Religious Trauma with Adaline Part 2

[00:00:00] So the next day he called me and he said to me, I’m having a really interesting experience right now. And the best way to describe it is I’m having a fight between my head and my heart. And that’s when I got really excited because I, because anytime people have a fight between their head and the heart, like, especially if they’re good kind people, the heart usually wins.

 Welcome back for part two. We have Adeline back, uh, to talk about queerness and spirituality and, , and religion.

, we had a lot to talk about last week and, uh, welcome back for part two.

Oh, thank you for having me. This has been such a great chat so far.

Amazing. , so I want to move on to some more recent stuff , I feel like we’ve set the stage really well. So people know your background in terms of, , religiosity , and coming to your own queerness.

Now, Lauren doesn’t know any of these sort of more recent things and I’m so excited. I didn’t want to spoil anything cause you have such, there’s such good stories , In your music and as that relates to your queerness and coming out and it’s, and like meeting your partner and stuff. And it’s just also fantastic.

So maybe we’ll start with your song Ghost. Can you tell us about

Yeah.

So Ghost I wrote, um, Ghost is on my record from 2020, which is called Dear Illusion. And when I was recording Ghost, I was not, when I was recording the record, I was not out. Um, and I had written a song, I’d gone through my first queer heartbreak, which, you know, hits a little

a little different.

And I had a lot to say, but I was queer.

Constantly finding ways to reframe the songs to kind of not give any kind [00:02:00] of hint of it being about a woman. Um, the person at the time is now non binary, so goes by the them pronouns, but sometimes when I’m referring back to that time, in that moment, I was like, I’m in love with a woman, even though now is non binary.

Um, so I was processing through what that meant, and I wrote Ghost, this song, this breakup song, with the intent that no one would ever hear it. Because I used she, her pronouns in the song. So I knew that if I released the song, I would be, I would have to come out or I would have to frame the song as me being an ally.

And the more I thought about it, the more I realized that if I kept doing this thing of in interviews, reframing, Oh, I’m an ally, or this is, this is just about a person or that I would have to stop songwriting because it just was getting super dishonest, exhausting. So I wrote the song. With no plan of releasing it.

My manager at the time, who’s also gay, he, he was just like, this song is so powerful. I think you need to release it. So the song kind of took me on this journey where I felt it kind of pulling me to this truth. And, There was something about the song, and I’ve written tons of songs that don’t, that I think are garbage, or you throw, you throw away, like it’s not like every song I write is precious, but there was something, and I think it was because I wrote it with thinking no one would hear it, so it had like an extra aspect of honesty and vulnerability, and that was what was calling me with the song.

[00:04:00]

So I just decided to put it out, and I knew by putting it out I’d have to come out, so. Went home, came out to my family, which is a whole other thing, but, um, did that and released the song. And at the time, as a family, I had said to my mom and dad and my, my brother, who’s also a minister, I want to share something about my queerness online, but I don’t necessarily want to do a big splashy Instagram post or anything.

So I wrote a little bit about my queerness and being an evangelical minister’s kid and feeling like. in the middle and alone for a lot of that journey in the description of the YouTube video for the song because I knew no one would read it because no one reads those no one clicks that like see more in a music video so I just put it there and it sat there for a long time put the song out it was out and I had this feeling of like okay I did it I came out to my family I put the song out I leaned into that honesty and that was, and that was it.

So a couple months later, I got a call from a music supervisor, friend of mine, and she works on this queer TV show called Wynonna Earp. And she wanted to use Ghost for this really beautiful queer love scene because she knew the story behind the song. And it was a really pivotal moment in the show as well.

So there was this really beautiful combination of like, My vulnerability, the vulnerability of this, this love scene. And so it came out and the fans of the show who are already quite, they’re, they’re the amazing fan base. They love the show and they’re very active online. So they started looking for the song.

So they came to my YouTube and they [00:06:00] actually read the part about my upbringing. So I started getting thousands of emails from people all over the world saying like, this is my story. I grew up in the church or I’m in this small town. I’m afraid, or I’m in this country where it’s illegal and started getting all these super vulnerable, powerful messages and emails.

So I set up a Google form. For us to talk because I just felt like I had to do something and hundreds of people signed up for these calls. So it was also the 2020. So as we were in the height of the pandemic, and I think even though the pandemic was so hard, it really was for a lot of us a time for us to reflect and to maybe like dig into some of these things.

So, um, Having online calls in 2020 and 2021 was the timing couldn’t have been better for just having everyone together being able to have these Zoom calls. So I was on Zoom calls for Months and months.

Yeah, I remember we’d be going for walks during COVID or whatever and you’d be like, I have calls from like five to ten tonight.

It’s like all these one on ones with new people and then group meetings and it just like, it just expanded and exploded so

It was wild. It was just like wild. For a lot of people, the first time they’re even saying they were gay out loud, or the first time, a lot of people calling from their cars because was the safest place to be, no one knew they were out.

And so it just started growing and growing and that’s when I realized, like, we have a community here because no one wanted to leave and that’s when we organized it into the nonprofit. So it’s called Bad Believer and we provide resources, therapy referrals, community support for, yeah, queer people who are, um, figuring all this out and it’s, it’s an interesting community because it’s a faith community and it’s a non faith community.

And that has been like the most fascinating part of it because we have Republicans. We have, you know, obviously we have Democrats within the queerness. But it’s, it’s sort of this space where [00:08:00] you don’t have to believe anything. You just have to potentially have had moments in your life where you felt restricted from believing what you want to believe.

Some people, And some people go back to Christianity after they feel like they have permission. And some people go in a different direction. And for us as an organization. We don’t, that doesn’t matter to us. It’s like, you do you. But it’s more just getting to the heart of the issue where people feeling like they’re not allowed to make those choices, which is inhuman, to be honest.

Yeah. Isn’t that so

It’s amazing. And it, uh, yeah, it’s, it’s what you were talking about on our, on our last episode with, you know, the, you’re taking the pieces of. your specific, , church upbringing that was restrictive and saying, no, we can have these things and everyone’s allowed in.

And they’re like, I think when there are different approaches and ideas, like that is what makes us better is the, the difference and the ability to have, people of all faiths and political beliefs in the same room, having a conversation and figuring it out together.

Yeah.

and it’s that community piece. It’s like we all, because I’m sure everyone is, misses that they, they, you know, they grew up religious, maybe they are still religious or not. But it’s that community piece where it’s like they all want to connect with people who have that.

that sense that they want to experience, you know, but then not being dogmatic about it and being like, okay, you have to believe this or you have to believe that because that’s what your religion did growing up. So you’re going to, you don’t want to do that.

and that’s the gift of the queer experience is you, you know what it feels like to be othered.

So, it gives you an outlet. actually true empathetic ability to meet other people who have different beliefs and be like, okay, I don’t really get that, but I love you. And I think our community is able to do that in a unique way because we all know what it feels like to not be understood, to not be loved.

So we have that extra ability to show love when sometimes it’s confusing or inconvenient or scary.

Yeah. And just to have those conversations too. To be [00:10:00] like, like it might bring someone closer to a different version of God than the one they which can be a really healing thing, I’m sure too.

can do it on their own terms.

Um, okay, so. Bad Believer and Ghost. I love this part.

So you create, so Ghost comes out and then you essentially create this whole community around it and this, this nonprofit organization. And then can you tell us about some other developments that came from that?

Uh,

What do you know, Alena, that don’t? Well,

I met my partner, through the organization as well.

Uh, it’s a beautiful story in the sense of, again, if I hadn’t, uh,

I would never have met her. Um, but we had this really incredible connection as a lot of us do in the community of knowing what it feels like to be in ministry for 10 or more years. Then all of a sudden be in this wilderness of trying to figure yourself out.

So my partner worked for 10 years and young life, which is a Christian organization in the U S and came in to bad believer, um, She had heard about it. I think someone was talking about it on YouTube, just like a random comment. So she signed up for an initial call, which, which we still do those calls. And she came in and I met her.

I had a very strong boundary around not dating anyone in the community. I felt like that was important, but Ashley started working in the non profit with me. Um, and was such a great, incredible energy and presence and she was showing up for in beautiful ways. And so we had kind of gotten to know each other.

And she was also in my dad’s Bible study. So this is a crazy aside. So my dad, my minister dad, who is still not sure what he thinks about it, the whole time I was having these calls, I would call my parents and be like, you wouldn’t believe. The heartache I heard tonight in these calls, you know, there are these queer Christians who have nowhere to go.

They can’t go to their [00:12:00] churches, they have no community, and my dad was like, I’ll be their pastor. And so I said to my dad, like, you realize these are gay people, and I don’t know where you’re at with that, but And he just was like, I just want to love them. So we created a very safe space where they all knew where he was at in his journey, because the last thing I wanted to do was have another experience where they felt the rug pulled.

So no one went into that study with him thinking that he was fully affirming, because that wouldn’t have been fair. So they are able to hold space for his growth. learning journey. And then he is holding space for the queerness piece that he doesn’t really understand. But this, it’s been four years now they’ve had this Bible study and they’ve become this like family.

So Ashley was in the Bible study. So my dad actually knew her more than I did at one point. He’d always be like, Ashley’s the best. She’s, I love her so much. And he’d go on and on about Ashley. And I didn’t really know her that well. Like she was just, Someone in Bad Believer, and of course I knew her from volunteering and things like that, and then we started doing yearly retreats where we’d meet in person, and the first retreat I met her in real life, and immediately I was like, oh.

First of all, she was very

There’s not

There’s not a lot of like, tall queers, so I was like, I’ll take that

take that

Um, no, she was just like, had a great energy, and we We got along really well and it was a different, I think I was used to a lot of like dangerous connections, like these like, I don’t know what’s going on.

Yes, the like

on. Yes, the, like,

that’s very common in early queer relationships is because like, I think there’s this belief that we can’t have nice things because we’re like, Oh, this is bad.

So therefore I’m bad. And it’s like a

Or self sabotage, maybe, because you’re not sure if you’re even, especially with religious mindsets. So I was always like engaging in like more dangerous, like not very healthy things for me.

And I remember when I met her it was like there was just my body, I felt like this [00:14:00] exhale of my body, like it just was like, and the moment I realized I had feelings for her is we were doing a group Like session, I think we’re meditating or doing something at the retreat and someone started sharing about how the nonprofit had really changed their life and they were really being vulnerable.

But I had this overwhelm of just seeing all these people around me and I, I got really emotional. I started to cry, but I didn’t want to distract from the person. I didn’t want everyone to look at me. And so I started to kind of quietly cry and I remember she was sort of sitting in front of me and I, she lifted her.

Body up and kind of moved so that she sheltered me. And so I like dug my head into the bat, her back and just kind of like silently cried. And there was just this moment of feeling like she’s like this safe port in a storm, which is the opposite. Usually I was chasing the storm. So obviously confusing because it’s a different kind of connection.

But I really told myself, someone said something to me once they said, Ashley’s not. the kind of person that you would necessarily choose, but she’s the kind of person you deserve. And I realized that person saw that my patterns were destructive. So I pushed and went for that. So we’ve been together for almost three years.

But yeah, we met through that. And so when I told my dad, when I told my family, which, like you’re, like the person that wrote in, coming out as queer to religious family is one thing. But then when you’re like, Oh, now I have someone, it’s like a secondary coming out. That’s almost scarier because it’s a

Well, the stakes are so much higher, too, especially if you’re with someone who, like, brings your nervous system down and is like, who, at your core, gets you. It’s like, the stakes can’t be higher.

Yeah, and so I was just like, oh no, this might be really hard. And for me, because I’m pansexual,

I mean, I don’t, they don’t know what pansexual, I say bisexual to them because it’s too confusing. But, um, I think they always knew that I could meet a guy. [00:16:00] Um, so there was always that aspect of, okay, now it’s a real reality for Yes,

the hope that maybe they were clinging

to.

And I remember when I said, I’m seeing someone now and they both, my parents looked at me and they’re like, okay, okay. And then I looked at my dad and I said, it’s Ashley. And his, his brain broke. It was like he was, his this big smile went across his face. And then he was like, Oh,

It’s like a battle.

hell? I

I

saw like 17 different things go through his head at the same time, but he, I remember he looked at my mom and he said, Oh, she’s wonderful, Jan.

She’s really wonderful. So the next day he called me and he said to me, I’m having a really interesting experience right now. And the best way to describe it is I’m having a fight between my head and my heart. And that’s when I got really excited because I, because anytime people have a fight between their head and the heart, like, especially if they’re good kind people, the heart usually wins.

So that’s when I saw like, the hope of knowing that he was like, I love her and I’m, I’m actually excited. But my head is like, getting in the way. And so then I just thought, well, we can work on

don’t

We’ll work on your,

can work

on that. Long game. What? That, like, past your dad, matchmaker. You never know, right? What, like, that is such a beautiful, like, I just can’t believe that Journey, you and your dad have been on it through this. Like, that is really, really special.

well, even coming out was, you know, obviously it’s so hard for everybody, no matter what journey people are on with coming out. But when I came out, like anyone who comes out to a religious family, that moment you do it, like anyone who comes out, that moment is just locked into your brain. So I said it to them.

And we all cried, but mostly I think because I was crying, I couldn’t breathe, and you know how that cry where you’re like,

Oh, that build up.

You can’t get the [00:18:00] breath in. I was just on the ground, a mess, um, And they got on the ground with and we all kind of huddled together. And then my dad, the first thing he said, was, today is a beautiful day for our family because now there are no more secrets. And I’ll never forget that. I’ll never forget it. Now, have there been learning curves? Has there been moments where it’s been like, Oh, I wish it was farther along, or do they say things sometimes that I’m just like, Oh, you shouldn’t

you shouldn’t really say

you know, like, yeah, for sure, and that’s why So I wrote them a love song on my record that I released, um, called What Love Is All About.

And in the second, I was really stumped on the second verse, because the first verse is very much, Oh, I love you, like, you’ve shown me unconditional love. The chorus is, but I felt like the second verse, I really wanted to also like show how So it’s not perfect with religious family, you go on a journey, so the second verse is a little bit more rooted in that reality of like, we’re still taking time to understand how to shift when things don’t go as planned, like.

But like a house that’s built on the rock, storms roll off, we still stand, like we can get through it, so it’s a little bit more of that sense of, listen, none of this is perfect, but when love is there and a desire to understand and choosing love over that like in serious indoctrinated fear, That’s the gift and I would never expect them to be perfect or get it right away But when there’s a desire to get it like that’s that’s all we can that’s like the best case

I mean, you think that really speaks to that head and heart, um, struggle, right? That first verse is about the heart and then the second verse is where their heads are getting in the way again. And so that is that journey of like a little, a one step forward, maybe two steps back, back and forth.

That’s that kind of give and take that’s going to happen as that struggle is going. But like you said, the heart, um, ultimately wins, [00:20:00] because that’s really what matters more. And I just love that your dad said that, um, that he said that, like, we have no secrets now, it’s a beautiful day. because what he’s saying is, we’re closer

now

We’re actually closer now, which is like, just such an unreal, beautiful thing for him to, realize in that moment and to say to, right? Because he could have said something else and it could have been negative and it could have been, uh, it could have been painful, but he said this beautiful, yeah it often

like, I had just come out of having 800 phone calls with tons of Christian folks or Christian queers grew up with like fathers with the same degree as mine, um, who are telling me what their parents said. And it was. heartbreaking like these Can’t even share how many times like it’s I’ve gotten off phone calls and just cried at the thought of like What that must feel like so I am it is not lost on me how lucky I am And how grateful I am and the fact that I’ve gotten to experience what people call Unconditional love like I don’t think a lot of us get to really experience it It’s it’s like when someone when Is loving you through indoctrination, loving you in spite of like, panic feelings that are coming, and also one thing that parents do a lot that I see is loving them and not making it about them right away.

A lot of parents make it about themselves immediately, so it’s like, I’m gay. And it’s like, what did I do wrong? Like, how did I, you know, it’s like the instantly to be able to like not turn it, which is going to be natural to start to think like, what did I, but to not have that be the first thing out of your mouth is very rare.

Parents just love to make it about themselves right away.

And for those folks

Who are in kind of the more challenging side of that, what, what do you tell them in these phone calls, like, where do, where [00:22:00] do you, where do you ground them?

It’s kind of like what we were talking about earlier, that’s the hardest place because it is

It’s this like desert place that isn’t forever, but is your current reality I feel like one thing we try to do a lot and the nonprofit is not Cast a rosy glow on things. I feel like church did that a lot for

Mm.

It was like we were never really just admitting like this is hard There’s no fix for this.

We can find support for you, we can make sure that you’re like, you have a toolbox full of coping things to deal with, whether it’s meditation, getting some space, healthy boundaries, but for some folks, you know, the average time can be between 5 and 10 years for family to really come around. So it is one of those things where it’s like, I’m not gonna sugarcoat this for you, this is gonna be hard, but we’re here, let’s just take a step together.

You have your found family, really like emphasizing the importance of that found family and emphasizing the importance of having those positive narratives because there are some people whose parents call them every day. And for those people, putting some boundaries in is healthy, but I do, I do think that it is like just batting down the hatches.

Peaks and valleys.

peaks and valleys, let’s, we’re gonna just go one day at a time.

think that’s important in in all aspects of our life. I think we can tend to want to blow past those more uncomfortable emotions. And it’s certainly something I’m working on is being able to hold other people’s emotions and not just silver linings it or like move, like try and push through it.

Um, I think there can be real, real value in leaning into the suck.

Yeah. Yeah. There’s no, there’s no quick

Yeah. And that’s

that everybody’s on together.

is a quick fix, sometimes that can be even more heartbreaking because sometimes people will, parents will aim for quick fix things, but then they aren’t actually being truthful. So sometimes the silver lining, if there is one, is knowing if, if it’s not happening right away, at least, you know, when movement does start to [00:24:00] happen, it will be potentially a permanent move, as opposed to this, like, pull the rug out again.

Like, A lot of queer Christians go into these churches, and they’re told it’s accepting, and they’re told they love them, and then they’re pulled again. Oh, yeah, well, you can be here, but you can’t be around our kids. You can’t minister to our kids, or you can’t pass the offering plate, or you can’t be on stage singing.

So it’s just sometimes as much as it’s embrace the suck, the suck at least, at least you know what comes at the other side of that is potentially the truth.

and yeah, the opportunity, to be closer as a result, because I don’t think there’s much worse than, Not being yourself, and then having to live with that to placate someone else. And it’s like, you know, it may take time, it may take all of these things, but, we all at the end of the day, are the only ones who have to live with ourselves.

And so you need to be right with that. Yeah.

dealing with the people pleaser, Wichelana. I know you’ve done a lot of writing on.

we’ve done an episode on it too.

the silver lining is like, Okay, maybe it’s time to start tackling some of this codependence, some of the people pleasing.

Most, 95 percent of people that are in our non profit are codependent and people pleasing. So, that’s the worst combination when you have family that’s holding a line. So you have to start to break that down.

But it’s a great combination for creating your own families. Yes, true, true. Uh, maybe you

for creating your own families. Perfect, Yeah, it is like one of those

them to be. Perfect, Yeah, it is like one of those things where, because a lot of us come from church backgrounds, it’s been really fascinating to find a way to structure it that doesn’t fall into like another kind of

church like group. So one of the things that we’re always, And say, is that we are just like a resource. People come and go in our community. [00:26:00] There’s no stars for attendance. It’s like you take from it what works for you, and sometimes when people are gone, that’s actually us thinking, oh they’re doing well. So it’s less about like having to be there and more about taking what you need.

Thank you so much for joining us again. It was so great to talk to you. I love you so much.

too. Thank you. It’s so nice to meet you

It was great meeting you. , thanks for joining us for another episode

of Dear

Queer.

Come back next week and in the meantime, if you like this episode, please share it with

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This has been another episode of Dear Queer. Just a reminder, we are not actually experts. Any advice given should actually come from our experts who we will bring in from time to time.

Music brought to you by Sean Patrick Brennan, produced by myself, Lauren Hogarth, and your host as always, Alena Papayanis I’m cutting that.

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