This week’s guest is Jeremy Schumacher. Jeremy’s story begins in the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod and it was as culty as it sounds. He started questioning the beliefs when he was ten, but it took twenty more years before he was able to leave.

“Two things really kept me in [Christianity] longer than I needed to stay or wanted to stay: fear of hell…and everyone I knew and interacted with was Lutheran, just not having any sense of community outside of the church…”

Jeremy is currently a “licensed marriage & family therapist with additional specialties in religious trauma and sports performance.” See his complete bio here.

Links

Wellness With Jer
https://wellnesswithjer.com/

Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/wellnesswithjer/

Recommendations

Your Therapist Needs Therapy podcast

The Influence Continuum podcast (Dr. Steven Hassan)

Friendly Atheist podcast

Leaving the Fold by Marlene Winell

The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk

The Wonder podcast (atheopaganism)

Quotes

“It was this weird space that I existed in, of ‘having a good scientific background in psychology and not necessarily being able to apply it to other areas of my  own life…”

“[My wife and I] were both staying in it because we were supposed to, that’s how we were raised, and we had no knowledge of people who left successfully.” 

“The Bible is not a valid source. [I] would not cite this source if [I was] writing a peer-reviewed paper…That for me was like, ‘Oh. I’m an atheist.’”

“I started deconstructing at ten, but it took twenty years longer than I needed to.”

“Deconstruction was really lonely.”

“Neurodivergent brains find each other.”

“It’s nice; Sundays are free. You can sleep in!”

“The Wheel of the Year is a big deal…That’s been really helpful, I think, to have a structure and framework to note the passage of time and still have some sense of holidays without needing to do Christian holidays…”

“The Church is hemorrhaging numbers.”

Interact

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Support the podcast
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Deconversion
https://gracefulatheist.com/2017/12/03/deconversion-how-to/

Secular Grace
https://gracefulatheist.com/2016/10/21/secular-grace/

Attribution

“Waves” track written and produced by Makaih Beats

David Ames  0:11  
This is the graceful atheist podcast United studios podcast. Welcome, welcome. Welcome to the graceful atheist podcast. My name is David and I am trying to be the graceful atheist. If you are in the middle of doubt deconstruction the dark night of the soul, you do not need to do it alone. Join our private Facebook group deconversion anonymous and become a part of the community you can find us at facebook.com/groups/deconversion Remember, we have a merchandise shop to get all of your graceful atheist and secular Grace themed items, you will find the link in the show notes. Special thanks to make tea for editing today's show. On today's show, Arline interviews our guest today Jeremy Schumacher. Jeremy is a marriage and family therapist. He has an emphasis on deconstruction and religious trauma. You can find Jeremy at wellness with jeremy.com. We'll have that link in the show notes. Here is our Lean interviewing Jeremy

Arline  1:25  
Jeremy Schumacher, welcome to the graceful atheist podcast.

Jeremy Schumacher  1:28  
Thanks for having me on. I'm excited.

Arline  1:30  
Yes, you and I have recently connected on Instagram, where I have found all the great people who exists. I just love it so much. And I saw that you also are at least internet acquainted with Tony George, who has been on the podcast boundless and free. And then apostasy Stacy Gron, who's fabulous and so like, I'm really excited to hear your story and to hear about things that you're doing these days.

Jeremy Schumacher  1:56  
Yeah, Stacy and I did a couple different YouTube shows together. And Tani and I have talked, but we haven't connected yet. I have a podcast too. We'll talk about that. Right. But it's it's one of those things where yeah, the the religious dramedy community, I think, kind of finds each other. So Instagram has been a great community for that and getting connected with people.

Arline  2:17  
Yes, Instagram is the mostly happy ish place on the internet as far as social media goes. And 40 So I'm not on Tik Tok. I don't know what's happening on tick tock. I'm, what is it? I watched the TIC TOCs that were made last week on Instagram this week, whenever they're already old.

Jeremy Schumacher  2:35  
Yes. Yes. As Elder elder Millennials gotta stick together on Instagram.

Arline  2:41  
Okay, well, Jeremy, the way we usually start is just tell us about the spiritual or religious environment you grew up in?

Jeremy Schumacher  2:48  
Yeah, for sure. So I was raised Wisconsin, Evangelical Lutheran Senate, which is wells for short. It's, I would say a really big deal in the Midwest. But I might have a skewed perspective because I grew up in like the capital of it, which is Milwaukee. That's where the seminary exists for the pastors who go through the well Senate. And at least when I was growing up, there were probably around 100 churches that's probably dipped to maybe like 80 or so. But just in the Milwaukee area, Milwaukee is a million ish people when you include all the suburbs, so it's not like a small city, but it's not, you know, Chicago, or LA or New York or anything like that. So like that not many number of churches, and a lot of those churches had schools attached to them in one area is is really kind of disproportionate. But that's that's what I grew up in. The Wells is Lutheran, it's the most conservative of the major Lutheran branches. So there's ELCA, which is Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, and that's the most progressive, they have women pastors and stuff like that, which is like very taboo when I was growing up. And then in between wells and ELCA is the Missouri Lutheran Synod, the LCMS, which I spent some time working at a LCMS college. So I've had experiences in both but I grew up wells, both my parents are wells, school teachers, they were high school in the area. So like, I was just deeply immersed in it, I went to a private school, which no way my parents could have afforded it if they didn't get discounts because they were teachers at the high school. So I'm the youngest of four siblings, all of us went through through in schools K through 12. parochial school, and we because we're in Milwaukee, we just interacted with other wells kids. So it was it was it was extra culty. I guess I'll say, just in the sense that like, the kids I played basketball against were other wells kids. Youth Group was all wells kids. The kids I went to high school with were all wells kids. So like even though we're drawing from different grade schools or elementary schools, we were all in that same bubble. And that in the church is how we refer to it like the Lutheran bubble, like with no sense of irony or awareness of how bad or unhealthy that was like, isn't this nice that we only ever have to interact with other wells people. So I had some friends in the neighborhood growing up who'd come over to our house because we have basketball hoop and like, but I didn't hang out with them. Like we play basketball in the backyard, I didn't go to their houses that didn't come inside our house, it was always like, this kind of, I don't know, disconnect. I was a talented athlete growing up. So I did have a little bit of exposure to other people in baseball, just because the Lutheran schools did not have a good baseball program. And I was I was quite talented. Not to toot my own horn. But like that was that was the only thing I was preparing for this episode. That was the only time I interacted with kids who weren't wells growing up was my baseball team. And there was a lot of like, I would say, say overt, like, my parents being like, Oh, they swear. So like, be careful around them, or like they're using language that we shouldn't use, or they might dress differently than you do. And so like, it was always kind of like, Hey, be aware that you're not around wells people. And so even when I had those opportunities to interact with people who weren't wells, like I was kind of shielded from it or kind of, I was taught to be biased against it. So it's hard for me to tell my deconstruction story without also talking about neurodiversity. So I have ADHD, I wasn't diagnosed till much later in life, and but around 10, I think is where it really started to like cause impairment for me, because a lot of stuff happened for me. Third, fourth grade, where I vividly remember coming home in third grade and telling my parents I didn't want to go to school anymore. So I think that's when the ADHD kind of kicked into high gear. And they kind of patted me on the head and said, like, you're gonna go to school, and I third grade, I also came home and said, I didn't want to go to heaven. Heaven sounded terrible. I'm not musically gifted, I can't sing. And so like an eternity of singing sounds awful to me. And like, my little 10 year old brain was like, I don't want to do that.

Arline  7:08  
Did you understand like the alternative? Or was it just like, I just don't want to do that? Is there any other place I can go in the Scytale? Or you hadn't thought?

Jeremy Schumacher  7:17  
I remember like getting a I said that pat on the head about you're gonna go to school kind of similar with heaven, like, oh, well, like, if you don't want to sing and have fun. You don't have to like you like baseball, there'll be baseball and heaven. And I was like, but everybody's perfect. So how are we going to compete and like that just kind of getting brushed over. So I like to say like, I spent deconversion, since I was 10 years old, although I didn't have space to really engage with that or do that. I can think of a couple things throughout my growing up years where I went in and talk to a pastor like one on one being like, hey, like, this doesn't make sense to me.

So in the wells, one of the things they teach is communion, the wafer is the literal Body of Christ, the wine is the literal Blood of Christ, and like, not in a Transubstantiation way, because it doesn't become that it is that whatever. So like, it doesn't make any sense. And I remember being like, hey, this doesn't make sense. Yeah. And I was a teenager and the pastor at the time, like gave me this, like, really hastily put together lesson on like, how the Greek is translated and like, what part of language it is, and like, why, and it was like, you know, enough for me to be like, that doesn't make sense, still. But all right, like at least there's a rationale. But I had a bunch of those I can think of some in high school I can think of, as I got older, switch churches, state in the wells. But like, when I was in grad school, some things popped up. And then when I started doing therapy, because I'm a licensed therapist, a lot more stuff of like, Hey, I went to a public university. I was at University Minnesota. So like a huge research institution where like, science is king, especially in the psychology world, which like has a bad reputation sometimes as a soft science. So like, evidence based practice research, Minnesota does so much research. It's one of the few D one institutions that makes as much off of the research happening in the school as the D one sports program makes, which is really unusual for D one. And so I had this experience of going from like, very conservative, like, I joke about my AP biology teacher using the word evolution, he would write out the word evil and then put a motion for our for our college level biology course while I was in high school, like so. So that's my high school and my grade school growing up years younger, Earth Creationism, all that stuff, like, and then I go to the school where it's like, no, here's science. Here's why we know what we know. Here's how we know it. We know here's how we do that well. And here's what it looks like when it goes portly and this is what it looks like when we're doing it well and so like, it opened up a whole new world for me and I think really made me like start to be I have problems doing like therapy with someone who's like Wives submit to your husbands or like looking at some of these these things. I was doing couples therapy and marriage therapist. So like looking at some of these things like, not only am I not sure that I believe this stuff, but like, I don't know how long I can keep working with people in this space. Yeah, so it was, that was a big step. For me. That's where I started moving to like, being more progressive and liberal Christian, but still trying to stay Christian, I think two things that I really looked at, like kept me in it for longer than maybe I needed to stay or wanted to stay, which was a fear of hell, which I was like a very imaginative kid. So like that, that held trauma stuck with me for a long time. And then just like everybody I knew everybody I interacted with was Lutheran. So just not having any sense of community outside of the church, and really having no concept of like, how to go about finding it. The only thing I'd ever really done outside of the church was sports. And so I was like, kind of involved in sports. I was coaching at the time, I played volleyball at the University of Minnesota. So I was coaching volleyball, and like, had people through it, but like, when you're religious, and you're raised in that religious setting, like you find other religious people, so it's like, I would have like, oh, well, like they're Catholics. So they believe something different, but at least they go to church. So like, even for my non wells people is like, everybody has some version of religious still. So I think that was really limiting for me, too. So I was working at a Christian counseling place, I went back, I remember arguing with my dad about it, got my license, got my degrees in counseling in graduate school, postgraduate school, all these licenses all these degrees to do couples therapy, and someone came like knocking on my door and said, like, here's a job if you want it. And I have ADHD, so like path of least resistance sounds great. I don't have to job hunt, you're just going to offer me one. So I took this job at this Christian counseling place, but I remember sitting outside at my parents house, on the back porch talking, my dad being like, I don't want to work with a bunch of wells people. And talking to him about it. He's a, he works at the high school. He's a guidance counselor. So like, he has a bit of frame of reference to talk about this stuff. So we kind of talked about it. And I was working at a Christian place, but not specifically Lutheran. And so it was like kind of fine, maybe not ideal, but like, hey, in this job market, I came out of college 2009. So right after like the big recession started and grad school 2011 was like, hey, if I can get a job without having a job hunt, that's great. So I was there. But I was like the liberal person on on the staff at the Christian counseling place, like, hey, we need to stop praying with our clients, that's unethical. And everybody else being like, no, it's fine. Like God will protect us, like, we won't get sued. Right, but like, that makes us bad therapists like we should be doing. So I was like, I don't know, there's this weird space that I kind of existed in of having a good scientific background in psychology, and not necessarily being able to, like apply it in other avenues of my life or being able to, like, apply what I knew in psychology, or I was teaching people in therapy to my own life, like just having that kind of mental block around like, you're not allowed to question this. So your brains just kind of gonna stay away from it. And I had other stuff. I had a really like unhealthy relationship in college because I stayed in a Christian and we had purity culture, like stuff and didn't know how to talk about sex and didn't know how to talk about consent. And like we're just making each other miserable, trying to have a normal college relationship while being good Christians. Like, there's there's a lot of stuff that like, is in there trying to do the cliffnotes because I know I can, I can chat a lot. My wife has also raised Lutheran, we did not go to high school together, we connected later in life. Our sisters actually roomed together in college. So my sister's a teacher, and my wife, sisters, teachers, so they went to the Lutheran teacher college and We're roommates and that's how my wife and I met.

We connected and we're both Lutheran, but like, we're both kind of outsiders. I think, for me my neuro divergence, I got diagnosed officially when I was in post grad. So it wasn't news to me. I knew I had ADHD at that point, but like getting the formal diagnosis was still meaningful to me. Having someone else like validate what I knew and I experienced was really helpful for me. But like, you know, I was a straight A student, I was an honors student, I graduated with all sorts of awards and stuff like, I'm not your, I'm not the stereotypical ADHD, or I'm like what I think is ADHD, but like people don't talk about enough. They only talk about people on one one end of the spectrum where they're struggling and can't get through school and I was much more of the like, significant overachiever but like depressed and bored because like nothing was stimulating to me. No idea how to self regulate. So I was kind of an outsider for that I think I very much grew up with like a middle finger to the law. Like, can I swear on this podcast? Absolutely, yes. Yeah. So like I had like a real fucked up police kind of attitude growing up, even though I'm white and privileged, and like all the like, boxes to check for like, hey, modern society, especially Christianity was made for you. But like, it didn't fit. And I think because of my neuro divergence, so that was like a thing. My wife is a feminist. She's very outspoken. She's very good at her job. She's a very talented teacher. And so she didn't fit in for those reasons. I mean, she didn't fit in because she's female. And she's outspoken. Like, that's enough and conservative Christianity to be a problem. So both of us, I think we're kind of like, stay in it, because we were supposed to. That's how we were raised that we didn't, we had no knowledge of people who like left successfully. I had a friend of mine who's gay, who I'm still very close with and like, but like, I saw how he was shunned like I saw, like, my, my cognitive dissonance around that was like, Well, I'm friends with him. Like, I'm an ally, like, I can keep like, I'm the only friend he still has from high school good for me without like, applying like, Yeah, but maybe, maybe you should leave the system that shunned him so strongly. But I think we're both kind of waiting. And I think having a kid was finally like, for me, it was like, I can't teach this kid Noah's Ark. Like, I don't want to have that in our nursery. I don't like, yeah, that was like a big break for me finally, and like, I wasn't comfortable with the term atheist yet, but I was like, out of the church, like, I don't want to do this stuff. I didn't feel comfortable on Sundays. When our son was very young, like I, I would take him to the play room, like that was like, I don't want to be involved. I don't want to sing like, I don't want to do these things. I'm not giving my offering to this church, like, we'll go but I'm not in it in any sense. But again, I think it was like neither of us had a model of what it looked like to not be in the church and raise a kid. So then COVID hit and like that was just our excuse to not go to church and never have to go back. But like it's one of those things where Yeah, suddenly people have said that I remember like saying to my wife like I was I got really into Richard carriers work. So he's a historian who works on early Roman and therefore Biblical stuff. And his like, he's so meticulous in the approach to history that he takes and I read some of his stuff that basically said, like, you know, like, we know these books are forgeries in the Bible. And that was news to me and like, again, I was raised on biblical literalism. So like, the gospels were written after Paul, like the Bible's published out of order, like I didn't even know that stuff yet. Neither. Yeah. So like those things, then it was like, Oh, all right. So like I already had, like, I feel like an ethic system and like morals and principles from how I do therapy and what I knew around mental health. I just needed that. Like, Hey, you don't believe this? Because you like it doesn't make it like, it's not historical, like the Bible isn't a valid source, you would not use this, you would not cite this source. If you were writing a peer reviewed paper, like, you can't use the Bible. And like that, for me, it was finally like, we weren't going to church already. Because it wasn't a good fit for either of us. But like that, for me, it was like, Oh, I'm an atheist. And like, just like this huge, kind of like, sigh of relief at finally, like, getting to that point, I was probably around 30 at the time. 31 Maybe, like, I started deconstructing at 10 Like, I feel like I stayed at 10 years longer than or 20 years longer than I needed to but but that's what it kind of took for me was like, these, I look back and see these like very explicit spaces where it's like, oh, that was like a big step away. Until finally that step of like, Oh, I'm an atheist and like, that's a good spot for me to be like I'm comfortable with that.

Arline  19:10  
That's a huge step because a lot of people not that it's bad or wrong to feel like you need like, but there is something more there is gods or goddesses or whatever, those kinds of things. A lot of people can't just be like, Yeah, I think I'm an atheist. It's interesting thinking with the the ADHD, I know a few other people who made that link very easily. They are also ADHD, or Adi HD. One is and and for me, I was fine with there not being God. So I was like, Okay, well, this was all made up. Like once I started reading Bart Ehrman and different people and I was like, Yeah, I was just fine with it. It didn't. My husband was very emotionally affected by the idea that none of it was that it wasn't true, or possibly wasn't true. That was just like, Oh, wow. And of course, I get the things like, well, it must have just been head knowledge. I was like, no So I was like indeed

Jeremy Schumacher  20:10  
Yeah, I worked at a Christian counseling place I spent time in working in higher ed where I did mental health for student athletes and coach volleyball. So I was coaching I was an instructor if you work at a Christian place like you were way too many hats because they underpaying everybody and want you to do so many things. So like, you know, all that stuff, too is thrown in there and my story but like, you know, I was like the LGBTQ plus ally, I was doing mental health for athletes, like some of the stereotypes about the women's lacrosse team exist for a reason like so like I was, I was, again like in that Christian space, but like, ethically, morally, I was not connected at all, like, the identity the culture of being a Christian was still a part of my life, but like, the belief was gone well, before I was out and out as an atheist. And then, you know, it's it's been a process like coming across this podcast was helpful for me. You mentioned Bart Ehrman. That was super helpful Richard carrier for me and like, he's, I don't wanna say fringe. Some people don't like him because he's a mythicist. So kind of saying, like, Jesus never existed at all. And it was just, it was a myth. But his his work and the way he does kind of the historical breakdown of things was was like I needed the science of it. And Bart Ehrman does some of that. But Bart Ehrman sometimes goes a little pop psych for my taste. So I just needed somebody who's like, let's get this past peer review, let's like do the process that I knew how to do from being a researcher from being at a research institution, like I needed that scholarly kind of level of like, oh, right, you know how to do all of this, you can apply all the same stuff, just apply it to your religion, too. But like, deconstruction was really lonely. I mean, I found a lot of this stuff after I deconstructed like, just that, that Steven Hudson's bite model, behavior control, information control, thought control, the motion control, like the information control, for me was really thing like growing up in that big of a bubble and what I would say as a call, like, just not like, all this stuff was out there while I was deconstructing, or before I deconstructed, I just didn't know about it, like I had no access to it. So it was just one of those things where like, finding community after I left was really helpful. And then I was like, then I wanted to go back and get my certification to work with religious trauma. So that was again, like, I think I was still doing some of my own work at that point. But like, that's how my brain operates. And you talked about ADHD like, that's definitely kept me in to because ADHD, one of the things with ADHD is black and white thinking and like, the religion gives you that religion says, like, here's right or wrong. So like, as much as I was, like, middle finger to the law, like I was going to judge those kids who went to the Lutheran school that I went to, but went and partied and drank like, how dare they? And so it was like, it didn't fit, but I could keep my foot I didn't fit, but I could keep my focus on other people and like, so again, like I think there's pros and pros and cons sounds weird. I think religion is harmful, but like it's one of those things where like, ADHD is a double edged sword, I guess I'm like, getting you out early or keeping you in. Because there are aspects of religion that like fit well, for some of the things my brain does naturally, in keeping me in with like, things like black and white thinking an all or nothing type thought patterns.

Arline  23:32  
That's interesting, because that was one of the things I wanted to ask you about was, I, in my personal experience, there's a big overlap of people that I know know now who have deconstructed and are just no longer religious in some way. And ADHD or audio HD. However, I didn't know if it's just because since I have inattentive HD, all of our low ADHD brains are now friends. So we found each other. So have you seen that there seems to be a big overlap? Or is it what you were saying? Where it just really depends on the person? Some stay in some late? Yeah, I

Jeremy Schumacher  24:04  
think I think there is an overlap, I should say, bias with you, because I am also ADHD, and I tell people all the time, like neurodivergent brains find each other. So I think I'm drawn to that a little bit. And I don't know, I find other people whose brains operate a little differently. But I think when you're neurodivergent, like your brain naturally doesn't fit the social norms. And these constructs that are being preached about on a regular basis often don't fit well for you. And so I think there's a natural kind of inclination for the neurodivergent brain to like, resist that. And I think some of the things that religion does for social control, take advantage of a neurodivergent brain and sometimes I think people like no, like, that doesn't fit at all and know that they're out. And again, like so we have these kind of major breaks around like having kids sometimes COVID was a big one. Trump the rise of Trump was a big one. But like, forever and ever or expand when people go off to college? Like, when do you get out of that bubble and experience the larger world? That's a time when a lot of people also deconstruct, so I think I have that opportunity. It was just I was dating a very conservative Christian girl, and we went to the college campus mission thing and like,

Arline  25:19  
you were still in the bubble is a different bubble. Like,

Jeremy Schumacher  25:21  
yeah, the bubble traveled with me to the University of Minnesota. No, seriously, I dated a girl who I went to high school with, like, we were not friends in high school, and we both went to University of Minnesota, we kind of like, glommed on to each other early on in the process.

Arline  25:35  
I did not grow up in the church, and I'm so thankful I used to think, Oh, I wish I had grown up in this. And now I'm like, I'm so glad I didn't grow up in this. There's so many things I didn't have to deal with. Yeah, but I became a Christian in college, and it was a public university. But yeah, we became our own little culty. Bubble. I don't know if it was a cold. It depends on who you ask. Yeah, it just, if you have the people around you reinforcing the beliefs. Even if you start doubting, or have questions, you just kind of sit it on a shelf. And like, keep on going. And for us, at least similar to what you were saying about having kids. In our 20s. It all worked fine. When we started having kids. Like that was when things just for my husband things were. He was like, I shouldn't feel like I'm a better dad. Then I feel like God is to his children. He's like, this doesn't this is not good. And then slowly he d converted before I did. Yeah. So just having kids. That was a big thing for y'all.

Jeremy Schumacher  26:39  
Yeah. And I think I look back on it. And like before we had kids, we talked about like, would we send them to a Lutheran School? And like, both of us, unequivocally, we're known for that answer. Like we did not want them. She had a bad experience. Her parents were divorced, she dealt with a lot of stigma for being from a family of divorce. She dealt with a lot of stigma, being like a talented female, smart, outspoken, articulate female. And I like I never I was, you know, I don't, I don't think I was clinically depressed. And I think for so many other people, because they spent so much time masking like, yeah, it didn't come out how unhappy I was. But like, grade school, like we had a and this this is across the board, like this is a soapbox, I'll get on a little bit like parochial schools, private religious schools have major bullying problems, because the church has has no concept of accountability. And that exists in the classroom then like, so like I was a bully growing up. And like, I don't look back fondly on that I was neurodivergent. I didn't understand any of the social dynamics. But I was a popular kid, because I was friends with the popular kid like, he and I transferred into our school the same year and like, hit it off, because we were both good at sports. And we were friends third grade through eighth grade. And like that made me popular. Like, I don't remember why I remember being like, this is weird. I'm poor, and everyone else in my private school has Nintendo 64 and a trampoline and a swimming pool like. So I think there was some of that, like, insecurity around it that people usually associate with bullying, but like also it was. It's such a like, in group out group dynamic in the church that like, these things are going on over and over and over again. And I didn't understand any of that I am a therapist, I don't understand social norms. Now. Just because I've neurodivergent and my brain doesn't do that stuff. But I look back and on some of those things, like I was not a happy, healthy person, like high school, I was pretty miserable. I stopped blaming other people. I wasn't mean to people, but like, I was mean to my instructors. Like I was that kid who was like, pushing every boundary I could up until getting a detention because my parents were teachers. So I like was not going to get attention but like, not like throwing stuff or making a scene but like intellectually trying to bully my professors around like, you want me to read Faulkner like I'm gonna go find a different fault there who's like the wrong Faulkner and write a paper on that and like, go ahead and try and fail me like, so I was like, always just trying to find stimulation, trying to find ways in which I could be like, a little more entertained. And like, so it wasn't depression, but it wasn't healthy. Like I was not a healthy kid. And so when we're gonna have kids was like, No, I was like, I was miserable in school. And I think people who knew me were like, You didn't seem miserable, because like that was so that was so much. That was my internal process, like the things I was doing to cope were not healthy. Luckily, I had sports as a huge outlet, and that helps regulate me a lot. Because I was in a lot of sports. I did a lot of sports with families, a big sports family, but like, I was not healthy in my interpersonal relationships. It's not healthy and my relationship with myself. So it's just like, yeah, having kids even before both of us deconstructed fully we were like, we're not sending our kids to a Lutheran School. But you know, we did we had them baptized like both our boys actually are baptized like we were still kind of going through the motion. Jensen's, it's, it's hard, even when you're at that point of deconstructing to like, Just finally, step out. Yes, there's a lot of sunken cost fallacy associated with that

Arline  30:21  
my boys, one of them was baptized when he was little we were in a Reformed Church. So he was baptized as a baby and the other, we were at a Baptist church. So he was just not sprinkled, he was dedicated. The like, exact same thing, but without water, same thing. But now they're older. And I'm curious, like, with your kids, how do they feel about not being in church? Or do they remember being tricked? I don't know how old your kids are. But mine, like, they're not interested in going back to church. And it would take a whole lot of convincing. I don't know that someone could convince them that supernatural stuff is real anymore, because they're just like, I need you to show it to me kind of thing.

Jeremy Schumacher  30:57  
Yeah, yeah, mine are both under five. So I don't think either of them have any cognitive memory on what was going on. So and our second one, we had drink COVID. We weren't going to church, but like the family. I have a couple of pastors in my family. So it was like we can do this over zoom. Like, I don't remember it being a thing my wife and I were asking for, I think it was just like, Oh, you're not going to church because of COVID. Here, let's like figure out how to do this over zoom.

Arline  31:27  
So what's your Sunday's look like now? Now that you're all heathens and not going to church? What do you guys do?

Jeremy Schumacher  31:32  
Sundays are free. It's nice to sleep in. I'm from Wisconsin, so we watch the Packers. But I identify as APO pagan, which is non theistic Earth revering science based paganism, so no gods no goddesses, we're not worshipping the moon. But but the Wheel of the Year is a big deal. So we follow the equinoxes, we follow the seasons. And that's been really helpful, I think, just to kind of have like a structure or a framework to like, note the passage of time and still have some sense of like holidays without needing to do Christian holidays with our boys. So like, celebrating you all and celebrating Halloween is a big one. Everyone likes the witchy aesthetic in it. But but for me, like finding that community was dream COVID So like lots of lockdowns, and that was kind of when that community online started blowing up. Because I think a lot of the people were looking for connection when you when you couldn't have it. And so I came to that a little late, but like, there's the Thursday night mixer that I go to on Zoom still. So it's people, Louisiana, California, Iowa, me and Wisconsin, like, so that's kind of been my community. And it's for me, that was really nice to not have like, sad people who weren't church people. But also people would be like, oh, man, global warming is like a real concern. Right. And like, they just naturally agree, like, so. It's nice. Some of them were raised pagan, a lot of them also left some sort of organized religion and found their way towards it. So with my ADHD, fire and water and nature in general, but specifically fire and water have always been like very calming for me, because they're stimulating there. Something's always moving. And so I think nature for me has always been a really big deal and finding something that kind of said, like, oh, we can we don't find something sacred and old religious texts like we find sacred in nature, we find nature we find what's important to us in our connection through nature. And so like that was really important to me something that was like, no gods and goddesses, and very science forward was really important to me, but that community for like, not not having non church friends was really important to start being like, Oh, here's other people. So I have one a Theo pagan friend who's in Milwaukee. We play d&d together. And like, you know, it's it's just, it's been nice. Hopefully, next year, I'll be able to go to the ATO pagan retreat I presented this year on religious trauma. It was the virtual conference, but there's an in person retreat every other year. So like that's been really meaningful. I'm a little bit more into it than my wife is. In the community sense because I do the mixers on Zoom and stuff and I went to the conference. My wife likes to celebrate for the holidays, equinox, the equinoxes of the year, equinoxes, I'm a bad pagan, I should know. I think it's eight. This is, yeah, that's what this is. And then like the halfway markers between so I think that's how it breaks down for eight of them. And it's just like, intellectually, it's been nice to learn something new again, like a lot of that stuff was very taboo for me growing up so seeing how people use Tarot like I was always so opposed to that and seeing how like people who don't believe in in magic or witchcraft or the supernatural can still do like tarot readings and it be meaningful to them. They're aware that it's psychology at work, they're aware, they're like kind of Wizard of Oz peering behind the curtain. They know how it works, but like it's still A way for them to Problem Solver or approach a problem creatively. And so like, that's been really fun for me to be like, Oh, I know nothing about this stuff. Like, let me learn something. So that's been like very safe and helpful. And it's nice to just, you know, complain about conservative Christians or the religious right, or global warming or whatever, like the people who I grew up with. And I'm like, oh, no, like what happened to you? I can have conversations with people who I didn't grow up with and are like, right, like, that's awful stuff, we should, we should definitely be concerned about these things. So that's been a really like, nice space for me after D converting to have a group kind of a community that already existed, that that matched a lot of my values and ethics that I've kind of built. And were very important for me leaving the church to then find a group that matches with that was really helpful for me.

Arline  35:46  
Yes, yes. And online has been such a wonderful place to find community. I live in Georgia, and, um, homeschool mom. So Bible study, white ladies would be my only friend group, like, I had no idea. And so when I started deconstructing it, you know, and I didn't have that vocabulary, I did not know that word. But when I realized, I don't know that I believe this service as seriously as I used to, I didn't have anybody to talk to I could talk to my husband, but he, it was very emotional for him. So that would, I didn't want to make things worse for him. So I'd asked my friends and they were Bible study white ladies, white lady Bible studies, I don't know how you want to call them, but and they don't know how to explain it. There wasn't a lot of thought about it. They were just kind of like, you know, everyone has doubts, or these are good questions, but they wouldn't that wasn't super helpful or engaging. And so then by the time I was out, I was like, Where do I go? There aren't like, I don't know, people in my real geography, who have any of the same thoughts at all. And since then, I have found secular homeschool moms who are a lot of people, a lot of women who have D converted. A lot of women who have realized they're queer, a lot of women who have, like, just just a whole lot of us. Yeah, that I didn't know existed. But for years, let's see 2020 For the past three years. Yeah, it's a lonely, you usually become a Christian, either in your family or friends or something. But rarely do you d convert with other people? Yeah,

Jeremy Schumacher  37:24  
yeah. And I think it's, it's a fascinating time as people, the churches, hemorrhaging numbers, you know, I, my experience was, was similarly I had my partner, which, like, I'm very thankful we were both deconstructing or deconstructed at the same time. But it's one of those things where like, I found all this stuff after I D converted, like, deconstructed, so it's like, this stuff's out there. But it's hard to find was one of the things that I was like, really passionate about getting my my training and religious trauma, and having kind of a formal knowledge and that helped to to build community like with like minded professionals. And there's always a bunch of us, there's a number of people who are training in it or getting trained currently. And so that's like a fun space. But it's been interesting, because as I'm more out, especially professionally, I'm out about it. Like I've had some family members who've reached out to me who are like, Yeah, we don't want to send our kids to Lutheran school either. And like, it's still I don't know, it's, it's secretive in my family. But like, it's been funny to kind of see people like find me still some people from high school and follow me on instagram who have deconstructed or left the church. So like, Yeah, I mean, I think neurodivergent you brought up people who, who are realizing they're queer once they can start investigating their sexuality. I think that's a huge thing. So having these these online spaces that are safe for people to explore having community because for so long, I think that's what people ascribe to the church like, well, if you move somewhere, can it get connected with your local church, or like I remember saying that when I was a Christian, so it was just one of those things where like, knowing there's community out there that isn't religious or isn't affiliated to a church is is so nice. And I think that makes leaving an unhealthy or toxic church environment so much easier for people to be like, Oh, you don't have to be alone in it. And you don't have to be lonely after you leave. Like, now I do religious trauma. So I'm working on the people who are deconstructing I'm working people who are working on leaving, and that's still such a fear for them of like, what happens when my family inevitably disowned me because I've got that conservative of a family. It's like, ah, yeah, there's community out there. Like, it's still that leap of faith to be at a point where you can leave and trust that there are people there who will be there for you with you when you're outside of the church,

Arline  39:51  
because a lot of people will stay in it longer simply because they don't have anywhere else to go. And knowing that there are spaces to go is a huge thing.

So you talked about your therapy, tell us everything, wellness with Jer, everything you're doing your thing. Tell us about it.

Jeremy Schumacher  40:16  
Yeah, so I own my own practice. I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist. I've added my specialty and religious trauma. I also have a background in sports performance because I spent a lot of years coaching I coached NCAA level. I did, took a couple teams, the NCAA tournament for volleyball, super exciting. So I've been in as an athlete at a high level myself, I've coached high level athletes. So I have that. And again, like my neuro divergence runs through all of this, right, like sports performance, religious trauma and marriage therapy, you have no overlap at all, because that's just what my brain is interested in. So after I left higher ed, I was super burnt out, doing way too many wearing too many hats, getting underpaid, et cetera, et cetera. As one day, I was working at a Christian college. I went and I worked at it was a secular practice. But the guy who ran it was a Christian. And he was like the yucky kind of, I would say, the yucky kind of Christian like he had very fancy cars, he had a place up north. And like, said all the right stuff to get me to come work with him. But none of it was backed up. So it was it was just a really like yucky practice, felt very car salesman, he had taken advantage of people and like taking advantage of people who have mental health issues. So like doubly yucky in my book. And so like, I was not going to church at that point. But I wasn't out as an atheist at that point. And so it was just kind of like that break. Came in my professional life where I could be like, Oh, wellness with Jerry, like, my logo was the Agra sill tree, which is very a big deal in Norse mythology. It's a podcast, so people can't see me, but I got long hair and a big beard. Like I've got some of that Viking aesthetic going on. And so like that was very free and and it was so nice to be in a space of like congruence where like, I'm upfront, here's my fee. No, I don't take insurance. I'm not trying to get rich in this, but like, I have to pay my bills too. So like very ethical, LGBTQ, plus, affirming, queer, affirming all the spaces that I wanted to kind of Occupy as a therapist, but had never been able to advertise or kind of had to, like, people had to find me. And like, I have art that is some rainbow themes. in it. One of my my media person who's fantastic helped me with my website design and all that stuff. They're queer, and they made a really beautiful piece of art for me. So like when I had people in my office like they, they could pick up on it, but I wasn't like I wasn't selling myself as like a queer affirming therapist. So opened wellness with Jer, which is not an easy is not an easy title or a name for a thing. You'd be surprised how many mental health facilities have trademarks on their names and how little variety is left out there for naming your own practice. So a lot of people just name it after themselves. But I was coming out of this fear of athletics and coaching where everybody knew me as chair or coach. So wellness with Jared kind of fit for my personality. I'm a laid back guy, kind of what you see is what you get. So I opened my practice, got my certification and religious trauma. And once I kind of got like my feet under me, there's a learning curve to opening your own practice. I'm very comfortable doing a suicide assessment. I'm very comfortable doing the therapy things. I had no knowledge on how to run a business. Oh, yeah, I think I'm still learning things. When I talk to other therapists, it makes me feel better because they're like, yeah, like, No, we weren't taught any of that in grad school. It's just a huge gap in our knowledge. So once I kind of felt settled with with that, I started a podcast called The your therapist needs therapy, where I interviewed other therapists about their mental health and how they navigate mental health while working in the mental health field. And I've had a lot of religious trauma therapists or people with working in that space, which has been really great. And then like, it's just, it's my podcast, right? So I get to have on it, whoever I want. So it's a lot of religious trauma right now, because that's what my brain is fascinated with. But it's my other stuff, too. So I have some nutritionists on there. I have some athlete mental health people on there. Working, fingers crossed and getting some a professional athlete or two on there. Maybe in the near future. A famous comic book writer recorded an episode with so like talking about religious trauma and themes of mental health and comic books. So it's just like my stuff like, here's what I want to talk about. Here's the things that are interesting to me. I'm not trying to get internet famous, but I'm trying to put out good information around things like religious trauma and neuro diversity and healthy sleep. Hi uh Jean and all this other stuff. So like, it's, it's very much like it's silly in a way because I'm like another person with a podcast but it's been very like a nice creative outlet and a nice another way of like connecting with the community. So finding therapists and like minded people who are working in the religious trauma spaces. So yeah, that's kind of what I've got going now. And then I got a almost six year old and almost three year old at home. So when I'm not doing work, it's a lot of stuff going on at home.

Arline  45:32  
Yes, that's a busy time with littles. Wonderful, I'm so glad our audience will become acquainted with with all of your work

one last thing before we wrap up recommendations, podcasts, books, YouTube channels, movies, anything that was helpful in your deconstruction or that you love now and you highly recommend anything?

Jeremy Schumacher  45:59  
Yeah, I mean, I talk about probably on a daily basis, Steven Hudson's, Hudson's sounds I'm not sure how to pronounce his name. Where he did the bite model, which is I mentioned earlier behavior information and thought and motion control. I'm writing a blog series on it right now just because of how often I reference it. And he has a podcast on cults and authoritarian control. I'm drawing a blank on the name of it, I really should know. Someone tagged me on instagram in a in a like recommended podcasts that recommended his and mine. And I was like, Oh, that's so nice. I love his podcast, too. So that was that that one is fantastic. I listen to this podcast a lot. The other one I listen to a lot is Friendly Atheist podcast, which like for me was just, again, that community of someone else being like, what is like the religious right doing? Like, is anyone like, why are we not disturbed by these behaviors? So like that one, that one provided a lot of sanity for me being like, yuck, like, I had a problem with those people when I was Christian, but like, that's what everybody was lumping me in with? Oh, yeah. There's a lot of sanity there. For books, it's it's, you know, Harlene, when ELLs work, leaving the fold, I think is like a seminal work on religious trauma. She calls it religious trauma syndrome, which we've kind of moved away from a little bit. The other big book that I have in my office that I recommend a lot is the Body Keeps the Score by Bessel, Vander Kolk, who's maybe not a great human being but his work around trauma was fantastic and has been like super helpful for people understanding how trauma works, and how something like religious trauma stays in your system long after you've D converted and why that is work and how that work gets done. So I love that book. I was just talking earlier with somebody around all these documentaries that are coming out around Boy Scouts, the different church scandals. And a lot of that stuff is I chuck, I'm chuckling because I'm just thinking like, right, I remember like being fascinated by Waco. I was like five when it happened. So

Arline  48:10  
I remember watching it until the news, just

Jeremy Schumacher  48:12  
Yeah. But like, I got really into cults, I got into the occult, like, as a Christian, like, these were things that that were like, fascinating to me with just not the self awareness to be able to reflect on it. But it's one of those things where like, I think seeing some of that stuff normalizes the experience when you're like, Oh, I was in a cult and like for mainstream Christianity and a lot of people who raised evangelical like that maybe they don't think of it but like, all those markers are there, there's there's all those forms of control and there's all those ways to kind of limit you and cut you off. So I think as long as those things are safe and comfortable, I think for some people who are still deconstructing those can be really overwhelming or triggering. But um, I talked about deconstruction as like doctrinal deconstruction, you're leaving a belief system and then deconversion as like, the process of like, unpacking all that stuff that's still in your system, like purity culture, and like some of the ingrained stuff. So I think those documentaries if you're in more of the deconversion side of things, where you've deconstructed and you're comfortable in your belief system, or your ethics that you have now I think those documentaries can be really helpful to kind of see these patterns as like oh yeah, that's that's how religions take advantage of people or that's how control is exerted on people when when they're not aware of it. So there's so much of that stuff out. It's on my list to watch the Boy Scouts one I haven't watched it yet but there's like three or four different things on waco there's all these things on on cults and mind control around cults. And so it's definitely coming a little bit more to the forefront. I like the atheist pagan podcast, it's called the Wonder so That was That one's nice, you know. And it's weird. I spent a lot of time in the mental health spaces too, obviously, which is not maybe at an interest for everyone, at least not in the nerdy way that I do. But there's also a rise of like non science, or unscientific thinking in the wellness spaces. Like, there. There's weariness around the rise of kind of the self help guru, and even pagan spaces, like my hackles get raised around crystals and some of that magical thinking type stuff like I can complain because I experienced Christianity evangelical fundamental evangelicalism firsthand, like I can say how bad that is, but like, it's not that Christianity has a stranglehold on it, like these things exist in other spaces. And so doing work around stuff like that educating myself around some of those things, too, because it, it looks different, but like the tactics, and the behaviors are the same as far as control and some of the authoritarian hierarchies that exist. So my, my attention span is all over the place, I probably have eight or nine books on my desk in my office right now that I'm wanting to read, and my brains, like you can read all of these. So I try and balance it so that I have time that's recreation. And I have the podcasts, I have a YouTube channel where I talk about comic books, or movies and mental health stuff related to that. So I try and have space for like professional engagement around things. And they're trying to have space for just recreation, which I think is really important for me. That was a really long and winding answer. I think they only gave two recommendations or three recommendations in there. But

Arline  51:38  
thanks. Okay, that was wonderful. No, it's part of understanding. Like, once people deconstruct it's like, there's a whole other world over there. So you're finding all wonder and fun and happiness, like all the things that we're told that we will find in religion, like, you find it outside of that. And so you were just telling us all the different ways you do it.

Jeremy Schumacher  51:56  
Yeah. And I, you know, in my work, I'm reminded of this, I like, have to slow down sometimes, because I get caught up sometimes, and like how freeing it is to be outside of religion. And when you're deconstructing like, it does not feel that way. And like, I know that I experienced it. But the further out you get, the more like confident you get and like no, it's so much like I have so much more joy in such a healthier person outside of religion. And so it's like, it's hard to remind myself to like, slow down, like there's a process to get there, you don't just jump out at that spot. So it's good for me doing the work that I do to be reminded of like, there's a process to all of this, but like it is it's fascinating to talk to people to deconstruct it or hear other people's story on the podcast when I talk to other religious trauma therapists and see like, just like the joy around like, I posted that Instagram real me dancing, and like, I would have never done that as a Christian and like, now I can and I, I like felt a little guilty. But then I was like, I don't need to be guilty. And then I didn't feel guilty. And it's like, that's so cool. Like, that's so fun to see. Like, find ways to experience that joy in your own life and like, not be humble about everything or not like just yeah, there's so much stuff to unpack and reconvert. And when you do, it's just so, so much more free and unhealthy.

Arline  53:13  
Yes, I love it. Well, Jeremy, thank you so much for being on the podcast. This was wonderful. Thank you for sharing your story and telling us all about what you're doing these days.

Jeremy Schumacher  53:22  
Yeah, for sure. Thanks for having me.

Arline  53:30  
My final thoughts on this episode. I really enjoyed this episode, I learned a lot. I did not know anything about the wills Church, the Lutheran church that he talked about. And it's always amazing to me. I don't know if Amazings the right word I love whenever I hear about people who they've gone through some things. And they take that knowledge plus professional learning knowledge and then use it to change other people's lives. Like he's a therapist. Now, sports performance, religious trauma, couples counseling, like he said, None of these things overlap necessarily, but he has experience with all of them. And he has a desire to help people a desire to do things ethically and humbly and kindly. I don't know if kindly is a verb, an adverb, but he's doing all these things. And it's helping other people. And I just I love when, when humans do that, it's like it's beautiful secular grace, like David talks about. I also am very intrigued by the this whole atheopaganism Like I've learned a little bit about it last year, because personally, I like the, like the rituals, I like the the Wheel of the Year. I love nature, like all of those things. Speak to me for want of a better way to say that. They like do something inside my body. I love it too much. But I don't want to have to believe in gods or goddesses, I don't want to have to believe in ancient texts that some dead guy wrote down and it's supposed to be important. And I especially do not want another patriarchy to tell me what to do. So I don't know. I'm intrigued. It was it was interesting to hear Jeremy talk and it makes me want to learn a little bit more about it. So thank you so much, Jeremy for being on the podcast. I really enjoyed it. And I learned a lot.

David Ames  55:27  
The secular Grace Thought of the Week is, don't take yourself too seriously. When we were in the bubble, everything seemed so serious. Sin was serious choices were serious. Salvation was on the line, whether you witnessed to somebody or didn't, whether someone was quote, unquote, saved or not. It was also serious. And that limited us on what we could do, what we could choose and who we could be. You don't have to take yourself that seriously. You can laugh at yourself. You can make mistakes, and you can learn from those mistakes, and there are no eternal consequences. Next week, I interview community member Chris, you're not gonna want to miss that episode. Until then, my name is David and I am trying to be the graceful atheist. Join me and graceful. The beat is called waves by MCI beads. If you want to get in touch with me to be a guest on the show. Email me at graceful atheist@gmail.com for blog posts, quotes, recommendations and full episode transcripts head over to graceful atheists.com. This graceful atheist podcast part of the atheists United studios Podcast Network

Transcribed by https://otter.ai