have never said that that's what I was, but it had entered my mind and I just was not even trying to have that conversation. I got mad at her because I said, Why, why are you saying that? And I said that. And she was like, and I said, Is it because my hair is short? Like, is it just because my hair is short? Like, would you say that if I had come in here with long hair? She goes, It's not just that. And she was like, Well, let's just talk more. And so we talked a little bit, but I never saw her again after that because I changed rehabs, and that was the last time I talked to her. But that stuck with me for a while because she was the mental health professional though, you know. Um, so I kind of went in and um I went to this other rehab and it kind of stuck with me. But now, so for the four years I'm clean, now the transgender conversation in the culture is just blown up. Um, I'm actually the the person I was dating at the time had um family members who were fully transitioning. Um, I had friends from my past who I've seen who are now fully transitioning. And now it's like kind of touching every facet of life in a big way. And all of a sudden I'm being asked my pronouns, and I didn't, I hated the pro. Everyone knew I hated the pronoun movement. I thought it was so stupid from the very beginning. And but you know, you can't really express those things early on, or you get ostracized. People eventually became one of those things where you're like, well, now you have to answer, or else because once again, this whole idea is that um it makes so much more sense now because the reason that you have to establish pronouns is because the whole underlying, I think, structure of this like movement was to confuse it was to force a false anthropology from the beginning. So now it's not like, oh, it's a choice to have pronouns. It's like, no, you have to have pronouns because this is the nature of things. This is we're establishing a new natural law, if you will. And so if you don't have it's not even like you don't even, you know, you don't get to have a choice not to have pronouns, it's just how things are. And so anyway, eventually I kind of succumbed to that. Um not to everybody, I didn't go around telling anybody my pronouns. It was mostly just to get people off my back if they were really aggressive in moments, and so you kind of just were like, okay, you know, um she, I don't know. And so um, but I'm getting getting more exposed, and I have all this internal stuff that's kind of going on. And uh eventually, you know, it kind of once again I'm in isolation when COVID hits, and I have uh this breakup that happened, mind you, this breakup is with a woman. Um, and I at the time I would have said that's the most intense relationship I'd ever had. And they actually ended up kind of leaving for a man, and that's kind of I think what tipped me over the edge. I thought, okay, well, in order to keep love, I have to actually just be a man now. I didn't logically think of it that way, but in my head I realized like if I had been a man, this wouldn't have happened. You know what I mean? Uh and so I kind of was struggling with that, and then finally I changed my name to Roman, not legally, um, just you didn't really have to do it legally. Uh there's a lot of companies. What's that?

SPEAKER_03 1:04:41

You started asking people to call you that.

SPEAKER_09 1:04:45

The people I knew that would, yeah. Uh I didn't I never brought it to my family. I never asked my brother Josh, you know, I never um any of that, but I definitely like my, you know, just the people in my life, which was a lot that I knew uh would be okay with that. And yeah, so people started calling me that. And um, I had my paperwork at my job at the time was Starbucks. They had they only knew me as Roman because they you don't have to legally change your name to go by something you want to go by, and they'll protect your other uh what they call dead name at the time. So the people there only know knew me as Roman. And yeah, now it's like the socially transitioned into this boy, you know. Um, but I'm not really still like I had a few people in my life who were like, we we we um we support this, so we want you to know that we're we're allies and whatever, but we also want you to think just really ask all the questions. And I said, Okay, that's fair. And I said, I would do that with anything, you know. So I I started going down a rabbit hole of asking all the questions, and I was like, does this really make sense? And then I kind of came to a conclusion. through my own research that if there is a way to heal this, this discomfort I have in my body, this this idea, would I want to keep my body as it is and just feel comfortable in that? Or would I want to go through this, you know, all these surgeries and like these hormone therapy and possibly really screw my head up even more than I already was. Um I think anybody in their the right mind would as right mind as you can be if you're transgender. But and there anybody thinking somewhat clearly would probably say they just want to keep the body they had. And so then it came clear I thought well the next phase of questioning this narrative is I have to bring it to therapy and I have to ask what is the path forward for if I just want to heal from this like why can't like instead of transitioning. So I started asking questions that think to my therapist that didn't make sense to me. I thought well because I would tell them and my mistake was that I told them that I identified as male and but then I followed it up with basically you know I think that this can be something that you could be healed from. And I would rather try to do that. Well then that's when I was accused of like internalized transphobia. And now here's the crazy thing is well and they they actually it's really confusing because they she wasn't like mad at me when she accused me of that. She was actually really being that like toxic sort of loving it was like she was right it was like she was like oh like it was kind of like an oh honey like you only feel this way because you just hate yourself but you need to come to the reality.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:40

Right.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:41

This is completely off topic and it's it this is more of a an aside for a possible troll idea.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:48

What if we send you to a therapist to see what you all have internalized I think that would be an enough total what I was going to say is like uh somebody who's struggling with the things that you're struggling with at the time you start adding testosterone into the mix like you have that your mental state like you wonder why you have all these trans people committing all these atrocities throughout the culture is because you start putting chemicals like that into and hormones like that into somebody who's already dealing with this internal battle like you're dealing with like you don't know what happens to a person like that.

SPEAKER_09 1:08:25

Yeah um that's for sure that's definitely um very true and that was one of my concerns was like I you know by the way at this point I've been diagnosed with like every I was like uh like a little you know test rat for big pharma at this point I mean I had been on every single psychedelic you know psychedelic and um psychiatric medication you could possibly think of you know uh everything from like SSRIs to like intense doses of like lithium um everything in between so it's like you know I I tried the world's methods I mean there's actually I don't know very many people who have tried the world's methods more than I have I mean I I pretty much I did mainstream psychology I did every single drug that I accepted every single diagnosis they gave me I searched you know I really believe it or not I really wanted to know what was wrong with me um but it was a lot of disorder to to to figure out and um no no coherent truth at all in any of it um that's part of what Catholicism just blew me away afterwards obviously I had a miraculous conversion uh at the Mass which we'll probably get into but I mean my point is is that it was after the fact that I was like ever the church knew something about me she knows something about the human person. Like she is not arbitrary you know what I mean like she's precise and um that's like it I mean people that's why it's so easy to see when somebody doesn't really know their faith because it's like you don't understand how well the church knows you um and that there's like a reason for everything.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:58

And so anyway okay so so this point in 2020 comes you're you're alone like what what is it that leads to this conversion like let's let's let's try to get to that point so that we can because I do want to get to other topics.

SPEAKER_09 1:10:11

So let's let's bring us to that yeah to that well after I'd been accused of internalized transphobia this was like the peak I I had hit a new level of like absolute desperation and um loneliness and just the complete and total uh I was just very disturbed and I was so depressed and I had already been suicidal my whole life but now I was actually um I was done because nobody in my family knew what was going on with me. I couldn't really go to them anymore. It was like the it was like I would say now it was like the devil had cut me and isolated me off from anything that could possibly be the answer in a way that I had understood. So now therapy which was always there for me when my family didn't understand me now therapy is clearly not there for me. Like they there the answer is not there. And I know this and I'm like thinking you there's it doesn't even matter which therapist I go to because at this time and this is actually this is part of what the horrible horrible horrible part of this was is that there were laws in the that were they were doing the affirmation model of care. So every single therapist had to affirm in California if you said you're a transgender they had to affirm that um they had to affirm that because uh or else they'd lose their license there was no safe place to really land and uh I realized I was actually completely alone for the first time my life I was completely alone because even my friends so the people on the Christian side of my of my you know friends group like my mom my family I knew they couldn't help me with this because they didn't understand what's going through but even now my friends my own friends on the trans and the gay side they also can't help me because they also subscribe to this idea that it's that you are just trans.

Suicidal Night And A New Fear

SPEAKER_09 1:11:51

Like they they don't you know what I mean and so like nobody in my life I know nobody who can help me and that's a different level of of uh of isolation uh that I've never experienced my life never since never before it was I wish that I'm nobody and uh I decided that was what uh I decided that you know I wrote a letter to everybody in my family uh that I was gonna that I was saying goodbye and uh it was a horrible horrible night you were that far sorry you were that far you wrote you wrote a note yeah I left them on my iPad yeah and I wanted to write something to everybody in my family because I would have different things to say to different people um and sometimes they were just like a single sentence like I I don't want to make it seem like I wrote this like long book. I think I wrote the most to my mom um but to my little sister for instance I basically just said I'm sorry that I wasn't the big sister you should have been able to count on you know stuff like that and uh you know I really felt bad I really felt bad I I I kind of had this really strong belief that I I spent the better part of 15 years trying to fix me and trying to figure out what the heck was wrong with me because at that point it was so clear that what I was going through was destroying my family and you can't exist in not knowing what the solution is to life and knowing that that that that not knowing is killing your family and it's like your very existence becomes painful for people. So it's like if I kill myself it's gonna be painful for them and if I don't kill myself it's also going to be painful for them. So I'm at this place now where the outcome of both is is the same. So my realization um was that if I kill myself it will be painful but it won't it will only be painful for a time and at least they'll have a chance to um to heal. And obviously that's a terrible conclusion to come to but that's that's where I was and so um I got to the point where I was just about to do this uh the unthinkable act sitting in my my room iPad left uh on my for them to find it on my desk and right before I go to do it I'm not gonna reveal what I what it was that's too personal. Um but right before I was about to do it I um I get this thought that just shoots through my head and it's like it's not my thought. That's the funny thing I know it's not my thought because I I didn't think it I don't know how to explain it felt like I got hit by a two by four almost um but it was a thought that I couldn't stop. And the thought was what if the pain doesn't end here? What if it actually gets worse? And in that moment I when I tell you that I felt like I was physically being suffocated like it felt like the walls were closing in on me. Like I was like so terrified and in that desperation it felt like I was a caged animal like I like I couldn't escape. It was like all of a sudden being confronted with this question, this realization something this existential whatever it was and I have nowhere to go and I'm cornered and in that desperate moment I dropped my knees for the very first time and I I literally begged guys if you're real you have to show me and tears are just streaming down my face and I said you know I'm really stupid so you have to make it obvious um because I have to know like if you're real like well who am I not to follow you like but you know so it's not like I'm not following you because of anything of like outright denial. I just don't even I don't even know if you're real you know and so I ended up passing out uh from exhaustion falling asleep and mind you I want to preface it my brother had become Catholic um a few years prior like we'll say three I don't know um so he had already been Catholic and um the next morning I wake up and I'm sitting in my suicide room with my plan all around me still which is a surreal feeling to you're like it almost feels like you survive something close up but you're like not sure if that's a good thing yet or not sure you know whatever it's a weird feeling.

Five Days Of The Rosary

SPEAKER_09 1:15:56

But I I go to the side dresser of my bed and I see uh right on top of everything it's just like a junk drawer there's a rosary and I forget that it's called a rosary uh and at the time I actually didn't even know where I had gotten it. My brother had given me a rosary a couple of years prior and I ended up in a junk drawer and this is actually why we give away rosaries we give them away because we don't expect people to use them but we expect our blessed mother to put them in the person's life when and where they need them. So it's not your job to make sure they start praying the rosary it's just your job to keep giving rosaries out because our blessed mother will make sure it's available when that person needs it. So I'd just like to say that at this point. Anyway so I go in there I don't really know what it is I forget what it's called I don't so I go on Google I figure out what it is it's a prayer necklace or you know whatever and uh I see the sorrowful mysteries and I start praying the sorrowful mysteries. I thought why what can I lose you know I'd you know for all I know I could just be saying a prayer to nothing and that the worst case scenario nothing happens. So I pray it and I felt a really intense peace but not I wouldn't have connected it to God or anything but it prompted me to keep praying. So I prayed the sorrowful mysteries just reading them off the page uh off the screen uh for three days in a row and on the third day I got that same sort of like abrupt thought of same thing as that that stopped me in my tracks before I killed myself and this time it was the thought was go see a priest and mind you I'm just telling you like it's the weirdest thing now I know that signal graces are a thing. So like when you pray the rosary our lady is you know she's one of the promises is signal graces. And I I would say now that this is what I was getting although at the time I had no idea what was going on but it was it was obvious that these were not my thoughts like I knew it because I kept it was almost like I was having a conversation with myself but it was it was my thought but it wasn't coming from me.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:42

It felt like a directive it was really weird because I heard you know I didn't hear anything audible or anything but I remember thinking like go see a priest like I would never have that thought it's just weirdest thing especially so I texted my right you're you're not you weren't you have no idea about Catholicism you're just hearing your brother converted to it but we're at an eight an hour and 18 minutes and this is the point in the show where we switch over to local so if you guys want to hear the rest of the show I made that joke last time I won't do it to you oh that's funny.

SPEAKER_09 1:18:11

Yeah I don't remember you making that joke last time you gotta get a subscription right if you guys want to hear where God actually intervenes in this story we'll make you think we're gonna finish this oh my you are the worst yeah um okay so yeah so you get this thought that you have to go see a priest yeah I go I go um you know so I call I text my brother I said where do you go to church because I had already gone to church with him one time because he really wanted me to go to a mess and I didn't I was just doing it because I wanted to be a good sister blah blah blah but I do remember that so I know he went to a parish but I so I thought the best parish to go to would be his and I didn't remember where it was so I just texted him asked and he sent me a text back and he told me where you know and then he he wanted to know why but I wanted nothing to do with I wasn't trying to be Catholic in my head.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:00

I wasn't trying to be Catholic I so I didn't want him to know anything so I didn't want the pressure of feeling like oh now he thinks I'm gonna be Catholic and so he kind of left it alone uh he didn't pressure me or anything he just gave me where he went because I had forgotten where it was and I called him up and I said hey I'd like to talk to a priest and here I am thinking I don't really know why to be honest I don't know what I'm gonna tell this guy I just know that I want to know if God's real and so I ended up uh getting hold of one of the priests and the priest uh decided that he would he would meet me that night and I went into the parish and I talked to him we talked for quite a while and essentially he told me you walk into this parish what are you you're what are you wearing what do you look like like that at this because we're all seeing pretty nancy sitting here with her sweater on and her makeup and her hair done what does Nancy look like this priest uh I was like shoot I wish I could send Rob the picture and he could just put on the screen um I could if you wanted to really yeah here I'll send you something um this is probably an important bit of context like you don't you don't want to put it in the like you do now you can you can either put it on your screen and share your screen or uh email or or DM it to me on Twitter whatever you want to do okay okay that's what I'll do I'll DM on Twitter just so I can because I remember last time while you're doing that outside like I remember last time you uh mentioning that when you walked into the parish you just felt so out of place because I mean you're talking about a Latin mass parish right like it's a traditional parish that you walk into and Nancy's on the verge of of transitioning at this point in her life and she's walking in looking like uh a a girl that's about to transition and she has very short hair and she's wearing basketball shorts or something and I remember because she she told us last time I thought she was making that up yeah I don't know um exactly how I looked because I always had like a bunch of different colored hair um but I do know I mean this is close enough holy cow I'm sorry uh I don't I didn't mean to derail the show like that you can send it after we'll we'll we'll put it up after don't worry about it okay um so anyway I'll just send you this one you it's close enough okay that's with my blonde hair but yeah ocean you were you were put in time out because she was getting to a very emotional part of the story and you're thinking it's funny to make fun of me during that period like just know the room a little bit ocean like I I don't want to put you in timeout but like there's times where it's appropriate to make fun of Ant and there's times where you should just listen to the story because we're getting to the wow you went in looking like Justin looked kind of cool there I don't know pretty cool I went in look like I sent you another one the one with the green hair that's like people have seen that one um I was actually pretty cool you know uh I wasn't uh if I'm being honest I yeah the green hair was I wasn't I put that one up this is so this this cool kid walks into the parish to talk to the priest yeah yeah so I don't know if I had green hair or not at the time I can't I can't remember I think I probably had blonde hair but anyway yeah I go I go see this priest and um you know we talk for a while gives me his time and I ask him if God's real and I'm hoping he's gonna give me like something that I can like be like oh yeah that makes sense obviously that didn't happen there because uh my conversion was not an intellectual one but you know what he did I think the most important thing at the very end is he offered catechism and um I said my guy Ferrari hey the um I like the Justin Bieber better um anyway I I said no I didn't want to go to catechism like because I wasn't ready to be Catholic so I left not really knowing why I felt called to talk to a priest but I kind of was like okay well no harm no foul I go home I'm still praying the rosary I pray it for two more days now it's early Sunday morning because I was driving for Uber on Saturday night.

Mass Conversion And Total Surrender

SPEAKER_09 1:23:31

So I got home early Sunday morning after the bar scene was out and which is around three in the morning because the bars closed at two so after the last few rides you get home around three. Um and that night I this has now been five days of praying the rosary once a day this powerful mysteries and on that night I had the same the same kind of like thought that came through it you know it's I always tell people it felt like I had an invisible rope tied around me and all and it was pulling me in a direction all I had to do was was just follow that pool. That's it that's how easy this was that's why that's why like I try to overemphasize like none of this was me. I just was like I was allowing myself to be pulled you know what I mean and that was like that's how it felt um so anyway for what that's worth so I get this thought again this thought that just enters my head it's like now go to the mass and I said okay you know so I followed this thought and this is actually where I felt very like I would have not I didn't have the language at the time but now I it was probably a spiritual attack. But when I got to the parish I decided I was gonna look up the same parish and I was going to figure out when they have mass and they had a 7 a.mass and I thought well I'll just stay awake and go um to the first mass so I can come home and sleep. So I get to the parish and man the second I get there it was like I'm telling you inside it was like a war you've never seen Hollywood cannot write scripts as good as this because I was like I was so afraid all of a sudden like just and it took everything in my body just one step in front of another to make it to the door and all I could hear in my head was you know like these just like my thoughts felt very loud. It was like you don't belong here you don't you know just uh get out of here these people are gonna hate you just everything you could possibly imagine. And then on the other side I felt this like very calming voice that was just like keep walking keep walking and so I guess I kind of like dissociated I think a little bit during that period because I just kept looking at the ground I could I just remember looking at my feet and just watching one foot go to the next and then I make it to the parish doors and I get in and you know everybody's very traditional and I'm look like I belong at a pride parade. And um thankfully I don't want to be seen though um because I I just like I really don't want people to see me. I want to be hidden in the back I just want to figure out why I'm here at this mass and I go sit down and I sit in the very far seat there's a seat right next to the confessionals in our parish and it's actually right next to the door and that was perfect for me because I could sit there and I kind of like bolt out the door if I needed to and it was in the very back like no everybody's back was turned towards me. I mean I'm sure a few people saw me but the most majority of the attention was forward facing. And I'm still feeling like this intense anxiety and I'm about to leave like I I don't know how made how long I made it to in the mass but I'm about to like just be done. And so I I'm ready about to leave and all of a sudden I catch the glimpse of this little red candle which is at the very front of the mass obviously I don't know what the red candle means um but for anyone who doesn't know it means that our Lord is present in the tabernacle uh the Eucharist is uh in the tabernacle but I didn't know any of that and so I catch the glimpse of this little red candle and all it totally captivates me and I can um and it's the only thing that really kept me in my chair because all I could hear in my head was keep looking at me keep looking at me and that which is over and over and over and that was the candle. And I remember it's funny because I have people now who have since heard my story who go to my parish and one lady came up to me and she was like I saw you that day and she was like you would not stop looking I didn't know you were looking at the candle but I saw you gazing your eyes she's like I you didn't even blink and I was like well I yeah I don't you know so she she was it was kind of interesting to hear other people's point of views of that she's like I thought you were on drugs I wasn't actually but um for once anyway I uh I heard that and all of a sudden I just uh I heard an organ play and then I just instantly it was like I felt the most intense most radical love I'd ever felt my entire life like it just shook me to my core and here I am now trying to be anonymous at the back of the mass and I'm just like weeping like I've never wept in my entire life. Like something just instantly changed me. Yet nothing about me changed at all. I mean I always say that because it's like I like to not misconstrue that because people think oh you changed them what does that mean? No my heart changed like something changed. But I had a lot of changing left to do so there's a difference. But um I never felt that kind of love in my entire life and I instantly I knew that that was like God said Saying, okay, you needed me to make it obvious for you. So I did. And that was something I could not ignore. And I realized he had answered my question from uh five days earlier when I had asked him to make it obvious to me. Uh he that was the moment. And uh from the very next day I started catechism, and I actually accepted every single precept, uh, every single teaching of the church before I even knew what it was, because I I knew I didn't have the authority to say any of it was I knew that if if there was something about church teaching that I didn't understand, I knew that God would help me understand it if uh in time. And so I had I had already known, I guess, in that moment, from whatever that was that I felt, because it was so powerful, I knew that I wasn't uh I wasn't it anymore. I wasn't the the main story anymore. You know, I was um I knew that if this was Christ church, whatever she said, whatever she taught, um, that was gonna be true. I was all of a sudden realizing I was the insufficient one. And um I it wasn't I didn't have any reason to be able to disregard teaching. So I had accepted the teaching before uh I even knew what it was. And so I started catechism the next day. I got confirmed later that year, September 29th, Feast Day of St. Michael, and I've been a Roman Catholic uh ever since. That was September 29th, 2023. But that conversion day happened on March 19th, 2023. So I always like to say it because it's something I found out after the fact was that Our Lady through the Rosary brought me to the church uh on the Feast Day of St. Joseph to meet their son Jesus. And I mean that you just can't make that stuff up.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:39

So it's so I'm going to be on with your brother next week, and uh, I think he wants to talk about my uh reversion story a little bit. But I had um it's it's interesting because uh I think when someone comes to a point where they're like, God, if you're real, you have to show me. But they're but you're genuinely open to it, right? And you're just like you you come to the point where you're like, All right, if you reveal yourself to me, like I will commit myself to you. Because I had a very real moment like that as well. And it was like God just removes all doubt from your mind completely, and you're just like, I am all in, and I will I believe everything the church teaches, and you like when you have that moment, such an overwhelming feeling, and you're just you're floating on a cloud for days after when God reveals himself to you like that, like you're just on this right high where you're just like I like you. It's indescribable when you have an experience of God's love like that.

SPEAKER_09 1:30:38

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I have yeah, no, you don't just change your whole life as dramatically as I did overnight if you didn't experience something.

SPEAKER_06 1:30:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 1:30:48

Um, that's that is actually insanity if if you didn't actually have an experience, you know. Um, it would have been impossible without that.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:56

Um so so I I do uh because I want to I want to go so many different places with this now. Um because you've told this story on air, but it's such a great story that I definitely wanted to do this again. We're obviously not gonna do locals tonight. Um we'll just we'll keep it all on here because I want everybody to hear this. Because uh a few questions are like I'm I'm sure you wanted to talk to your brother right away about all this stuff, right? Because he's the only Catholic you really know at this point, right?

SPEAKER_09 1:31:24

Um, I don't yeah, I guess I don't I don't really know. Um, I don't remember exact how it happened. I yes, I did, I think I kept the experience kind of like to I don't recall a lot of like exactly how it unfolded.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:43

With Josh when this happened, by the way. Like mine and Josh's friendship had already started because I like when this happens, he's like, Please pray for my sister. My sister's going or something right now. Like, and I think my sister's coming into the church. And he was, I remember him being like overwhelmed with excitement about what you were going through at the time, and he's like, just please keep us and also like I I know other family members of yours have come into the church since then, and you know, because Josh and I talk a lot too. It's like it, it's it's kind of uh I it's like when when my when my reversion happened and I started taking my faith seriously, it was like I dragged a ton of people into the church with me too. You just you just God starts like lighting people around you on fire for him, and it it's it's a really yeah awesome thing when that happens. So um but oh I'm sorry, God.

SPEAKER_09 1:32:34

Well, for me, it was uh I don't I recall being excited about becoming Catholic. I was very like um excited to go through catechism. I had the really awesome luxury of being privately um catechized by a traditional priest um from the FSSP. So that was I didn't realize what a luxury that was until later on. It turns out I missed the the class period, so I got to just go one-long, which gave me a lot of the individual attention five questions or whatever. Um so I got to do that. I was excited for that, I was excited for the process, but I was also like, I mean, to be honest with you, it was it was it was actually really difficult. Um, not because I never questioned God from that point on. Uh, but wrestling and questioning are different. Um, not even wrestling with God per se, but wrestling with now what does this require of me? And that's terrifying because now you have like you have my life is literally black and white. Uh, you know, this was one way of living, and now Cat being Catholic is is gonna be a whole new way of listen living. You know, you have to you lose people, you have to be misunderstood. You know how many times I've been told that I was just like, because nobody knows my conversion story, so they think I was just like uh brought into a cult. Um, you know, I get people who think, oh yeah, those who fall for transgenderism, of course, would fall for like religious, you know, cultism or whatever. Um, so I get a lot of reactions, but you you know, now I'm I've more strong in my faith, so I don't it doesn't really bother me the same way, but like it didn't not, it didn't it was it's not something that I was unfazed by early on.

SPEAKER_03 1:34:09

I was terrified um of what the whole life everybody you know knows you as one thing, and then all of a sudden you have this radical change of heart. And yeah, the thing is those people think you're brought into a cult, but in your own experience, what you're experiencing is that true freedom that you thought you got when you came out, but now all of a sudden you're actually finding freedom in in Christ, right? Like the truth will set you free, and it's that there's a peace that's coming about in your life at this point that never any therapist or gender ideology ever could have brought you. So, regardless of what they're saying, you know what's happening in your heart.

SPEAKER_09 1:34:51

Yeah, well, I think the you know, freedom. Oh man, I would say uh I wasn't free just yet. Um, I would say I actually I would have probably identified it as freedom because it felt more like freedom than anything I'd ever felt before. But I think freedom is an ongoing purification. Um, and you start to kind of get released from the shackles the more you participate in sacramental life. So freedom became has changed sort of and has become more realized. I'd become more Catholic. But what I felt that day was that I had inherent value. Um, and I had, and I was loved in that. And I it redefined love for me. I didn't, I didn't know how to define love yet, but I knew that whatever I thought love was out there, I knew instantly that just shadowed that. And I didn't necessarily know how to articulate what I've just felt yet. Um, but I knew that whatever I had previously believed about love uh and all these things that had held up this false identity, I it just demolished it. It was like it was not even a question. It was like, you know what I mean? So I would say that's where the I don't know how to explain that, but yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:35:57

So so you are you're one of two uh people I know who struggle uh struggle with similar uh struggle with same-sex attraction and and drugs and all like you're one of two people I know who their encounter with God and the faith completely transformed their lives. Um one of them is a family member who uh was the person I mentioned earlier in the story who, like when they were kids, it was it was him and another family member that got caught when they were kids, and the parents kind of freaked out, and that led him down a really difficult path. And he was uh struggling with same-sex attraction and all this stuff. And in the past couple of years, I've watched a conversion on a level you can't imagine, to the point where right now him and I are praying uh Novina the St. Jose Maria Escriva together, you know. So it's like there, but there's a genuine um, there's a genuine conversion, and then there's this uh fake conversion, not not I don't want to call it even a conversion. There's the so there's two different paths that are being presented to people with same-sex attraction. One is yeah you're talking about, which leads to living a chaste life and an actual conversion, and then there's this other false, false version being presented to people where it's oh well God loves you and he accepts you, don't worry about

Telling The Truth Without Pride

SPEAKER_03 1:37:18

it. Now, there's another person that I know who is gay, like that well, they they they're not gay, but you know what I mean. Like they identify as gay, and they told me they went to church for the first time. It was it's actually my my uh someone my wife knows from college, and he just had told her he went to church for the first time in 20 years, but he also he went to a very affirming parish. And yeah, and he and he goes affirming parish, yeah, an affirming parish, right? And he's like, Well, I felt so welcome. My wife's like, Did you receive communion? And he's like, Well, yeah. She's like, Did you go to confession? You know, he's like, No, I didn't go to confession. And my so my wife came to me and she was like, Anthony, how do I handle this conversation? And it's a difficult one because it's the first time he ever went, he's been to church in 20 years, so it's like, all right, he's progressing in a in a at least he's like approaching God a little bit, but he also like he's receiving, and we all know what St. Paul says about somebody in that thing who's receiving, like you're heaping damnation upon yourself. And it's like she's like, How do I approach this conversation? And I'm I'm wondering what your thoughts on that are. Like, how how should how do you think she should she should handle that conversation? Because he he got very defensive when she asked about confession, and when like he got very defensive, and she was like, She's she doesn't want to push this person away, she wants to figure out a way to bring this person closer to God.

SPEAKER_09 1:38:50

So I yeah, so my um take on this is uh I'm just gonna be honest. Uh, the truth is the only loving thing you can give to somebody. Now, here's the other thing, there are caveats. I mean, you want to, I think there's a couple issues at hand. One, one, I think sometimes, and I think it's easy to do this, and I do it sometimes myself. I think this is part of why the ultimate answer to this question isn't actually how does your wife respond to this person? It's actually like, uh, what is she doing in her own life to get as close to Christ as possible so that he can speak through these confusing moments and without with there being less resistance uh and not knowing what to do, because I think that's the ultimate thing. Like, there's a reason the saints were so powerful in their interactions with people and why they brought so many conversions because they had so much of themselves hollowed out that God could enter in so fully that these that there is like this intuition about knowing how to just be in these really confusing situations. And so I think that's one thing, and I say that not to her, I mean that's all of us. Like I that's why I always say like the number one thing is just live your life as best as possible. But naturally, you're gonna have these um these situations, but I sorry, I'm trying to think uh there's all sorts of caveats. The truth is that it's not it's not loving to not tell the truth. And the hard thing is that we think that we have more power than we do. So I wanna, I think a lot of times, just like you know, when the um whole like BLM movement happened, the trans movement happened, they weaponized truth and they called it mean. And so the truth is, I don't think your wife would ever tell this person, like scold this person with the truth. I think there's a difference between being mean and and and like I'm better than you, or and just being like I care about your soul, and you have to know this. If it's approached that way, that is the most loving thing you can do. If you let somebody walk away sometimes with not with not having the fullness of the truth, you're doing two things, especially if somebody's receiving our Lord. One, you're allowing our Lord to bear the cost of that, you know, somebody unworthily being received, you know, you know, being he's that's that's a you know, and then two, you're a damning, you're helping this person damn their own soul because we know how grieved, uh grievous with sin that is. And so, so it's a twofold thing. Now, here's the reason I think a lot of people struggle, and and I'm not gonna sit and say I don't struggle sometimes. Um, it's taken a while to, like I said, to learn how to have to learn how to kind of navigate these situations. But the thing is, is that um sometimes what we're really afraid of is uh pushing people away from the church. Here's the problem we do not convert people. In fact, the more we start to go down this path of I don't want to push somebody away, you already are you already think too highly of yourself in the in this in the economy of Greece.

SPEAKER_02 1:41:41

That's a really good thing.

SPEAKER_09 1:41:42

And it yeah, and it's like we are just we are just there to stay seed planters. Now, if somebody leaves, that doesn't mean you you made them leave. That means they weren't ready for the truth. There's a natural aversion to the truth when you carry a broken, when you carry concupiscence. And we don't know, I mean, uh what that person has to go through to finally arrive where they want the real truth. But you know, and that may be different for everyone, but that doesn't mean that you failed them either. The best that means that when they return, um they're gonna know what they're returning to, and they're not gonna get this like because what good is what good is it to bring people into the church if the church is just leading them straight to hell? It makes no sense.

SPEAKER_03 1:42:24

Uh and causing an easy what's really interesting about this person is like um they know like I'm not like like they know I am like a uh a traditional Catholic, like they know I have a Catholic podcast, right? Like they know we go to mass every Sunday, they know we go to confession regularly, like they know we go, like they know all this. And in some way, he was he couldn't wait to tell my wife he went to church, right? And yeah, when my wife started asking these things, he was he got a little he got a little defensive. He's like, Well, I know that's what you guys do, but like, and she was just like, Well, look, the way she handled it was she goes, Well, look, this is why I go to confession. And she she didn't like tell him you need to go to confession, you shouldn't be receiving. What she did was she goes, Well, this is why I go to confession, and this is why so she because my wife is very um like she's never going to say something to offend somebody, like she's just she's not capable of it, except for you, yeah. Well, that's not right. But she she just explained the uh the joy she's had in confession, and it went fine, you know what I mean? But she came to me afterward and she was just like, I don't like I don't know what to do because she she she knows like what we've taken her parents to mass and had to tell her parents they couldn't receive, you know, and it's like yeah, that's a tough conversation to have too. Like you're Lutheran, we want to bring you to mass, but like you guys have to sit out. Like, I don't know what to tell you. You can't you don't get to receive. And you know, these are these are difficult conversations you have with people, but like you said, if we just let them receive, there's not going to be any desire for them to become Catholic, then anyway. Like you have to, you have you want I want I my desire was to bring them to the Latin mass and not let them receive because I want them to have that desire in their heart. But it it does come down to also you were open to hearing the truth when you did hear it, right? So you went in with that, God, show me you're real.

SPEAKER_01 1:44:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:44:23

And it it's a it's a really good point you made that we don't convert people. Like you could as soon as you start thinking, what do I have to say? Because I'm gonna I'm gonna say the right words to this person, it's really not us that converts people. It if somebody stumbles across this episode, right? It's not because you're saying anything, it's because some God intervened somewhere and put the grace in that person's life for them to hear something they needed to hear today.

SPEAKER_04 1:44:49

It it's something I struggle with so much, just because personally, like I'm I'm just gonna sound conceited, but I'm I'm an intellectual person, right? And like I expect everyone else to be too, and so I expect I can just logic you to you to the truth, and all I end up doing, and and you know this, and everyone in my family knows this. I just come off really condescending and just as an asshole. And uh and I have such a hard time, and I'm very bad at sharing like what the faith has done for me personally, internally, and spiritually. I have a hard time sharing that where I can give you a list of facts, and yeah, I don't know.

SPEAKER_09 1:45:32

Well, and I think you have to, you know, don't don't get me wrong. I this is actually where I do want to place a few caveats. There's something to be said about you know truth doesn't always need to be said in every situation. Now, this particular example, we're talking about a grief sin that's happening, it's doing two things that's offending our Lord and it's uh hurting the man's soul. You have to speak or you're complicit. That's just that's that's of the unfortunate, there's no in-between. Um, and now a lot of times what I've also realized is that um let's use some other example, because this is actually a really hard thing for a lot of um parents, is that they uh don't know how to have these conversations and um or they don't know how to be completely upright, or you know, and they get manipulated by their kids who it and who are not necessarily intentionally trying to manipulate them because they really believe what they say, but they you know they don't think they, you know, it's it's a it's a really it's a lot, but uh themselves, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:46:31

So they're victims of the propaganda and they're they're brainwashed. Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 1:46:36

Yeah, and so essentially what telling the truth to somebody in a loving way, I should say, uh really requires a person who's put in that hard position. And I like to point this out to people too, is that it's actually most times it is our unwillingness to carry the cross. That is a cross. You have to be willing to to you have to, and this is the hardest part about relationships, and this is why detachment is so important and why we have to practice certain things because the truth is is that you may lose friendships, you may lose people, and and you know, um it's almost like and that's a cross. You have to be willing to that's carry that cross because the truth requires that. And so now once again, I want to be clear, that doesn't mean you just try like you just like scold people. I mean, you have to really genuinely care about the person you're sitting in front of, and you have to really genuinely be like play the tape through. Like what like this is why I'm contemplating sometimes on even like hell is so important. I recommend doing it in adoration. Um, because when you really can understand like what the outcome of people who don't end up following Christ, what does that look like for a soul? Like these people are that's that's where we all end up in. Like, imagine imagine having that at the forefront of your mind whenever you're presented with the possibility of sharing the truth. And then not only I think it addresses two issues when you have that in your mind. One, you don't want to just force truth, because there are people who try to force truth and they they're really doing it out of the pride, they want to be right or whatever.

SPEAKER_03 1:48:13

It's a delicate thing, right? So it is delicate. If somebody asks you a question, you're obligated to tell the truth, right? But it's very it's it's a it's a it's a thing I struggle with with even with my in-laws who are not Catholic. Like I don't want to alienate the relationship, so I'm not like constantly telling them Catholic things, right? But when they ask a question, I'm I always tell the truth, right? And it is there is uh like a humility you have to have as you tell that truth, and you have to uh go about it delicately a lot of times, but yeah, you like you have an obligation to tell the truth at all times. So but um the the uh what Kelly said, Rob, um the prayer fast, yeah. Yeah, because I think too many of us don't take that seriously, right? And yeah, prayer, prayer and fasting is what converted my wife because I like Rob thought I could intellectually argue my wife into the church, and it just it did not go well. Like I just my wife's not she she was very much like you, right? So you go in and you didn't have an intellectual conversion. I think men and women are very different like that, and I think that's that's a testament to show how feminine you really are, and even were, even at the time where you think you're transitioning, right? God works in a woman's heart a lot differently than he works in the man's heart, and God works in a man's brain a lot differently than he works in a woman's brain. Now there's going to be overlap, and some women will be more intellectual, and some men will have more of a uh uh uh an emotional conversion, sure. But for the most part, men men need like the hard facts of how can I believe this? This needs, I need the the proof intellectually to come in where my wife's heart was just softened and converted. Because I prayed and fasted and just lived my faith out instead of trying to argue with her in.

SPEAKER_09 1:50:07

Right. Well, and this is like those two examples are very different. So once again, yeah, this isn't like a so the if if you're in a context where it's like the friend who is clearly uh misusing sacraments and they're interested in the Catholic faith, it's very important to correct that head on because they're already interested in it, they need to be interested. If they're gonna be interested in Catholic, to be honest, under that premise, you actually don't know if they're really actually interested in the Catholic faith. You know they're interested in this version, this counterfeit version that's been uh uh that that they've been allowed to partake in, but that we know that's not the real faith. And so the the kindest thing in that situation would be to nip that in the butt. But with family members, I always tell people, you know, it's really about relationship first. Like you don't lead with the the gay issue or the you're Protestant issue or you don't believe, you know, you just it's all about relationship. And so that's why I think it's so, you know, um, and then like you said, when when the truth, when you ask, you know, I think I think naturally sometimes I've experienced this too, and Catholicism becomes very attractive to people who know that you're Catholic the more that you become attractive to be around. And then people start to see like, what is it that you have? What is different? And then before you know it, these conversations have doorways to be opened, and then you get to walk through those at appropriate times where once grace is really so grace operates through us into others, and you know, and so we we God gives these opportunities eventually to and they happen in stages, and so I think that's beautiful that you don't want to isolate, you shouldn't isolate your your family, you know what I mean? Like that would be insane to do that. Um that's why we don't beat people over the head with you know doctrine all the time. This is actually who aren't Catholic.

SPEAKER_03 1:51:45

This is a good point by Ocean, right? So, because I do know a lot of people I think would come into the church, but they have especially sexual sin. This is this is important. Like I think I think like especially the the the porn issue and things like that, so many men are struggling with that. It it it's the same sense of shame they have that you had with because all sexual sin leads to shame. And I think it puts a block up where people really they they're terrified to come to God because they know like deep down what they're doing is wrong, and they just they're like, Oh man, like I I would go to I would maybe be Catholic, but like I'm not ready to to stop this,

Why “Gay Catholic” Makes No Sense

SPEAKER_03 1:52:30

you know. But um, you did want to talk about the identity issue. I know that because yeah, we we had that synod under Francis with like the the preparatory documents for the first time listed. Uh they they said they they addressed it as gay Catholics and LGBT Catholics and trans Catholics, and it's like the first time the church ever put that kind of language in any kind of, even though it wasn't like the final document or anything, but it's really a very dangerous thing to start using that language because the identity issue is such an important one, right?

SPEAKER_09 1:53:09

Yeah, well, and also I even like long before the Sydna group nine issue, you know, in my own daily experience with a lot of uh Catholics either online or even in just person, there's actually a great deal of Catholics who are who struggle with same-sex attraction who still call themselves gay Catholics or LGBTQ Catholics, and they don't see a problem with that. Now, they're these are even people who are actually even following somewhat, you know, uh church teaching for what you can see. They're like faithful Catholics, but um in a myriad of different like that, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:53:42

Like they're they're but they're still using that language.

SPEAKER_09 1:53:46

Well, they're still using that language, and then they also kind of still somewhat struggle like to some degree. Like there's people who actually fully live a sacramental life, as best as you can see. Um, but they you know, they'll still do do things like live in a chase relationship with uh the man that they used to date, but they live in separate rooms and you know, just weird kind of like um dynamics that if you uh but they'll still refer to themselves as like gay Catholic. And I'll just be honest with you, I for a long time it was bothering me that why why people would call themselves a gay Catholic or an LGBT Catholic, and I didn't know why it was bothering me. It was really an internal struggle as somebody who has come from this background, and I was like, I just it was like something tugging on me. I'm like, why is this bothering me so much? Like, what is it about this that doesn't make sense to me? And so I kind of started, I would just pray about it and I thought about it a lot, and I um I you know started realizing I had this like aha moment where I really sat down, I broke down, you know, as much as I could uh about the LGBT um key world and like the Catholic world and what the two say. And and the truth is is that I came to the conclusion that the reason that you so my big proposal is that everybody in the church or everybody who's listening, if you could even we just start there, if we could try to start changing our language, even with when referring to people out in the world or even within the church, but especially like Catholics. Um, because in really realistically from the Catholic viewpoint, there is actually no such thing as even a gay person, because it comes down to the understanding of what these things are. So the reason you can't be a gay Catholic or LGBTQ Catholic is because gay or LGBTQ or any of those filler words and Catholic, they're two competing frameworks. So basically they're they're each and trying to answer the question of who the human person is and how they ought to live well. So they're doing, they're trying to do the same thing, but they have completely conflicting answers. So they actually they literally cannot make it like oil and water, you know. So it's actually super nonsensical. You cannot say, so for instance, we'll start with the case. Yeah, it's like it actually just doesn't make sense. And I I want to say that because so many people get offended and they get they get hurt, and I don't want people to feel hurt. I don't want people to feel hurt. My my my hopefully my olive branch to them is that I can explain why it's nonsensical, not because I'm trying to hurt you, but because I actually think that the ultimate that this is this very language issue that you know, when you call yourself by your disordered, you know, temptation, uh, by your disordered inclination, which is what the catechism would call it, you're actually just making your life a million times harder than it has to be. And this goes on to like, can you heal from this? And it's it answers so many questions, and it's actually very simple, but you have to understand it. So the LGBT, the reason, um, so the LGBT framework and the Catholic uh framework is they both start with, you know, how do they they're both considered identities? The world considers being gay and identity, the LGBT framework and identity, right? Um, and the church also considers, you know, um they have their own idea of identity. So the the LGBT world starts with desire and feeling, and then from that desire feeling, they say that that's what identity is. So how I feel is is what I am, right? So it starts kind of in your feeling, and then eventually um from that from that identity kind of comes a moral framework for them. That's where they get their moral sense of you know the world. Whereas the church starts ontologically, she says, who is the what is the human person fundamentally? And the human person fundamentally is male, female, you know, uh equals, you know, and child of God. And so uh the inclination is actually just something that's experienced as a result of concupiscence. So you can under you can imagine the church really just believes and has always maintained that this is just something that is a result of concupiscence, and so it is not who you are, but you can imagine if someone keeps calling themselves something day after day and how that how that fractures your sense, like you can't fully, it makes chastity, which is what the church calls us to, 10 times harder because you start to see it as an impossible thing. For instance, like people don't believe you can heal from this. Let me explain this. People say, Well, well, can you, you know, I will say that in my experience I've fully healed, but I want to explain what that healing means from the same-sex attraction. Let me explain what that means. Because I think we get it wrong a lot of times, and I'd be curious to know if um you have questions about this. So that there's usually two wrong viewpoints. It's either one, healing means you never feel the same-sex attraction again, and or two, the SSA um cannot be healed at all, and that you just have to live with it the rest of your life and kind of white knuckle it. Both of those are assumptions based on this false anthropology that the SSA is an identity. It's not. And so actually, because and when we look at the Catholic framework, what we see is that because it's just a disordered um temptation, a disordered attraction, really it's about reordering the whole person back to God. Everything is everything, and that's why any sin is like that. So it's not really that's why asceticism, that's why the church knows something about it. So, like the sacraments, asceticism, you know, really getting closer to God. So asceticism, prayer, and you know, the sacraments, it's about healing. Healing is actually just a reordering of the whole person to God. So it's not so much that you can you will never have something again, it is that ultimately what God has revealed in this church is that a lot of these things can be put into major submission um to where they're really not problematic in your day-to-day life because of the solution the church provides. So now if you were, but that's a lifelong, that's a lifelong thing.

SPEAKER_03 1:59:37

I've experienced that with sins in my own life, sins that were disordered and they are no longer an issue in my life. So, yeah, I do think you get because I had even I saw you had posted a while ago. You said after years of uh I think I because I do see this as something that you've thought deeply about, and you posted a few months back that you could actually see yourself um like reordering that attraction and seeing yourself being loved by a man kind. I forgot what the exact wording you put in was, but like you you would explain that, like you could see yourself like loving a man again, right?

SPEAKER_09 2:00:15

Yeah, yeah, because like because if the church, if the church is true, if God is who he says he is, and you actually call yourself Catholic, the the fundamental most thing about being Catholic is that you you submit to the teaching. Well, the church teaches that this is not identity, this is actually a symptom of concupiscence, which means that everything that follows is the same method and the same healing for any other sin that is produced by concupiscence, which means, you know what I mean? And so my point is is it's actually like that. We just the the whole idea of even like, can this be healed? All those questions are really framed under this already pre- this pre-accepted. This is why it's actually scary. We don't even realize how much of the world's interpretation of the human person has gotten into us as Catholics. Because if we did, we wouldn't even ever think to call somebody a gay person. We would never think that because that is a false anthropology. It is actually heresy, if you want to go that far. It is not true. The church does not teach that about us. Um, it is not an identity. Identity is received, it is only received. It comes from God, it comes from our nature, which means that whatever you feel internally is disordered, and we've known that. And we and it's it's that's why it's do you does it make sense? Sorry if I'm uh getting a passionate, but it's like I just want people to know this. I know it heals you.

SPEAKER_03 2:01:33

I know for a fact it's true because of the own my own disordered attractions in my own life. You know what I mean? It's like like I've I I don't see the world the same. I have a different paradigm now than when even like when when I first had that reversion experience and I come in like and using the confessional as a revolving door, I don't confess the same sins that I was confessing back then. Those sins are no longer even an issue in my life, like they're just completely removed from my life because my my whole person has been reordered. Now it's more pride and sins of things like that. It's just a totally different thing that I'm dealing with now.

SPEAKER_09 2:02:13

And but you could slip back to those things, right? If you decided to walk away. Yeah, and so I think that's kind of the the the the false, we don't even realize how this like false uh view of the human person has actually really seeped into us because we don't even know completely what the church really says about us, and it's evident because, like I said, and it's even for me, because we would never call somebody a gay person. Like we would just never do it because it's it just literally is nonsensical when you know the teaching of the human person. And once you know that, you actually understand why the why everything that follows is just masterful. I mean, the sacraments, the you know, the I mean, everything, I mean, so yeah, people want to know, can you be healed from this? Well, if healing means you you may never experience this again and there's not a it's not like that's not really healing is uh a reordering towards God. So yes, and God's God's a good father. So I my the first thing when people say they're struggling all the time um with this stuff, and they they they pray all the time. I mean, I the qu or they they they've been asking God for a while. To be honest with you, the sacraments are sufficient. So this all this like effort to like meet people where they are is beautiful, and I think there's a uh an aspect of it that can be very true, but to not lead with doctrines um is not is not is not it's that's not it. That's not that's not it. That's just it's so important when you just said that.

SPEAKER_03 2:03:47

It's like do we believe the sacraments are real or not? Right? Like, do we believe the sacraments are real or not? Because there was uh there very clearly they are because the sacraments transformed the world at one point, right? Like the pagan world was completely converted through the sacraments, right? Those sacraments are still available to us. Um, and what it comes down to is the it's it's it's about are are you going to work with God's grace, right? Like, are you going to cooperate with God's grace? And God does give everybody the grace to heal from this stuff. God really does all of us the grace. It's a matter of are you cooperating with that grace? And do you really want this sin out of your life? Because if you really do want whatever this problem is out of your life, it's just going to require the sacraments and cooperation with God's grace because He does give it to all of us.

SPEAKER_09 2:04:42

Yeah. Well, and I think the other thing is that I really want to touch on this. And I'm not saying I have all the answerary things, but I I am somebody who thinks about these things a lot. And um this seems to be like this almost manipulative push to suggest that to sort of conflate truth with um being um not loving. And I think that's just I think that's a dangerous line if we flirt with that too much. Because then you make people, you see the same thing happening that happened in COVID. People shut up. They don't want to say anything because they don't want to be labeled hateful. Then you have, you know, I have priests who who will email me um and say, hey, I have this um same-sex attraction couple in my parish. They're married civilly and they want to go, you know, and I I don't sometimes know how to fully have the conversation. And um that is I think a symptom because I think what's really underneath that is I think there's one, a lack in a lack in confidence in what God's revealed, and two also the enemy tactic of infiltrating our brains, thinking that we have more responsibility if this person leaves or not. I guess what my point is is if I tell you the truth, um and you leave, that's on me. But if you if they if they stay in the church and end up in hell because you never sell them the truth, that is actually on you.

SPEAKER_03 2:06:08

Yeah, like that'll be on you.

SPEAKER_09 2:06:10

And that's on you in a way bigger way, you know, than if not. So, and you know, people don't want to have this conversation. I mean, humans are very complicated, you know. It's not like I'm trying to just simplify this, but I guess what I'm trying to say is like I have this conversation with my friend all the time, and him and I, um, he he has an incredible story. Hopefully, one day he'll share it more publicly. Um, but he's uh ex-uh transgender and now a Catholic, um, very in love with our Lord, just like I am. And uh he was, and I we talk about all the time, like if somebody leaves because they're told the truth, I just think that it's being weaponized because my experience is that most people who share the truth, these priests are not stupid. You know what I mean? Like they know how to share the truth with love, like we're making it seem like our priests are just out there like bashing people over the head. And most of these men are very, very, they want people to be saved, they're not going over there and just like degrading people, you know.

SPEAKER_03 2:07:03

They've been conditioned to think the greatest offense is to offend, right? And like we've all kind of been conditioned to that, and especially when somebody does say something offensive, the backlash that we get, and oh my goodness, they're gonna, they're everybody we've all received the online mob when you say the wrong thing, right? And right they've we've all just been conditioned to think saying something offensive is the greatest sin. Right, it's just it's I mean it's not the greatest sin is only the truth.

SPEAKER_04 2:07:35

If you think of it, even our the current, you know, uh liturgy has was more or less designed that way, right? To to mold itself to everyone instead of forcing everyone to be molded to it.

SPEAKER_03 2:07:49

So I don't think it's too surprising that a Catholic 70 years later now feel like we have to mold you know uh our ourselves to everyone else instead of molding them to the I think that I think that's like the greatest problem with the new with the new mass is that it conditions us, right? Like it's it's it it conditions us to think less of sin and just to think, well, and it's given us a false understanding. But not real love. Like it's this we all just need to be nice to one another, and that's not love. Like love has nothing to do with niceness, it's right ocean.

SPEAKER_04 2:08:31

Actually, had a great comment here. When truth died in the west, they replaced charity with tolerance.

SPEAKER_09 2:08:38

Yeah, well, it so it's actually really

Shame, Eden, And Real Healing

SPEAKER_09 2:08:43

interesting, right? So I'll tell you this. This is something I I've thought about too. So let's go back to Eden. Um, you know, in the garden, uh, when you think about God Himself, it's you know, God says, I'm the way, the truth, and the life. So he's saying essentially, I'm reality itself. And so when you think of like the uh, you know, Adam and Eve, uh, what do they first do when so the so the serpent he enters a story and he starts with like this question? And the question is, you know, did God really say? He he's actually very masterful. He kind of is like, did he did he say that? And what it does in Eve is she kind of like has this um moment where she her intellect, by the way, that's a direct attack on her intellect, which is the God-given gift that tells us, you know, is that it's how we know who God is, um, and it's given directly from God. So they were in reality and complete alliance with God, and all of a sudden now she's having, you know, did God really say what he's doing is he's attacking our intellect and he's producing a tinge of doubt in uh in her uh between her and God. And what does that mean? That means that she's she's questioning reality itself in that moment. She's like, is that? And the second she, you know, and then that and that corruption of the intellect, that temptation of the intellect turns into a corruption of the will, right? So that's how it always works. And then she and then she produces, and then the fall happens. Well, then after the fall happens, right? Um, what happens? They they cover up. Well, it's really interesting because the covering up is actually where shame enters, right? The shame and the shame is um is actually, I want to say it was something like you know, John Paul II actually said, but I thought it was really insightful. I don't know exactly what he said, but he said basically shame is not embarrassment, it's it's the soul correctly perceiving um disorder. You know what I mean? So all of a sudden you've been separated from something and your soul isn't is is inherently aware that it's disordered now or something like that. And I thought that was really interesting because when you think of shame, you think the world's response to shame is that we have to um we have to get we have to silence shame. Every response the world attempts to do is to silence the shame. And every response that Catholics do is to the the uh to in order to heal disorder, shame is the signal in order to heal disorder. It actually brings you back home. So it's like shame in both those frameworks are are seen very differently. So shame points you back home in Catholic theology, but in the world it's something to be silenced, and so that's why when you like we need to bring back Catholic guilt because like guilt, Catholic guilt is a good thing.

SPEAKER_03 2:11:11

It's like people people are you hear the old timers talk about like oh, all that Catholic guilt, all that Catholic guilt. It's like all that Catholic guilt was your conscience telling you something's off, something is very far off, and you need to come back home, right? And like that Catholic guilt kept the world in order for 50 years ago. Yeah, and it was like the yeah, like a hundred percent. Like the Catholic guilt is such an important thing because I don't, I don't know. Uh for me, I ever since I came back to the church, I always had like a very high sensitivity to mortal sin. Like, I the second I would go near mortal sin, like I could I couldn't even listen to something that had to do with God. Like I it would just it would hurt so much. Like I couldn't I couldn't visit my mom, I couldn't have conversations with my mom because my mom just radiates Christ. Like my mom really just I don't know, like every Conversation with her, you just and it's not even like if they're focused on God or anything, like there's she's just there's just something about like even talking to that woman, she just radiates Christ. So I would avoid my mother if I even was anywhere near mortal sin, and it was like this immediate signal to me that like I have to get to confession, I have to get to confession. But like Catholic guilt is an amazing thing, it's God's signal in us that we need to get our answers to confession, we need to come back to them.

SPEAKER_09 2:12:26

Yeah, and and and it's just so amazing when you see everything side by side of how it's like operating. It's like one, you're right, that's the conscience, and that's it's sins, it points you in back in the direction of God. And I also like to reframe the fall. I don't, I mean, I'm not like trying to rewrite things, I'm just saying it's something worth considering that when you go back and you realize that God is reality itself, He is the truth. Okay, so if God is truth, then when we get like the shame that is produced from being like exiled, if you will, exile, you could see it is less of a punishment and more of a consequence, I think, because consequence is it was an honored choice. So God honored a choice that we made, and it actually you actually literally cannot live in reality anymore because you've chosen an untrue. So you've actually chosen yourself to live outside reality. So the exile is him honoring a choice of free will. He's saying, okay, you know what I mean? Does that make sense? So I think we people I think people see it as like a shameful thing, but it's like, I don't know, I guess I'm I'm still verbally analyzing it out loud. I'm a verbal processor, by the way.

SPEAKER_03 2:13:30

You should start a substack, Nancy. Get these thoughts on paper because oh I'm serious. Like get these thoughts on paper, especially when you're having those um light bulbs go off in your head, because uh there's clearly something clicking for you where you're like, man, I gotta, I gotta talk about this, right? So yeah, like even if they're just occasional posts or start a diary, like really start a diary and start writing this stuff down because you're hitting on things that I haven't really heard anybody else in this in this space talk about. And yeah, I've never even heard um healing talked about because I've I've watched a ton of like uh those courage videos and things like that, like listening to and you're right, like even in the courage videos, it's like you see like the the the dating couple is now living in separate bedrooms, and that like there's something wrong about that. There's something very, very off about that. Even if they're living a chaste life, it's it's the temptation is like almost like unbearable for them. And I and I've heard a lot of uh I don't whatever, I don't want to, but I've heard several of the people that were involved in that movement like fell off and went the other way, and you know, it's it's a it's well, yeah, it goes along lines of not putting yourself in the in a uh what is it called?

SPEAKER_04 2:14:40

Um near occasion of sin.

SPEAKER_09 2:14:43

Near occasion of sin. I mean, that's another thing, is it's like you just you know, it's like uh when I was getting off drugs, I wouldn't go to the bar and just be like, I could just drink white dolphins all night, you know.

SPEAKER_04 2:14:53

Um that's a good question, actually.

SPEAKER_03 2:14:58

I'm just saying, um When courage first came around, I actually was like really interested because I have people that I know that are struggling with, and I was trying to figure out like, is there somewhere I could send them? Right? So when those videos came, I mean it's been years since they came out, but when they came out, I was looking for a a way to have these conversations, so I watched them.

SPEAKER_09 2:15:18

Yeah, well, I don't actually personally I don't know much. I've heard a lot, a lot of my uh friends that I've made over the years uh say really good things about courage. I personally uh have never needed courage because I really do believe that the the sacraments are sufficient, and I really just dove into and that's not I don't want to seem like look, I think people I think that um I don't know anything about courage. I just know they support people, I think they've done a lot of great work, and I actually don't know enough about them to know it works something like an AA meeting, right?

SPEAKER_03 2:15:51

Like there's something about community and sharing, and and it's kind of like that, right? Like so having people who understand what you're going through to share your experience with is going to be beneficial, especially if they're you know on the same page as you and they're going through it too. It's the same reason you have grief support groups, it's the same reason you have totally codependency support groups, and yeah, it's like that's the whole purpose of some things. Yeah, so I I would think that's where it is, but yeah, no, I agree with that.

SPEAKER_09 2:16:23

So um, I just don't know anything to comment on them, but I've heard only good things from some of my friends that have appreciated what they do.

SPEAKER_03 2:16:30

Um it's way better than going to a father James Martin thing. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_04 2:16:34

It's like if you had if you had one minute to say whatever you wanted to Father Jim Martin, what would you say to him? Repent.

SPEAKER_09 2:16:44

Oh gosh. Um, Father James Martin, he liked a few of my posts, so I he's definitely made it known that he's seen my stuff. Interesting. Um, which he he liked things that wouldn't I you know he didn't agree with, so I think it was like a oh, did he?

SPEAKER_04 2:16:59

Yeah, it was it was his form a G signaling.

SPEAKER_09 2:17:03

I think it was his form of uh I don't know, you know. I remember sending it to my brother. I'm like, look who liked my post. Um, so I I wouldn't say he probably knows who I am by name, but um, dude, every time I see that in the chat, Father James Martin, it just trips me out.

SPEAKER_03 2:17:21

Um, all right, so we're gonna run through some some of the questions we highlighted real quick. Um, she was about to answer. Oh, I'm sorry, go ahead. Oh, yeah, you have a minute to talk to Father Martin.

SPEAKER_09 2:17:30

Um well I would just tell him to go back to seminary and learn the catechism. Probably. Yeah, I would tell him to, you know, I don't know. That's probably what I would do because I I just I don't know. I don't think a priest could be that unaware of the church teaching. I I I could be wrong, I don't know, but like I just feel like if you're that unaware, uh then you there's something more sinister going on, but I'm not here to like, I don't know, you know.

SPEAKER_06 2:18:00

Uh soul.

SPEAKER_09 2:18:04

So I pray I actually pray for him quite often, mostly because I care about the souls, he's misleading.

SPEAKER_03 2:18:12

Um, all right. So let's jump into some of these questions real quick. So

Listener Questions On Nature And Detox

SPEAKER_03 2:18:15

uh does Nancy think this that same-sex attraction was a disorder that she overcame and that she would not have been so if she would not have had that disorder. And and he's asking because he's trying to get to if she thinks that same-sex attraction is real or just a trauma response.

SPEAKER_09 2:18:34

Uh I don't know how those are different. I think that it's real. What does he mean by real? I mean like it's real in that it like becomes a disorder.

SPEAKER_06 2:18:43

I mean I think he's asking. Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 2:18:47

No, no, you're not born with it. You can't be born with I just I mean, I'm willing for it to be corrected by somebody who's more like theologically formed, but if we take the church at her word, um, and it's an in it's a disordered inclination, um, tell me a baby that can be born with a disorder. I mean, just you get more disordered as time goes on. Um, you know, and there's different so I think it's more trauma family-based.

SPEAKER_03 2:19:11

Even even the the person I was talking about earlier, um, uh my wife's friend from college, he was born into a family where where his older brother, so uh his parents had his older brother and the mom got pregnant with him like right away, and his older brother died of sudden infant death syndrome right before he was born. So he now comes into a home where he's born into where the family is traumatized they lost their child, the father checks out, and the mother is super overbearing because she just lost her other child, right? So he's in this, he's in this world where he grows up with an absent father and an overbearing mother, and that kind of warps his uh his understanding of male, female, and then at some point he sexualizes that, you know, and it's and that's kind of what happens to him. Um yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_09 2:20:11

Sorry, I I I actually agree, it's probably very family related. I think that most of the stuff comes from dynamics. So if you think about everything as either being ordered towards God or disordered, then you can imagine that every person within the family dynamic uh has their own version of disorder and order. And based on those fluctuating uh, you know, disorders that are occurring in the home, then that actually shifts, would shift go downstream to the kids. And so people, so I don't want to hear people say, Well, I've noticed that my kid was, you know, gonna be gay since he was like four. I was like, no, you just notice disorder very early, and that's normal. You know, like we live in a very disordered world, so you notice disorder happening early.

SPEAKER_04 2:20:51

You know, I I wonder, like, uh, you said earlier talking about like uh no no baby is is gay, right? As a baby, yeah, and I think like no baby is uh comes out a degenerate gambler, but I think I think now we we recognize that uh there uh there is uh with like addiction, there there does seem to be some sort of inherent um prediction towards something, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Pre yeah, predilection towards some sort of addictive sort of behavior. I wonder if there isn't something similar, you know, some sort of genetic predilection toward some sort of destructive behavior that in some cases due to trauma manifests as same-sex attraction or something like that.

SPEAKER_09 2:21:40

Um, it's possible. I I don't know. I think that's like beyond my pay grade because I know what you're saying, but I will say this just as something to sit and chew on uh in your thoughts. So you could make the case that there's certain types of people who are more inclined to become drug addicts. But then if you look at that person, they might be a workaholic, so they're still an addict. It's just a matter of how they've been informed and whether that gets driven. So the point is, is is that person really the much different than the drug addict? I mean, if they're or are they still disordered, it's just been geared in another way. I don't know. I don't know how those cross over. I don't know how they, you know what I mean? So that's a good question, and it's worth thinking about. But I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 2:22:20

Um uh Michael's asking, how is your relationship with your father now?

SPEAKER_09 2:22:26

Um wonderful.

SPEAKER_03 2:22:27

No, um, we live together actually, and um, you know, it's not without its challenges, but I think um I think um that a lot of that God is honestly uh kind of been blowing my mind and what is possible as far as He heals not just our own things, but He heals relationships, He heals He's He's capable of healing everything.

SPEAKER_09 2:22:53

Well, and it's not actually it's funny because you think like, oh, I think you know, we always think of this person. I'm not saying this is my dad, this is in general. But if you think of somebody that you just really don't have a good relationship with that you think maybe it would be nice to have a good relationship with them or to heal something than that, you often think of if that person would only change. But actually, I've been my my perception of that has been radically shifted once again on my head as a resource as a uh result of my own faith. And actually, what I found is that the more I started changing, the more I had was able to have a capacity to love the things that were more difficult, um, that before I just had no tolerance for. So, and then that actually through that, they start to change. Like when you change, they change. As one of my priests said that in confession one time, I'll never forget it. I, you know, and he was like, You change, he change. You change, he change. And I thought, like, it's so simple. So the more I started having more love in my heart, uh, and then it takes a lot of effort. So I guess, yeah, we're in a good spot. I love my dog.

SPEAKER_03 2:23:50

I I had that with uh work relationships because like you you work with guys, and I found myself like years ago, I would say, Oh, I hate that guy. Oh, I can't stand that guy. Oh, I can't stand that guy. And I've I found that the guys that I thought that about, and I that that really particularly annoyed me because they would do things that would really annoy me. Like I went out of my way to be kind to them and like just befriend them, and now they're some of my my favorite people, you know. Like you actually do like you, there's something happens where you where you force yourself to treat that relationship differently and you act differently towards them, and they then you can you can fix those really so I make I make a point like what because the guys I work with guys and they're like, Oh, I hate that guy. I'm like, never say that. Like, don't ever say you hate somebody because that implies you want bad things to happen to that person and things like you you could, you know, there might be difficult people in your life, but really don't say you hate anybody, you know.

SPEAKER_09 2:24:48

Can I answer one last thing real fast on the other thing? Because I I don't I was I don't feel like it's sufficient. The question about uh if you're born and we were talking about well, some people might have more of an inclination. Let's say even that's true that somebody has more of a predisposition, which I don't particularly buy. Um, but let's say it's possible. Um, the answer is still the same. So I don't know, I don't even know that it almost um and I I believe in the sacraments so much through my own experience and through just witnessing. Um, and I believe in Christ so much that like it actually almost doesn't matter. Let's say somebody did have a predisposition, I believe it would just be as easy for them to correct that in the sacraments as it would be for someone to stumble upon it with trauma. So I guess getting in the weeds of how it is produced is is kind of irrelevant. Um, because let's say we let's say somebody were to come out with some bunk science saying you could be gay, then I mean, think about how atrocious that would be. Uh, it would make it so much harder for people to think that the truth is in the church. Because they're like, well, how evil is that that I was born this way? And it actually, that's why I'm that's why I don't think you could be born gay, because I I just don't think it's who the per the church says we are.

SPEAKER_03 2:25:55

And um, I got it like this conversation has so uh so much to do with why I don't buy set of contism, to be honest, because because of how much the sacraments have worked in my life, I know the sacraments are real in the Novusordo church. Like it's uh it's not it's such a tangible thing for me. Like it's such a tangible thing for me that I know the sacraments are still valid in the church because they changed my life. And it it's like you could never convince me otherwise because I've seen the radical transformation of all the relationships in my life and my marriage and all these different things that there's no human explanation for it. It's not because I did something like I just went to mass, I just went to mass and I went to confession, and that literally changed everything in my life. Yeah, you didn't have to read every papal bowl first, and I didn't study the pre-conciliar documents until recently, guys.

SPEAKER_09 2:26:52

Well, and actually that's the other reason why it's so dangerous to teach LGBT people as special, because that's actually what the world does. Um, and so actually, too, if we if the church were to treat the the gay issue as some special issue that needs to be addressed, is if they're different than any other sinner, then we're ear, then we're actually the reason they feel different because we're treating them as if they are, and that's the thing, it actually reinforces what they say they already feel is that we we want to just be seen as normal regularly.

SPEAKER_03 2:27:20

You got some special sin that we gotta work on. It's like no, just go to the mass.

SPEAKER_09 2:27:24

Right. And so, and that's why it's like no, like the answer is the same across the board. And um, so yeah, anyway.

SPEAKER_03 2:27:33

Um, I do have a question about that. I think Eric Eric has been asking a lot about this.

SPEAKER_04 2:27:38

Yeah, so Eric, if if you didn't see his previous comments, he um he is an addict and he's he um he's currently had a relapse. Yeah, um, so he's he's asking if you experienced um detox.

SPEAKER_09 2:27:54

Um, I did not experience the full effects of it uh from heroin uh or anything like that, although I have experienced minor effects of it from um using like um the painkillers and stuff. Uh you feel like your skin's you know getting tight, like you can't, like you can't sleep for for anything. Um, you know, you throw up, you know, you have things like that.

SPEAKER_03 2:28:16

I've gone through full-blown opiate withdrawals. I've gone through they're brutal, like full-blown opiate. I've gone through.

SPEAKER_09 2:28:25

I haven't gone through that because opiates wasn't really my drug of choice. It was more of like uh when nothing else is around, those were that's what I'd go to. But I have gone off uh meth with uh withdrawal, and they they don't really give you anything, they give you antipsychotics um to get through that. And I that was actually the most brutal that I've ever gone through, and that's a whole different kind of detox, though. It's not physical as much as it's mental because you go through psychosis. So I had breaks from reality, I could hear voices, so uh it's a whole different type of deal.

SPEAKER_03 2:28:56

Eric, the uh alcohol withdrawal, I've I've never I've never struggled with with anything like that, but uh from what I hear, alcohol withdrawals like this there's two, is like benzos and alcohol are the two that you can't just kick if you're going through withdrawals, like you kind of need medical medical uh help going through that because you could go into cardiac arrest from it.

SPEAKER_09 2:29:18

So Aaron tremors, like yeah, definitely prayeric.

SPEAKER_03 2:29:23

He's been down this road before and he's gone through this stuff before, but dude, go to a meeting if that if that's what you gotta do, go to one meeting, whatever it is. But um, what other what other questions did we have in there? Um oh I would pray. Do you ever think you'd be working with your brother?

SPEAKER_09 2:29:41

No, actually, no, and I don't I get I guarantee he never thought he'd ever work with me.

SPEAKER_03 2:29:46

Well, I wanna I want to talk about that a little bit, uh, because relationships like um I could tell I could tell you even like from from Rob and I, right? We've talked a little bit before, like like we've been doing this show for four years together now, right? And you're bound to get on each other's nerves. I I think the biggest thing Rob and I bicker about now are like show titles, and like I can send Rob seething through the text messages when I make a suggestion for Rob.

SPEAKER_04 2:30:13

I I I try to make sure you can sense me seething.

SPEAKER_03 2:30:17

He's like, I'm like, well, what do we go with this? And he's like, he doesn't change it at all, and he's like, How about this? And he changes it. But we've got a point now where when he does that, I kind of laugh about it. I'm just like, he's a stubborn bastard, you know. But there's funny, there's there's times, uh, like I kind of see part of the role Rob and I have as showing people like what are what are what two completely different freaking people, exact opposite, like total freaking opposites, Rob and I, right? Like we are opposite ends of the planet, personality-wise, temperament-wise, everything. But how like like God did something beautiful between us, man.

SPEAKER_04 2:31:01

Like, he oh, this sounds so gay.

SPEAKER_03 2:31:03

I don't care what it sounds like, but two guys from different sides of the country, totally completely different personalities. This is what's gonna be get clipped. This is what they're gonna clip, or whatever people talk, but no, because I think through us going through some of the stuff we've done on this show, it's helped Rob with his own relationship with his mother. I think it's helped I like in all like it's helped me in my marriage, it's helped me in in all the different because relationships are such a difficult thing, and we're in a time where people, especially online, like you see people just block people, and then we we had this conversation the other day with people doing the no contact thing. And I think you know, you're working for your you're working for your brother essentially, and I know Josh is difficult, and I'm sure that's not easy at all times. Like your brother's a pain in the ass sometimes. I've had many conversations with him. So, how does that play out uh with that dynamic? Because you were his little sister, and I don't know what the relationship growing up was like, but now you guys are working on something

Working With Her Brother And Family Healing

SPEAKER_03 2:32:02

together. And he just for the record, he says nothing but amazing things. He's like, I've never seen anybody work as hard as my sister.

SPEAKER_09 2:32:08

Okay, yeah. Um, Josh, can I answer this?

SPEAKER_06 2:32:13

I'm just kidding.

SPEAKER_09 2:32:20

No, I'm just kidding. Um, you know, I mean, it's about you can imagine it's like a brother sister. I'm sure. I mean, we we compute information differently. So he's uh just like way very intellectual. So it's been a learning process for both of us. And quite frankly, I actually am just profoundly grateful for some the progress. Like if you would see some of the progress that we like, we understand each other so much better. And like, you know, anytime you anytime you have communication differences and just or the way you process information, you know, it requires both people, if you guys love each other, to come and to sort of meet in the middle somewhere. And like, um, I all I can say is that I have a really wonderful relationship with my brother. Uh obviously, I can't nobody in their right mind could say they've never had any issues with their sibling or anything like that. But I would say overarchingly, I've I mean, we give I think he would agree with this, and I think he would actually say this too, is that like I I think that the way we've had we've learned to communicate with each other is just if you like it's just been actually quite amazing. And so I think that is the part that truly excites me. And um, he knows this because um I don't I don't get the same Josh uh as maybe other people get because my Josh, my Josh, no, that's good. Oh no, I'm just kidding. Um my brother, uh, he's very gentle with me. He's he's actually very uh for the most part, I mean, he's grown into being very gentle with me. And he's good because I need gentleness sometimes. I'm I can be very sensitive. Um And so, and I've also learned to speed up, you know, I've learned on my end to take uh a paragraph and um and send it and say it in a sentence and get to the point, you know what I mean? So, like, whereas he's gotten gentle with me, I've had to learn to get to the point with them because I always want to uh you know go on and on.

SPEAKER_03 2:34:19

I talk to him about it because um like I know he's your brother, but in a in a in a way, he like he's gotta be a father figure to you, right? Like he's your older brother, like and and I try to talk about like spiritual fatherhood with people all the time because it's important, like because he does have a short temper, Josh, and he's like, you know, and I'm like just and like be gentle, like see see every every relationship in your life as a spiritual fatherhood. It's it's stuff him and I talk about behind the scenes a lot. It's not stuff that we bring to the show a lot, but it's it's an important thing for all of us in every relationship we have, especially for those who are less mature in the faith than us, if they're coming in, like you do have a role as a spiritual father to and a spiritual mother. Like you're gonna you're now a spiritual mother to every conversation you have in the world. It's it's a really important thing to adjust once you come into the faith like that.

SPEAKER_09 2:35:12

Yeah, no, I think that's spot on, especially like I actually really enjoy that you said that because um most of us, most people have never really had the full, you know, experience of what like true, you know, fathership looks like or mother, you know, whatever. And so when you become when you're in the faith, you know, you're kind of all called to that. So I if I I don't know if I reiterated that right, but yeah, no, Josh is definitely um oh he's not he's patient with me.

SPEAKER_03 2:35:44

He's not always patient with me, but I hope he's patient with no one's always patient with you.

SPEAKER_09 2:35:49

Well, no one's patient 100% of the time, but yeah, he is um he is he's pretty patient with me. And Josh is actually people think that because sometimes he he can be uh uh you know straight to the point and things like that. People like I don't know what they would think he is as a boss, but he's actually like the most hands-off boss that there is. And what I mean by hands off is like he is not like a helicopter, he really trusts you to do your job. Like it's almost it's like super chill in that way. Like he he really respects like your competence, and once he trusts you and you've kind of like shown that you're capable, he trusts you. And obviously, if I need him for something else, and you know, we then that's different. But like I've worked for some bosses who are just need to be like, and that's always really difficult. Um when your competence isn't respected. Um, he's not like that at all. He's actually he's very hands-off in that regard. He really trusts you do your work, and that's awesome.

SPEAKER_03 2:36:46

Actually, is there is there anything that that I didn't cover in my questions that you that you want to touch on before we jump off? Because we've been on for quite a bit.

SPEAKER_09 2:36:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:36:56

I know you would wanted to come on and talk about some stuff. I know we did cover like the bulk of it, but if there's anything you wanted to touch on before we before we jumped off, though, I didn't ask.

SPEAKER_09 2:37:05

No, I think the biggest things were just covering like the false anthropologies. There's one that the world's pushing, it's starting to impact the church. And uh, if you don't know who you are, uh as the church sees you, not as self-created, because that's what the fig leaves are, right? They're they're the thing that cover up the chain, you know. So that's the self-madeness. The fig leaves have to fall, you know what I mean? And so, and then the identity is received. And so um, I just my hope is that everyone tonight can go home and start practicing saying SSA instead of uh calling their relative gay or something like that, because I really think that language is how the culture was started to be taken over. They knew language, they know language is powerful, that's why they changed it. That's why these movements have changed language because whoever controls the language controls the narrative. And so you it's that's why people say it's like not that big of a deal. No, it's a big deal. It's a big deal because language precedes understanding. And so the more we speak truthfully of what the human person is, the more we can start to uh help people in ways that we don't even realize uh the ripple effect of that. So, you know, it's a it's a it's a disordered attraction, it's a disordered um inclination, it's not an identity.

SPEAKER_02 2:38:21

So it's um before we go, everybody it's Nick Cavaso's birthday today.

SPEAKER_03 2:38:25

Was it happy birthday, Nick? We'll have to text him happy birthday or something.

SPEAKER_04 2:38:32

Yeah, these are the things you're supposed to inform me of.

SPEAKER_03 2:38:34

Uh well I have I have his birthday like saved in my phone for some reason, and I I just got an alert earlier. Guys aren't supposed to do that. Yeah, I don't know. I I don't know why I haven't. That's what I mean. Yeah, so it's an important question here. Yeah, if we still use gays and insult for the boys.

SPEAKER_09 2:38:56

Look, what you do in your own uh boy time, that sounds really bad. It's between you and you know the guys. No, I I personally don't think that it's offensive, but I would be careful to you know, I'd be prudent to not say it around people who it would hurt because it does hurt people's feelings, and I don't think we should be mean about that. I think that's that would be wrong.

SPEAKER_03 2:39:18

But yeah, I mean if you want to have a group of boys and you say that, like worried about people's feelings. We don't care.

SPEAKER_09 2:39:25

Um I mean, I I don't think any words are offensive, so Nancy.

SPEAKER_03 2:39:29

We uh you're our you're our only resident e-girl that we allow on here. Uh in Catherine.

SPEAKER_04 2:39:36

Don't forget Catherine.

SPEAKER_03 2:39:39

The reason why I do let you come on is because you don't ever display any kind of that b behavior in any way, shape, or form. Um, and you when you do pop on online, very rarely that I do see you out there. It's always something really, really good to read. So um I do hope you start writing a little bit of a substack because I'd love to um I'd love I'd like to like or keep a diary or something. Like I think that I think you have uh a a gift of explaining this topic better than anybody I've heard.

SPEAKER_04 2:40:10

So don't uh or even just just recording uh two or three minute short to put up on TikTok or YouTube, even that would be good.

SPEAKER_09 2:40:18

I hate shorts so bad. I had to do a short because I'm heading to San Antonio, Texas tomorrow to speak at uh Sacred Heart rally. And I they wanted me to do a short for the event. And I I don't I do not like talking to a camera. It has been very difficult for me to look at this camera, it feels so fake. So maybe not the shorts, but maybe writing.

SPEAKER_02 2:40:35

But maybe how did the uh how did the uh the the speech at the the talk you gave at Mar-a-Lago go?

SPEAKER_09 2:40:44

Um the Mar-a-Lago talk. I blacked out the whole time, didn't remember what I said, was super nervous, and then I had to be told later on what I said.

SPEAKER_03 2:40:53

Was it your first was it your first public talk?

SPEAKER_09 2:40:55

First public talk ever. You can imagine, right? I'm in a room full of like bishops and priests, and I'm like, what is happening? No, it was it was cool. Um, I wasn't I wouldn't say it's a talk, it was just more like sharing my story. They told me I had five minutes, I took 13, I think.

SPEAKER_03 2:41:11

Oh, yeah, that's that's that's good.

SPEAKER_09 2:41:15

Yeah, and that was like over a year ago, but um no, it was it was it was really, I mean, it was a huge blessing. I mean, I got to meet a lot of really cool people. Taylor Marshall helped me a lot, calmed my nerves. Uh even Bishop Strickland was very kind. Um, there's nothing like having Bishop Strickland open the elevator for you and your mom and uh you know let you he took he took us all the way to his floor for uh not to his floor top our floor and then went back down to his floor. It was very um very kind. So um, yeah, so uh it was good, but now I've I'm doing a little bit more talking here and there just when the Lord opens the door, and um so pray for me for that. I'll be in Texas tomorrow.

SPEAKER_03 2:41:58

Well, you did great on here tonight. So Nancy, thank you so much for coming on. We love uh we love checking in with you. Um hopefully uh Josh isn't mad at me for making you spill a little bit of the tea behind the scenes between you guys, but uh no, I think so. Um all right, so Rob and I actually were thinking about maybe taking a week off the encyclical series so that we have some time to read through rareum because it's a pretty long encyclical.

SPEAKER_04 2:42:23

Yeah, we need to do it justice.

SPEAKER_03 2:42:25

We want to do it justice. That's gonna be uh a highlight. So we may skip the encyclical series next week and just do some topical stuff on Tuesday and Thursday and then follow up and do rare Navarum as kind of a a crown jewel on the on the series that we've been doing so far.

Where To Find Nancy And Closing

SPEAKER_03 2:42:40

So uh we will see you guys on Tuesday night. Nancy, where can people find you?

SPEAKER_09 2:42:45

Uh as for right now, I'm a director of operations for eternal Christendom. So uh they can find me on X. I thought that's the only social media I have, which is uh my handle is cancel woke with a three at the end. So C-A-N-C-E-L-W-O-K three. Uh because the E version was taken. Um, and then um on Eternal Christendom, if you go to our website, we have plenty of free resources. You can reach out to me there if you ever need to contact the contact form. Um, and yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:43:13

Guys, share this episode, hit like, subscribe if you're not subscribed already. Share this one. This one's a good one to uh get out there if you got a somebody's got a long car ride or something. I know it was a long episode, but definitely easy to talk with Nancy. It wasn't you know, we didn't need to do much prep work for this one. I knew it was gonna be a good one. So Nancy, we'll see you soon. Uh give our best to your brother and your and your family.

SPEAKER_04 2:43:36

And tell them you're our favorite charge. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:43:38

Yes, you are our favorite charge. We try and tell Josh that. So all right, take us out, Rob.

SPEAKER_01 2:43:43

All right, yeah, thank you. Unite the clans. Enoch. Let's go. Yeah, yeah. Take me back to my remotion. Unite the clans, I give thanks to each person. It's that same holy water that we immersed in. It's that same tradition that we all need first in. United we