Pull up a chair and tell me your memory Why does it matter to you?
I want to hear your story, your point of view Tell me what happened to you
Hi and welcome back to Tell Me What Happened, the podcast that teaches folks from all walks of life
Telling us one true childhood experience and how that moment in time impacted who they are today
I'm your host, Jay Rehak, and like you, I've had my share of childhood experiences
Some of them very powerful, some happy, some of them not so great
But I like to think that whatever happened to me, good or bad, has made me a better person
Now my listeners know that's not necessarily true, but that's what I like to think
Anyway, Tell Me What Happened is sponsored by sideline publishing, publishers of quality books
Including Susan Salador's classics, I've Got Peace in My Fingers, and One Little Act of Kindness
Alright, today I have as my guest Woody Rini
Woody is a spiritual abuse survivor and recovering addict
Who advocates for compassionate trauma-informed care
Woody is the author of Help, I'm Overwhelmed, a book about giving up the idea of self-sufficiency
And learning to grow a social support network
Welcome to the show, Woody Rini
Thanks for having me, Jay, glad to be here
Woody are you ready to tell your story?
I am
Alright, I know it's a sad one, I think, but anyway, I'm going to stay out of it Woody
And at the end, I'm going to just ask you one question
And that one question is this, how do you think it's impacted who you are today as a person?
But take it away, Woody
Alright, thanks so much for having me, Jay
Yeah, so my name's Woody, at the time of recording this I'm 30
But what I'm going to talk about is obviously a childhood memory
And so, as long as I can remember growing up, really
I grew up in a pretty strict church
I grew up going to church just like a lot of kids do
I'm no age 3, 4, 5, 6, I don't really know what's going on
I'm going to some kind of Christian church, there's some Bible stories
We're sort of doing our thing, and mostly church was just some place you went before you had your Sunday meal
And I didn't know what else was happening
And then, as I got into, you know, maybe primary school and 7, 8, 9 years old
I started to understand that I was being taught something, you know, in my case Christian church
About Jesus, the Bible, stuff like that
But it was mostly friendly songs, and mostly, honestly I had friends
I had 3 close friends from church, and we'd all go to the mall together
My grandma would babysit us, you know, watch us, I guess we weren't babies
But we'd all go buy Pokemon cards together, see a movie, or you know, to me, church, school, all these places
I kind of got told to do something, I did it, but mostly I just had fun with my friends
So I always grew up thinking, oh, like I've got a really nice childhood
And sure, you know, my parents got divorced when I was young, and sure, I have stressors, but I was a pretty happy little kid
And then, around middle school, things sort of started to change for me, especially in relation to this church scenario
So my father was kind of an ex-Catholic atheist, I don't know what you want to call him
My parents were divorced, so he wasn't in the picture for church
My mom was sort of the liberal black sheep of the church, because she was divorced, then it was a pretty conservative Christian church
I didn't really know all this in this time, you know, I'm kind of describing with adult knowledge, but this is kind of the situation that I was in
And so I knew that my mom took me to church, and my grandparents were very serious about going to church
You know, like this was, you don't say I don't want to go to church, or you get a very disapproving face, you get something bad
Even from very loving people, and so I would go
But the thing that became sort of concerning to me as I got into middle school was the pressure for baptism
So my branch of church was called the Church of Christ, and essentially one of their core beliefs is at a preteen or teen age
You choose to be an adult and to get baptized through immersion
And so that's what was going on with me, and all my friends, when we were in fourth, fifth, sixth grade, is right about that time
I was essentially told, you need to choose suddenly, you know, going from this world where you're innocent and you're a kid
And you do this vacation Bible school stuff, and it's all fun to, this is life and death, and not just life and death, but eternal life and death
And you're making that decision as a fifth or sixth grader
And so I will say I've always been a people pleaser, and as the youngest of three kids and my sister's being five and eight years older
I really learned to kind of stay out of the way and be a good kid and just do what people wanted, because I cared about people
And so I did that, and I even ended up thinking, oh gosh, I don't know what's going on with this baptism thing, I'm 12 years old, but I'll just do it
I'm not sure what I believe or whatever, but dunk me in some water, I don't care
And so I let them dunk me in some water, and then I thought, okay, great, I've pleased everybody, you know, and now life's going to go back to normal
And for a moment the pressure was alleviated, because you know, it's a pretty serious evangelical church, so there was a lot of pressure
And even they passed around little communion plates they called it, you know, Lord's Supper, whatever you call it
And you could only take the little pieces of bread and the grape juice that they used if you were baptized
And what was interesting was my older sister, who was five years older than me, wasn't baptized
And so we'd go around, and now all of a sudden I'm taking the little bread thing, and my sister's not
My other sister, who's eight years older, is probably off at college at this point, if I remember correctly, but you know, we'll see
And so I'm doing that, and it's always confusing, I guess, as a kid, but the really traumatic thing, or the kind of scary thing that happened to me
Is when I started to receive pressure to convert that message to others
You know, I thought, oh, I'm off the hook, but it turned out that things just increased
And just going from a place where I could sit and read a book or sit and have fun to being able to understand I'm being told
Everyone is going to hell except the baptized, and you have to convert somebody, and that's the way it works
It was scary, but I didn't know exactly how it applied to me
And then that kind of changed one day
Because I was in middle school class, there was this basement, and you'd walk down the hallway and there were all these classrooms
And I had associated mostly positive memories with that, you know, little schools and little activities or trivia
And again, I could, you know, ride off all these Hebrew Bible facts, but I did it as games or trivia
And now I was baptized, and I was in a middle school class, and after class, everybody left, and I was kind of the last one leaving
And this really tall man, I mean, I still remember this man, I mean, he still goes to this church, even though I don't
And he was probably 6'4", 6'5", 200 something pounds, you know, not a fat guy, but a bulky guy, you know
And he was, you know, I lived in a pretty rural area, and so I just remember this huge guy, you know, I was probably 4'9", or something
I don't know, I wasn't even 5' yet, and this huge bulky guy held my arm after and just kind of grabbed me by the arm
Not forcefully, not like, you know, with pain, but just held me and looked at me and he said, Woody, you really, you know, your sister, Lucy, is not baptized
And you really need to make sure she gets baptized, like, otherwise she's going to hell
And I didn't know what to make of that, I didn't know what to do, and frankly, I still don't really remember how I reacted to that
All I know is that that memory sticks with me, of being held after class, and being held onto, not hurt, not really physically restrained, just held onto a little bit
Just a gentle physical restraint, but with that weight of, if you don't do something, your sister is a problem
And I could just feel in his voice that he really believed that, and I felt this environment where everyone really believed that, and it was so, so scary
And so I just remember that being the peak, and there's a lot that happened after that, but really being held onto, being told, if you don't somehow convince your sister to get baptized, you know, this is in your hands, and it's your responsibility
And so yeah, that's the big climactic point, and that's my story
Well, I don't know you Woody, but it makes me sad to hear that story, I'm a little Reformed Catholic boy myself, and I never had anybody tell me that the weight of the world was on me, or that the fate of my sister was on me
But that weight, I do understand it to an extent where people's age, if somebody's not baptized, they go to hell, or whatever, I mean, I remember it, but
I can't imagine what that must have felt like at your age, and especially this obligation somehow to save your sister from eternal damnation, so
Tell me, how do you think it impacted who you are today?
I think the biggest impact immediately was, I really learned how to just try to live inside everyone else's head, because the thing that hurt the worst wasn't actually, I thought I was going to hell, or my sister was, it's not that I didn't know that I was very scared, you know, I would sit and think
Oh, either it's going to be this blackness that lasts forever or hell or like, you know, it all sounded terrifying, honestly.
And so, so that was really scary, but the scariest part was, I could see how much the others were hurting, even this scary man who was doing something that I would consider abusive to me, he wasn't trying to abuse me, it felt like he was trying to help, and so
I think the first thing it did to me was make me feel like I needed to always be appeasing other people's discomfort.
And that's a pattern I'm still working out. And so in that sense, right, like let's say I go to school that would transfer where I got great grades. But even if I was getting a good grade, I'd just be so worried that the professor secretly hated me or worse was secretly worried about me.
I developed this feeling that everyone is so worried about me. And I call it kind of a complex where I needed to both not exist, because I needed to stay out of the way and be small and not get in people's way. But I also had to be perfect and do the things they asked of me.
And so that also led to kind of addiction for me, I won't go into the specifics, but just a lot of negative mental health coping mechanisms because it was too much to be around people. I also still deal with a fear of groups of people, because I remember I'd go to church and just be plotting my escape route the whole time.
And so I have this dread whenever I go to a gathering of people. So in the sense of the traumatic impacts, those are the impacts, but it also has helped me see clearly that that was an impossible task. And so as an adult, what it's helped me realize that maybe some people who don't have as traumatic of an experience don't get to see is,
I can see that I was kind of broken or traumatized in that instance, and that sometimes there's no rhyme or reason for what people do, you know, you could say, Oh, there's a logic behind how this man was thinking and Christianity, whatever.
But really, it's just that I still can't quite comprehend what he was thinking or what people who believe that we're thinking.
But I need to go to help and go find other positive support. And so I think the last thing it taught me is it gave me an ultimatum, especially addiction related is, do I want to spiral and get worse, or do I want to take the risk of finding community, even though I'm traumatized by it.
And I've been taking that risk and learning how to build social support networks kind of like the book. And so I'm grateful for that experience as much as it still hurts me and it hurts to talk about it, it is something that has been really impactful because now I know that I can't be responsible for somebody else.
I'm still working through a lot of the issues, but it's both caused a lot of pain and been the impetus for a lot of healing in my life.
Well, I love the fact that you wrote a book about it and you're trying to basically, I'm assuming, trying to help other people deal with the same issue.
When I was a young man in college, I read E.M. Forster, one of his books.
E.M. Forster has a story of St. Diodossa in Italy who was 12 years old who decides that if she moves, she's a sinner. And so she lays down on her bed and refuses to move for the rest of her life and she dies, she won't eat, she doesn't drink, and she dies, but then turn her into a saint because she was so afraid of sinning, she literally did not move.
And I was so taken with that story only in the sense that as a little Catholic boy, they did scare the heck out of me in terms of sin or whatever else.
And I didn't get the same experience that you did of somebody saying, you got to watch out for everybody else or convert other people to somebody else.
But it was more like, you got to watch your step here, you're going to make mistakes, and then people who were not of my faith, they're not in.
And I'm like, what is that all about? How does that work? These good people not making it into the kingdom of heaven, blah, blah, blah, all those things.
And I congratulate you on your ability to take all of that, process it, and by writing a book, I really assume you're trying to help other people with the same or similar circumstances that you experienced.
Does that sound right to you?
Yeah, definitely. And the book, it's really about the idea that so many expectations are placed on us from birth.
It might be religious, it could be school, it could be social role, family. It's a lot of different stuff.
And so I've been working really hard on detangling that, and there's a way to go about it where you have to be really delicate because you care about your family, you care about your coworkers, you care.
I care a lot about people. I don't know whether everybody else listening cares, but I'm a very caring person.
And so I don't want to just turn the opposite and become this super intense dominating person, but I'm looking to help other people set boundaries and do that by seeking positive support.
So the way I've healed is by a lot of positive support groups and groups where people say you're safe, you don't have to believe anything and you can walk away at any time.
And I'm like, oh, this is great. This is amazing. And as scary as it was to enter groups of people, I'm looking to convey that to more people.
Like if you're hurting and you're like, no one is on my side, you're traumatized by some group of people or some familiar relation, whatever it is, school work, what have you, that there actually are spaces where you can be safe and you can't guarantee anything.
But I promote those spaces and try to create them myself as well.
Fantastic. Well, I definitely believe in my heart that there are a lot of good people out there.
A lot of messed up people too. A lot of people have been tied up in knots for whatever reason. I don't exactly understand what the motivation is to tell 12 year olds that they might go to hell anyway.
I don't understand it. And I, you know, I don't understand any of that.
But I know there are a lot of good people out there and I do think that those groups, I know those groups exist. I like to think, I'm not much of a joiner, but I like to think that the community that I have, my friends, etc.
Embrace each other and embrace our differences and embrace, you know, our religious, cultural and emotional differences in a way that's respectful and empowering rather than debilitating.
But it sounds like you've managed it. You're only 30 years old. You've been through the life cycle already of, you know, for me, it's like birth, death and rebirth in the sense that there's always like a new knowledge that comes from terrible experiences that we either accept or we don't.
But it sounds like you've converted that negative experience into a very positive one and one that helps other people.
And I don't know what else I think that's being a great human being as far as I could tell.
Yeah, I think so. It's just, it's a joy to share. That's the other thing I've learned is that's why religious and spiritual abuse can be so damaging is because there are so many good things that come out of community.
And I've heard it just a little bit. It is really disorienting because there were lots of happy people, lots of good things. And so it is worth fighting for a community that doesn't have those restrictions.
And so, yeah, I hope everybody who listens will also take their struggles and help build communities where they can feel safe because we kind of all have to do it together.
Beautiful. Well, where can we get your book?
It's on Amazon. If you search Woody Rini or help, I'm overwhelmed or I have my own website called the Help Collective.
And that's where I offer coaching a free, safe support group. So I offer kind of this umbrella group, I call it, where you can come join mine and you just send a little message here or there.
And then you say, oh, I really need a therapist. I want to go get one or, oh, I'm going to join this other support group.
And it's kind of a support group Kickstarter so that you can find other connections and other resources so you can find my book there too.
Fantastic. Well, listen, I'm hoping you'll send me links to all that, your website and your book. And I'll put it in your description.
This episode will be out in October, but I do appreciate you coming on and telling your story. I'm really happy to say it.
The audience doesn't know this, but you look extremely healthy. You don't look like you're in distress, which makes me happy because, you know, I worry about everybody, but at the same time, I know everybody's got their own lives,
but you do look healthy and that's great. I'm glad you're on the other side of it. I'm glad you're helping other people.
And I'm going to actually get a copy of your book. And if we ever meet, then I'll have you sign it. Hey, where are you from, by the way?
I'm from Central Kentucky, but I live in Raleigh, North Carolina now.
Raleigh, North Carolina. All right. Beautiful place. I love it down there.
Well, Woody, thank you for coming on the show, telling your story. We appreciate it. I think you're going to help people as a consequence of coming on the show.
Yeah. Thanks so much for providing the space for me. I'm so glad to be here.
All right. Well, that's our show. I'd like to thank Woody Rini for coming on the show. Also our sponsor, Side Landing Publishing Publishers Quality Books.
So until next time, this is Jay Reac asking you all to please stay safe out there and try not to hurt anybody.