March 9, 2023 • 32 mins
Warning: This episode contains accounts of mental distress and suicide ideation.
This episode takes us into the darkest time in Noemi’s Hillsong story. Increasingly isolated from the church, Noemi’s mental health reaches crisis point. One night, suicidal thoughts and torment become too much. Noemi turns to a Hillsong leader for help and exposes some potentially catastrophic ignorance about mental health.
The intervention of a friend saves her life. Noemi starts on a process of recovery and the realisation that it’s time to leave Hillsong. But letting go turns out to be hard to do…
False Profits: Hillsong is produced by Storyglass for iHeartRadio
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
My name is noam ut eBay and you're listening to
false prophets. This is the hardest part of my story
to share with you, and I want to warn you
this episode deals with suicidal thoughts and could be triggering
for some listeners. Life after Hillsong was not easy. It's
(00:21):
getting easier as time goes. At the beginning, I had
to find a way to substitute the time that I
was giving on Sundays. First and foremost, I was able
to sleep in. I didn't have to wake up like
at five thirty six am on a Sunday to get ready,
(00:41):
So I was able to substitute my time with resting
and sleeping in, and I was able to make Sundays
be a safe haven that went from a place of
being traumatic to now be a space where I didn't
have to give anyone my time if I didn't want to,
(01:03):
I could do whatever I want it. After leaving, I
was living with my friend Morgan. We rented a two
bedroom apartment together. We lived in front of the beach,
so it was a way for me to get away
from the city life and really think through and heal.
When I could sit on my balcony and just stare
out and journal and listen to podcasts, listen and read books.
(01:28):
It became that really big healing space for me in
that apartment, and to this day, that's still something I do.
I find a way to fill in my Sundays. I'll
go and see my girlfriend and we'll go shopping together,
or do something fun. I go for a long walk
with Teddy at the park and we'll have a picnic there.
(01:52):
So obviously, healing after Hillsong has taken up a lot
of time and money, but it has been a space
where I have been able to take back my power
in spending my day with whoever and wherever I want.
Before I got to this point, and before I finally
(02:13):
understood Hillsong's attitude towards my queer identity, I went through
a very dark and very dangerous time. I'm going to
take you back to a time I had suicidal thoughts
and when I felt so alone and rejected. Hillsong had
become my world. I'd been volunteering constantly, Almost all my
(02:33):
friends were there. I invested my time, my faith, my
emotions in this church. Well, when I let people in
about my sexuality, I felt more and more of an
outsider and in a series of things sent me into
a spiral of anxiety and depression. It was a combination
of growing isolation, my family's reaction to me coming out,
(02:57):
and past trauma as a teenager. They all came together.
I begin to have suicide ideation. I begin to believe
that in my head, the only solution I had was
to just end the pain. There was so much happening,
and I get scared as soon as I realized that
this was happening in my head. So I text my
(03:19):
leader and I tell her I don't know what's going on,
but I'm starting to have these thoughts and they're really scary.
She tells me, Okay, well, let's do some devotionals, let's
do some prayer, talk to your therapist. Yeah, yeah, do
that please, but also do this Christian thing. I start
(03:40):
to see things around my home that I could use
to end my life because that was the only way
and the only solution I saw for the pain I
was going through. Death felt like the best solution. In
the moment I started doing self harming. I would grab
a knife and cut my arm a little bit to
(04:00):
just feel some pain in my body, and I would
have to wear sweaters in summer to church because I
didn't want people to see the cuts, to see anything
that was happening. My leader knew they were there because
I showed her, and I told her she would just
shame me and say, why did you do that? Like
you just want attention. So it was really hurtful. There
(04:24):
was a chemical imbalance in my head and I needed
more support for medication and for professionals, but that's not
what I was receiving in Hillsong church. I started to
open the bottle and put them in my hand and
I texted my leader and I tell her I don't
(04:44):
know what to do. I'm in a lot of pain
right now. I have this medication in my hand and
I just want to end it. And she gets scared
and says, I'm on my way. Don't do it. You're
bigger than this. You have the power to control this.
(05:07):
I opened the door for her and I run into
my room and I leave the door a little cracked,
but didn't let her come in because I needed to
be in the darkness. I didn't want to be in light.
And I was leaning to the wall with the pills
in my hand, and I start banging on my head
doing self harm, and she asked, like, what is going on?
(05:28):
Like my head is just all over the place. She
finally is able to get to me, comes into my room,
turns on the lights, takes all the pills that I
had from my dresser, puts them in her bag, and
she sees my arms that had been cut. She takes
all my knives and she says, come on, sit over
(05:51):
here on the couch with me. We're going to listen
to this sermon. And I was like what, like in me,
I needed a hug, Like I needed support. I needed
someone to cry with me. I needed someone to say
it's going to be okay, let's go to the hospital.
You need psychiatric evaluation. And it was basically this pastor
I forget his name, but he had lost his daughter,
(06:14):
he had gone through depression because of that, and he
was now telling people that they needed to wage war
in their head in order to fight mental illness. And
so she starts telling me you have a war in
your head and you need to fight it. You have
the ability to fight it, and God is going to
(06:34):
fight with you. And I was like what, Like I
was so angry and start telling You're like, no, I'm
not going to do that. And she's like, oh, come on,
you're acting childish. Come sit on the couch. We need
to talk about this. I was like, this is ridiculous.
You're making me listen to something like totally not going
to help. And we started getting into a fight and
she gets mad and then she says, okay, like I'm
(06:57):
gonna leave, go to sleep. You can continue to talk
about this later. I'm just glad you're safe. I'm glad
you're here. I was like, okay, Well, something good came
out of that. After that night, I felt more excluded
from the Hillsong community. One day, I found out I
hadn't been invited to a Hillsong party. And this sounds
(07:20):
like a small thing, but it really broke me down.
I turned to one of the only friends I had
outside the church, Morgan, with this question, do you like
me as a person? Like? I don't like me as
a person, and people are pushing me away and I
feel really lonely. And so she starts to see the
switch that had just happened in my head and she says,
(07:46):
what's going on? What happened? And so I tell her
that they were starting to push me away, and I
was really hurt and that it was probably best if
I wasn't around, because no one wanted me to be
around if that's how they were treating me. And so
I start crying with her on the couch and she says,
(08:07):
do you want to talk to my aunt? And her
aunt was a pastor at the time in a city
close by to Boston called Summerville from a United Church
of Christ church, which is an affirming LGBTQ church, and
she happened to be also queer and black. So I
(08:28):
told her, okay, fine, like yeah, like, I don't know
why you're calling her, but sure. So she quickly goes
on her phone and gets her Aunt D and she's
on the phone and she says Aunt, like, I'm here
with no Emi. Can you talk to her? Aunt D
was like, oh my god. Yeah. So she passes me
the phone. I'm sitting on the couch already crying, and
(08:51):
I get the phone on me and I'm like hello,
and she says, Hi, no Emmy, it's Aunt D. Well,
what's going on? And I heard you were having a
really hard time right now? And I tell her, yeah,
like I don't know, my head is just really weird
right now, she says, I'm so sorry that's happening to you.
(09:13):
It sounds like you've been having a really, really hard time.
Have you ever thought of getting a psychiatric evaluation at
the hospital. Morgan got me on the phone with you,
(09:38):
and I remember clearly where you had a very calm
conversation with me in comparison to how other people and
Hillsong we're having that conversation with me, It was like
night and day. That is Teddy dreaming. Let me wake
up up really quick. That is Eddy. Step there, he's awake. Okay,
(10:05):
going back anyway. So yeah, I remember like visibly that
support that I got from you. I don't know how
much you remember from that day, but for me, that
phone call was like life saving and it was really really,
(10:27):
really monumental in me getting the care and support. And
I'm getting a little emotional because if I wouldn't have
had that phone conversation with you, I probably wouldn't be
sitting here today. I am so grateful that you are
sitting here today, and I am so incredibly proud of you.
(10:50):
I remember that experience really really well. What I remember
was the fear that I heard in my Nies's voice
that someone who loved you and supports you was afraid
for you, and that immediately signaled to me that we
(11:14):
were likely going to have to at least consider whether
you needed an additional level of supporting care. I think
the thing that people miss is that little voice inside
of yourself when you're talking to someone you love that
(11:35):
tells you we may be in trouble, you know what
I mean, That little voice that's like, they may not
be okay. And I think sometimes you want to speak
to that voice you, Oh, no, I'm sure you know
they're gonna be fine. They would never do anything, this
is why, you know, and you kind of overtalk that,
but just asking an additional set of questions when you
(11:56):
have that moment. So the moment that I could hear
that fear in her, that for me was like, okay,
we need to click in and ask a different set
of questions. And then when I talked to you on
the phone, my heart just broke, you know, because I
could hear that you were in a lot of pain,
and I wanted to be able to sit across from you.
(12:20):
I wanted to be able to look at you in
your eyes to convey how much you are loved and
respected and appreciated in that you are not alone in this,
and we are going to get you the help that
you need. I followed your instructions down to the period
of like how in the Kama was like down to
(12:41):
what to do because my brain was so overwhelmed. So
having those instructions the way that you gave them to
me of you're going to pack a bag, you're gonna
get in an uber, You're going to go to the hospital,
and you're going to tell the receptionists I'm here for
a psychiatric evaluation, and then I'll take it from there.
(13:01):
And then you kind of let me know what was
going to happen after that, where I was going to
talk to psychiatrists and they were going to let me
know if I needed to be admitted or what support
I was going to get. And you made me comfortable
with taking that first step because I had instructions, I
knew how to go about it. In comparison to other
(13:21):
people around me that were trying to support in their
own way that they believed was right, it was very
very different where they would use prayer or they would
use devotionals, or they would make me do a variety
of things, but it was never actually getting me to
a hospital because it was to the point where it
was I needed to go. That was a very difficult day.
(13:45):
It was for me, and I'm sure it was for you,
they know, after that moment you went and visited me.
What did that look like for you? I remember feeling
a little anxious right like I was outside of my
comfort zone because I didn't know that area. I wasn't
(14:05):
sure how to get there, and they were like these
complex directions, you know. The person who given me the
directions sounded like it was going to be incredibly complicated.
And as someone who loves you and cares for you,
I wanted to get to where you were, you know,
so I want a straight line, like go down, make
one left, and you're in the space. And it was
like you had to go down this backset of stairs
(14:26):
and around it was this old thing. So I remember being,
you know, a little anxious about getting there. But I
remember when I finally walked through, this felt like it
was like catacombs maze to come through this building and
you come up the stairs and I came through the door,
and first of all, when I drove up there were
(14:48):
the vehicles of your friends. And then when I came
through the door, here was this network, you know, of people,
and I remember thinking how beautiful it was to see
you surrounded because there had been these other moments when
I had visited individuals and they were there on their own.
(15:12):
I felt so much better just walking into the room
and recognizing, like, Okay, you know, your folks were there
to support you. At the same time, when we started talking,
my heart was broken again because there hadn't been that
kind of support from this community that I knew you
(15:33):
were such a large part of this community, that you
were supporting with your time, with your effort, with your energy.
And so we talked a little bit about the other
people that were on staff, and there wasn't that support
from them. And so, you know, when you serve in
any number of professions, you feel a relational connection to
(15:58):
the other people who serve and that profession. So attorneys
look at other attorneys, doctors look at other doctors, engineers,
you know, and as a clergy person, you look at
other clergy And so I'm in the room and I'm
happy to be in the room, and I'm glad to
support you, but I'm also feeling what I think is
righteous indignation and anger that my clergy siblings aren't in
(16:24):
the room. Also, this is the place where you show
up for them every day, and here you are in
this incredibly difficult moment in the context of your life,
and the church wasn't showing up for you, and that
was painful, you know. And I remember, you know, having
this conversation, not wanting to not wanting to go after
(16:50):
that other community, but also feeling very protective of you
and having, you know, like having an Auntie moment, like
I wanted to go and have a talk with some people,
like the most important thing was making sure that you
were receiving the care that you needed, that that particular
program was a good program for you. But there was
a part of me that wanted to like roll up
on that other, those colleagues and say, what in the
(17:13):
world are y'all doing? You know, how are you not
showing up in a way that this faithful child of
God needs you to show up? You know, in this moment,
when I looked at you, I saw still the pain
in your face, but I could also see a sense
of relief, you know, like you were finally being heard
(17:35):
I did have anger as well because the pastors from
Hillsong didn't go. But I didn't know how to respond
to that. I didn't know what that looked like. And
it seems really off for me because like my dad
would go to the hospital as him having been a
pastor and a missionary and a minister, like we would
(17:58):
go to hospitals, we would go to prison, and we
would go and talk to people on their deathbed, like
multiple things, like that's what people are there for in
your community? Is there for in religious support? That's what
they're there for as well if that's a big part
of someone's life. And so I was confused as to
why they weren't coming, And so that was really eye
(18:22):
opening for me, and it was a huge catalyst for
me starting to question even more if they even cared
about me as a human being. They often say that
when you're in your lowest moments, those who show up
are your real friends, your real people, And in that moment,
there were people from the church who showed up who
(18:43):
were there as friends, but later shifted how they approached
me because we hit heads on a lot of big
conversations and they were we don't we don't speak anymore, obviously,
but my relationship with you, I feel like it deepened
(19:03):
from there. Auntie Davida McAlister, she taught me there's a
difference between tolerated and being affirmed, and I learned what
real affirmation looks like at her church. Weeks later, I
went to a service. What a culture shock that was
(19:25):
for me. I ended up going to Auntie's church and
I remember they were having gospel drag Sunday and there
was a black drag queen leading the choir, and she
was beautiful and amazing and like everything was so good,
(19:45):
and she was telling us to call her the Chocolate Goddess.
And then aunt Ye gave a beautiful sermon of affirmation
and of welcomeness and of like oh, it was just
so beautiful, so like feeling, and so spiritual filling. It
was a very different tradition from what I had grown up,
but it was fine for me because it felt so
(20:07):
good and I was finally in a place where all
of me was welcome. And I ended up going to
Hillsong for the five pm service. I was out of
Auntie's church by like one pm. Morgan and I grabbed
lunch and then I head over to Hillsong for the
five PM, and I noticed the stark difference in me
(20:30):
in the way that I felt at Auntie's Church and
the way that I felt a Hillsong for that five PM.
And a Noemi at Auntie's church was free and was
openly queer and was just happy and holistically all of me,
and the God of Auntie was wholly affirming and was
(20:51):
calling me beloved. But at Hillsong Church, I was just
another volunteer who was going to help dim these lights
in the church, and I had to put on a
production and I couldn't be all of me. I had
to be this person who needed to pretend they were okay,
(21:14):
and needed to pretend they weren't queer and needed to
hide these parts of me. And that that really opened
my eyes. And after that Sunday, as I was going
home riding on the train, I was like, that's it.
I'm done. Auntie helped me confirm what I probably knew
(21:39):
in my heart, and helped me find the courage to
ask the right questions before committing myself to any church.
Sometimes people go for the lowest. You know, it's like
you were doing literally doing the least, but calling it
the most and so I was like, Okay, well you
can come here and you can give you know this money,
and you could do this. And it's like, yeah, but
(22:00):
can I serve? Can I sit in the pulpit? Can
a person preach here? Will you do a same gender
wedding here? Will you celebrate the birth of a child
in this family in the same way that you celebrate
the birth of a child in that family When you
have identified the individuals who are going to be god
parents for a child, you know, will all of the
(22:21):
members of the community be welcome at the altar and
celebrated in their relationships with this child? Like, what are
the ways that you communicate to anybody who comes through
the door that this isn't just a space where you're
going to be tolerated, but this is a space where
you will be celebrated as a beloved child of God. Yeah.
(22:42):
I'm glad you make that distinction because I was being
tolerated at Hillsong, where I was allowed to do certain things,
but there was a limit to what I could do.
But they wouldn't tell me the limit. They just said
there was a limit. And I need a place where
I'm being celebrated because this is what I need in
(23:03):
my life, and everyone should be celebrated as human beings.
So can I ask you a question? Yeah, and then
I'll ask you one final question close. I remember years
ago there's an organization in the United Church of Christ
that is called the Coalition, and it is the grouping
(23:25):
of churches who self identified as open and affirming right.
And so they're all a part of this coalition, the
LGBTQ Coalition, and they would have an annual gathering in
our denomination, separate from the gathering that the larger church
would have, and one year at that gathering, they talked
about righteous indignation and lamentation as spiritual practices, like how
(23:53):
essential it was for people of faith to be able
to not only acknowledge the rage that some of us
carry based on things that have happened, but to be
able to lament the pain that those actions have created,
(24:13):
to lament the damage that's done to our psyche, to
our spirit, to our physical bodies, and to understand that
as a part of our faith, to understand that as
a part of our walk and our journey. And so
you talked a little bit about starting to experience that anger,
(24:35):
But I wonder, like, how have you expressed that. Where
are the spaces where you've given yourself permission to lament
that you know the damage that was done to you, Like,
how are you managing that particular part of the energy.
Once I was able to get out and I listened
(24:55):
to my body for the first time because I was
taught to discus because my body was deceit And when
I finally reconnected with my body, it all fell and
I started to cry, and I started to realize and
lament the money that I spent having to heal that
(25:21):
welcome home was the most expensive thing I fell for,
that big sign that they have at the entrance. I
started to lament the friends, the people that I welcomed
in and told them it was a safe space, because
I knew that I was responsible for now them having
(25:42):
to experience an unsafe space for everyone I had a
responsibility in their story now and accountability, and to lament
the lack of qualified leadership around me. Yeah, I think
the lament of losing hundreds of friends, people that I
thought were my friends, and then ghosting me, blocking me
(26:05):
on social media when I started to speak out, Because
when I started to speak out. That's where my rage
came out. Often, rage and lament can go hand in hand,
and we should allow ourselves to lament, but there's also
this righteous anger that comes along with it. And I
was able to do a lot of that through social
(26:25):
media because that's where I found a community of ex
Hillsong members, like my friend Tiffany, like my friend Janice,
all these people around me that we're also having this
righteous anger of you fucked us over and excuse my language,
but yeah, like you fucked us over and we are
(26:46):
now having to go to psychiatric hospitals, we are now
having to spend all this money. Where's our accountability? Where's
our money? Where are all the tides that we gave
to you, Where's all the free labor that we gave
to you? Because I would be there for hours on
end on Sundays and even during the week. So that's
where righteous anger and tagging pastors on social media and
for them to finally have someone calling them out. And
(27:12):
from that righteous anger, we saw the domino effect of
people listening to the point of where we are here today,
of the global senior pastor of Hillsong Church having been
fired and removed with his wife churches closing down and
disassociating with Hillsong. We're seeing this domino effect of all
(27:33):
these people is screaming and yelling and lamenting and having
their righteous anger. And I am one of them, and
we've seen the effect of what that is and it's
been very healing and heartwarming to see. Yeah, and there
is so much power that calms when we can channel
(27:55):
our anger and our rage. Rage will get you up
in the morning, it will cause you stay up late
at night sometimes to make sure that you communicate clearly
that something has happened that should not have happened. And
love is a powerful emotion. I'm not doing the either or,
but you can only have one or the other. But
sometimes that anger, that rage, you know, we celebrate it
(28:17):
when we talk about mama bears, you know, who are
protecting their children, and that way rage is a good thing.
But we need to talk about the way that rage
is also helpful and useful to us to undo some
systems and some practices and behaviors that have just done
too much. Damna. So I'm with you, Okay, thank you
(28:37):
for answering that question. That was church for me. I'm good.
My last question for you. If you could give advice
to anyone who's listening and is in a church that
is not affirming, what would you say? I would call
them beloved, and I would say you are loved beyond
(28:58):
measure now because of anything you do, or anything you produce,
or anything you say, but simply because you are and
you deserve to be in a place where you are
embraced and celebrate it and affirmed for who you are.
And if you are not receiving that right now, I
(29:19):
invite you to find a place where people can celebrate
the magnificent creation of the divine that you are. And
God speed until you find that place. Thank you so
much for being here with me and for sharing this space,
and for creating this little safe space we've created. You
(29:39):
and I hear in this conversation. I think it really
a came full circle for me that rage was really
important to me and getting out of a situation I
knew was harming me. It would be nice to end
my story to say, one day I just walked out
of Hillsong, But life isn't like that, and leaving wasn't easy,
(30:02):
it was messy. I went back because they were my family,
They were the people I thought were my family, and
when you're in a crisis, you often want to be
surrounded by your family, by your friends, the people that
you know. And so I went to church that Sunday
because that's where I felt like you needed to be. Now,
(30:24):
there are people who have experiences when they leave and
they are gone, but I'm not one of those one
of the people who, yeah, it was it was a
messy experience. And I did end up going back twice
or three times, I don't remember even, which is good
that I don't remember, because that says a lot. And
(30:45):
I remember the last sermon that I heard there. Carl
was preaching from New York. They were showing him live
in Boston, and he talks about labels and the day
of putting labels on and that we should only use
the label of child of Christ. And hearing that really
(31:09):
like showed me that that was in a safe space
for me. Like, what am I doing here? If you're
listening to this and you're identifying with a lot of it,
and I'm helping you feel validated in your feelings of
(31:31):
what you're going through currently, you can get out. I'm
here to tell you there is an exit door. And
the exit door is really bright and it says e
x I, and you can turn around and see the
exit and get up and go. There is hope outside
(31:53):
of it. You will find family outside of it. You
will find friends outside of it. I had that fear,
and I worthy and deserving of better. And when I
recognize that I am worthy and you are too, yeah,
you can get up and go. In the next episode,
(32:19):
I've organized the Hillsong Reunion. I'm heading to New York City,
the place where so much bad happened within Hillsong. I
haven't been to the city since I left the church.
There were too many painful memories. But this reunion is
all about the people who stood up, spoke out, and
won't stop fighting for answers.
My name is noam ut eBay and you're listening to
false prophets. This is the hardest part of my story
to share with you, and I want to warn you
this episode deals with suicidal thoughts and could be triggering
for some listeners. Life after Hillsong was not easy. It's
(00:21):
getting easier as time goes. At the beginning, I had
to find a way to substitute the time that I
was giving on Sundays. First and foremost, I was able
to sleep in. I didn't have to wake up like
at five thirty six am on a Sunday to get ready,
(00:41):
So I was able to substitute my time with resting
and sleeping in, and I was able to make Sundays
be a safe haven that went from a place of
being traumatic to now be a space where I didn't
have to give anyone my time if I didn't want to,
(01:03):
I could do whatever I want it. After leaving, I
was living with my friend Morgan. We rented a two
bedroom apartment together. We lived in front of the beach,
so it was a way for me to get away
from the city life and really think through and heal.
When I could sit on my balcony and just stare
out and journal and listen to podcasts, listen and read books.
(01:28):
It became that really big healing space for me in
that apartment, and to this day, that's still something I do.
I find a way to fill in my Sundays. I'll
go and see my girlfriend and we'll go shopping together,
or do something fun. I go for a long walk
with Teddy at the park and we'll have a picnic there.
(01:52):
So obviously, healing after Hillsong has taken up a lot
of time and money, but it has been a space
where I have been able to take back my power
in spending my day with whoever and wherever I want.
Before I got to this point, and before I finally
(02:13):
understood Hillsong's attitude towards my queer identity, I went through
a very dark and very dangerous time. I'm going to
take you back to a time I had suicidal thoughts
and when I felt so alone and rejected. Hillsong had
become my world. I'd been volunteering constantly, Almost all my
(02:33):
friends were there. I invested my time, my faith, my
emotions in this church. Well, when I let people in
about my sexuality, I felt more and more of an
outsider and in a series of things sent me into
a spiral of anxiety and depression. It was a combination
of growing isolation, my family's reaction to me coming out,
(02:57):
and past trauma as a teenager. They all came together.
I begin to have suicide ideation. I begin to believe
that in my head, the only solution I had was
to just end the pain. There was so much happening,
and I get scared as soon as I realized that
this was happening in my head. So I text my
(03:19):
leader and I tell her I don't know what's going on,
but I'm starting to have these thoughts and they're really scary.
She tells me, Okay, well, let's do some devotionals, let's
do some prayer, talk to your therapist. Yeah, yeah, do
that please, but also do this Christian thing. I start
(03:40):
to see things around my home that I could use
to end my life because that was the only way
and the only solution I saw for the pain I
was going through. Death felt like the best solution. In
the moment I started doing self harming. I would grab
a knife and cut my arm a little bit to
(04:00):
just feel some pain in my body, and I would
have to wear sweaters in summer to church because I
didn't want people to see the cuts, to see anything
that was happening. My leader knew they were there because
I showed her, and I told her she would just
shame me and say, why did you do that? Like
you just want attention. So it was really hurtful. There
(04:24):
was a chemical imbalance in my head and I needed
more support for medication and for professionals, but that's not
what I was receiving in Hillsong church. I started to
open the bottle and put them in my hand and
I texted my leader and I tell her I don't
(04:44):
know what to do. I'm in a lot of pain
right now. I have this medication in my hand and
I just want to end it. And she gets scared
and says, I'm on my way. Don't do it. You're
bigger than this. You have the power to control this.
(05:07):
I opened the door for her and I run into
my room and I leave the door a little cracked,
but didn't let her come in because I needed to
be in the darkness. I didn't want to be in light.
And I was leaning to the wall with the pills
in my hand, and I start banging on my head
doing self harm, and she asked, like, what is going on?
(05:28):
Like my head is just all over the place. She
finally is able to get to me, comes into my room,
turns on the lights, takes all the pills that I
had from my dresser, puts them in her bag, and
she sees my arms that had been cut. She takes
all my knives and she says, come on, sit over
(05:51):
here on the couch with me. We're going to listen
to this sermon. And I was like what, like in me,
I needed a hug, Like I needed support. I needed
someone to cry with me. I needed someone to say
it's going to be okay, let's go to the hospital.
You need psychiatric evaluation. And it was basically this pastor
I forget his name, but he had lost his daughter,
(06:14):
he had gone through depression because of that, and he
was now telling people that they needed to wage war
in their head in order to fight mental illness. And
so she starts telling me you have a war in
your head and you need to fight it. You have
the ability to fight it, and God is going to
(06:34):
fight with you. And I was like what, Like I
was so angry and start telling You're like, no, I'm
not going to do that. And she's like, oh, come on,
you're acting childish. Come sit on the couch. We need
to talk about this. I was like, this is ridiculous.
You're making me listen to something like totally not going
to help. And we started getting into a fight and
she gets mad and then she says, okay, like I'm
(06:57):
gonna leave, go to sleep. You can continue to talk
about this later. I'm just glad you're safe. I'm glad
you're here. I was like, okay, Well, something good came
out of that. After that night, I felt more excluded
from the Hillsong community. One day, I found out I
hadn't been invited to a Hillsong party. And this sounds
(07:20):
like a small thing, but it really broke me down.
I turned to one of the only friends I had
outside the church, Morgan, with this question, do you like
me as a person? Like? I don't like me as
a person, and people are pushing me away and I
feel really lonely. And so she starts to see the
switch that had just happened in my head and she says,
(07:46):
what's going on? What happened? And so I tell her
that they were starting to push me away, and I
was really hurt and that it was probably best if
I wasn't around, because no one wanted me to be
around if that's how they were treating me. And so
I start crying with her on the couch and she says,
(08:07):
do you want to talk to my aunt? And her
aunt was a pastor at the time in a city
close by to Boston called Summerville from a United Church
of Christ church, which is an affirming LGBTQ church, and
she happened to be also queer and black. So I
(08:28):
told her, okay, fine, like yeah, like, I don't know
why you're calling her, but sure. So she quickly goes
on her phone and gets her Aunt D and she's
on the phone and she says Aunt, like, I'm here
with no Emi. Can you talk to her? Aunt D
was like, oh my god. Yeah. So she passes me
the phone. I'm sitting on the couch already crying, and
(08:51):
I get the phone on me and I'm like hello,
and she says, Hi, no Emmy, it's Aunt D. Well,
what's going on? And I heard you were having a
really hard time right now? And I tell her, yeah,
like I don't know, my head is just really weird
right now, she says, I'm so sorry that's happening to you.
(09:13):
It sounds like you've been having a really, really hard time.
Have you ever thought of getting a psychiatric evaluation at
the hospital. Morgan got me on the phone with you,
(09:38):
and I remember clearly where you had a very calm
conversation with me in comparison to how other people and
Hillsong we're having that conversation with me, It was like
night and day. That is Teddy dreaming. Let me wake
up up really quick. That is Eddy. Step there, he's awake. Okay,
(10:05):
going back anyway. So yeah, I remember like visibly that
support that I got from you. I don't know how
much you remember from that day, but for me, that
phone call was like life saving and it was really really,
(10:27):
really monumental in me getting the care and support. And
I'm getting a little emotional because if I wouldn't have
had that phone conversation with you, I probably wouldn't be
sitting here today. I am so grateful that you are
sitting here today, and I am so incredibly proud of you.
(10:50):
I remember that experience really really well. What I remember
was the fear that I heard in my Nies's voice
that someone who loved you and supports you was afraid
for you, and that immediately signaled to me that we
(11:14):
were likely going to have to at least consider whether
you needed an additional level of supporting care. I think
the thing that people miss is that little voice inside
of yourself when you're talking to someone you love that
(11:35):
tells you we may be in trouble, you know what
I mean, That little voice that's like, they may not
be okay. And I think sometimes you want to speak
to that voice you, Oh, no, I'm sure you know
they're gonna be fine. They would never do anything, this
is why, you know, and you kind of overtalk that,
but just asking an additional set of questions when you
(11:56):
have that moment. So the moment that I could hear
that fear in her, that for me was like, okay,
we need to click in and ask a different set
of questions. And then when I talked to you on
the phone, my heart just broke, you know, because I
could hear that you were in a lot of pain,
and I wanted to be able to sit across from you.
(12:20):
I wanted to be able to look at you in
your eyes to convey how much you are loved and
respected and appreciated in that you are not alone in this,
and we are going to get you the help that
you need. I followed your instructions down to the period
of like how in the Kama was like down to
(12:41):
what to do because my brain was so overwhelmed. So
having those instructions the way that you gave them to
me of you're going to pack a bag, you're gonna
get in an uber, You're going to go to the hospital,
and you're going to tell the receptionists I'm here for
a psychiatric evaluation, and then I'll take it from there.
(13:01):
And then you kind of let me know what was
going to happen after that, where I was going to
talk to psychiatrists and they were going to let me
know if I needed to be admitted or what support
I was going to get. And you made me comfortable
with taking that first step because I had instructions, I
knew how to go about it. In comparison to other
(13:21):
people around me that were trying to support in their
own way that they believed was right, it was very
very different where they would use prayer or they would
use devotionals, or they would make me do a variety
of things, but it was never actually getting me to
a hospital because it was to the point where it
was I needed to go. That was a very difficult day.
(13:45):
It was for me, and I'm sure it was for you,
they know, after that moment you went and visited me.
What did that look like for you? I remember feeling
a little anxious right like I was outside of my
comfort zone because I didn't know that area. I wasn't
(14:05):
sure how to get there, and they were like these
complex directions, you know. The person who given me the
directions sounded like it was going to be incredibly complicated.
And as someone who loves you and cares for you,
I wanted to get to where you were, you know,
so I want a straight line, like go down, make
one left, and you're in the space. And it was
like you had to go down this backset of stairs
(14:26):
and around it was this old thing. So I remember being,
you know, a little anxious about getting there. But I
remember when I finally walked through, this felt like it
was like catacombs maze to come through this building and
you come up the stairs and I came through the door,
and first of all, when I drove up there were
(14:48):
the vehicles of your friends. And then when I came
through the door, here was this network, you know, of people,
and I remember thinking how beautiful it was to see
you surrounded because there had been these other moments when
I had visited individuals and they were there on their own.
(15:12):
I felt so much better just walking into the room
and recognizing, like, Okay, you know, your folks were there
to support you. At the same time, when we started talking,
my heart was broken again because there hadn't been that
kind of support from this community that I knew you
(15:33):
were such a large part of this community, that you
were supporting with your time, with your effort, with your energy.
And so we talked a little bit about the other
people that were on staff, and there wasn't that support
from them. And so, you know, when you serve in
any number of professions, you feel a relational connection to
(15:58):
the other people who serve and that profession. So attorneys
look at other attorneys, doctors look at other doctors, engineers,
you know, and as a clergy person, you look at
other clergy And so I'm in the room and I'm
happy to be in the room, and I'm glad to
support you, but I'm also feeling what I think is
righteous indignation and anger that my clergy siblings aren't in
(16:24):
the room. Also, this is the place where you show
up for them every day, and here you are in
this incredibly difficult moment in the context of your life,
and the church wasn't showing up for you, and that
was painful, you know. And I remember, you know, having
this conversation, not wanting to not wanting to go after
(16:50):
that other community, but also feeling very protective of you
and having, you know, like having an Auntie moment, like
I wanted to go and have a talk with some people,
like the most important thing was making sure that you
were receiving the care that you needed, that that particular
program was a good program for you. But there was
a part of me that wanted to like roll up
on that other, those colleagues and say, what in the
(17:13):
world are y'all doing? You know, how are you not
showing up in a way that this faithful child of
God needs you to show up? You know, in this moment,
when I looked at you, I saw still the pain
in your face, but I could also see a sense
of relief, you know, like you were finally being heard
(17:35):
I did have anger as well because the pastors from
Hillsong didn't go. But I didn't know how to respond
to that. I didn't know what that looked like. And
it seems really off for me because like my dad
would go to the hospital as him having been a
pastor and a missionary and a minister, like we would
(17:58):
go to hospitals, we would go to prison, and we
would go and talk to people on their deathbed, like
multiple things, like that's what people are there for in
your community? Is there for in religious support? That's what
they're there for as well if that's a big part
of someone's life. And so I was confused as to
why they weren't coming, And so that was really eye
(18:22):
opening for me, and it was a huge catalyst for
me starting to question even more if they even cared
about me as a human being. They often say that
when you're in your lowest moments, those who show up
are your real friends, your real people, And in that moment,
there were people from the church who showed up who
(18:43):
were there as friends, but later shifted how they approached
me because we hit heads on a lot of big
conversations and they were we don't we don't speak anymore, obviously,
but my relationship with you, I feel like it deepened
(19:03):
from there. Auntie Davida McAlister, she taught me there's a
difference between tolerated and being affirmed, and I learned what
real affirmation looks like at her church. Weeks later, I
went to a service. What a culture shock that was
(19:25):
for me. I ended up going to Auntie's church and
I remember they were having gospel drag Sunday and there
was a black drag queen leading the choir, and she
was beautiful and amazing and like everything was so good,
(19:45):
and she was telling us to call her the Chocolate Goddess.
And then aunt Ye gave a beautiful sermon of affirmation
and of welcomeness and of like oh, it was just
so beautiful, so like feeling, and so spiritual filling. It
was a very different tradition from what I had grown up,
but it was fine for me because it felt so
(20:07):
good and I was finally in a place where all
of me was welcome. And I ended up going to
Hillsong for the five pm service. I was out of
Auntie's church by like one pm. Morgan and I grabbed
lunch and then I head over to Hillsong for the
five PM, and I noticed the stark difference in me
(20:30):
in the way that I felt at Auntie's Church and
the way that I felt a Hillsong for that five PM.
And a Noemi at Auntie's church was free and was
openly queer and was just happy and holistically all of me,
and the God of Auntie was wholly affirming and was
(20:51):
calling me beloved. But at Hillsong Church, I was just
another volunteer who was going to help dim these lights
in the church, and I had to put on a
production and I couldn't be all of me. I had
to be this person who needed to pretend they were okay,
(21:14):
and needed to pretend they weren't queer and needed to
hide these parts of me. And that that really opened
my eyes. And after that Sunday, as I was going
home riding on the train, I was like, that's it.
I'm done. Auntie helped me confirm what I probably knew
(21:39):
in my heart, and helped me find the courage to
ask the right questions before committing myself to any church.
Sometimes people go for the lowest. You know, it's like
you were doing literally doing the least, but calling it
the most and so I was like, Okay, well you
can come here and you can give you know this money,
and you could do this. And it's like, yeah, but
(22:00):
can I serve? Can I sit in the pulpit? Can
a person preach here? Will you do a same gender
wedding here? Will you celebrate the birth of a child
in this family in the same way that you celebrate
the birth of a child in that family When you
have identified the individuals who are going to be god
parents for a child, you know, will all of the
(22:21):
members of the community be welcome at the altar and
celebrated in their relationships with this child? Like, what are
the ways that you communicate to anybody who comes through
the door that this isn't just a space where you're
going to be tolerated, but this is a space where
you will be celebrated as a beloved child of God. Yeah.
(22:42):
I'm glad you make that distinction because I was being
tolerated at Hillsong, where I was allowed to do certain things,
but there was a limit to what I could do.
But they wouldn't tell me the limit. They just said
there was a limit. And I need a place where
I'm being celebrated because this is what I need in
(23:03):
my life, and everyone should be celebrated as human beings.
So can I ask you a question? Yeah, and then
I'll ask you one final question close. I remember years
ago there's an organization in the United Church of Christ
that is called the Coalition, and it is the grouping
(23:25):
of churches who self identified as open and affirming right.
And so they're all a part of this coalition, the
LGBTQ Coalition, and they would have an annual gathering in
our denomination, separate from the gathering that the larger church
would have, and one year at that gathering, they talked
about righteous indignation and lamentation as spiritual practices, like how
(23:53):
essential it was for people of faith to be able
to not only acknowledge the rage that some of us
carry based on things that have happened, but to be
able to lament the pain that those actions have created,
(24:13):
to lament the damage that's done to our psyche, to
our spirit, to our physical bodies, and to understand that
as a part of our faith, to understand that as
a part of our walk and our journey. And so
you talked a little bit about starting to experience that anger,
(24:35):
But I wonder, like, how have you expressed that. Where
are the spaces where you've given yourself permission to lament
that you know the damage that was done to you, Like,
how are you managing that particular part of the energy.
Once I was able to get out and I listened
(24:55):
to my body for the first time because I was
taught to discus because my body was deceit And when
I finally reconnected with my body, it all fell and
I started to cry, and I started to realize and
lament the money that I spent having to heal that
(25:21):
welcome home was the most expensive thing I fell for,
that big sign that they have at the entrance. I
started to lament the friends, the people that I welcomed
in and told them it was a safe space, because
I knew that I was responsible for now them having
(25:42):
to experience an unsafe space for everyone I had a
responsibility in their story now and accountability, and to lament
the lack of qualified leadership around me. Yeah, I think
the lament of losing hundreds of friends, people that I
thought were my friends, and then ghosting me, blocking me
(26:05):
on social media when I started to speak out, Because
when I started to speak out. That's where my rage
came out. Often, rage and lament can go hand in hand,
and we should allow ourselves to lament, but there's also
this righteous anger that comes along with it. And I
was able to do a lot of that through social
(26:25):
media because that's where I found a community of ex
Hillsong members, like my friend Tiffany, like my friend Janice,
all these people around me that we're also having this
righteous anger of you fucked us over and excuse my language,
but yeah, like you fucked us over and we are
(26:46):
now having to go to psychiatric hospitals, we are now
having to spend all this money. Where's our accountability? Where's
our money? Where are all the tides that we gave
to you, Where's all the free labor that we gave
to you? Because I would be there for hours on
end on Sundays and even during the week. So that's
where righteous anger and tagging pastors on social media and
for them to finally have someone calling them out. And
(27:12):
from that righteous anger, we saw the domino effect of
people listening to the point of where we are here today,
of the global senior pastor of Hillsong Church having been
fired and removed with his wife churches closing down and
disassociating with Hillsong. We're seeing this domino effect of all
(27:33):
these people is screaming and yelling and lamenting and having
their righteous anger. And I am one of them, and
we've seen the effect of what that is and it's
been very healing and heartwarming to see. Yeah, and there
is so much power that calms when we can channel
(27:55):
our anger and our rage. Rage will get you up
in the morning, it will cause you stay up late
at night sometimes to make sure that you communicate clearly
that something has happened that should not have happened. And
love is a powerful emotion. I'm not doing the either or,
but you can only have one or the other. But
sometimes that anger, that rage, you know, we celebrate it
(28:17):
when we talk about mama bears, you know, who are
protecting their children, and that way rage is a good thing.
But we need to talk about the way that rage
is also helpful and useful to us to undo some
systems and some practices and behaviors that have just done
too much. Damna. So I'm with you, Okay, thank you
(28:37):
for answering that question. That was church for me. I'm good.
My last question for you. If you could give advice
to anyone who's listening and is in a church that
is not affirming, what would you say? I would call
them beloved, and I would say you are loved beyond
(28:58):
measure now because of anything you do, or anything you produce,
or anything you say, but simply because you are and
you deserve to be in a place where you are
embraced and celebrate it and affirmed for who you are.
And if you are not receiving that right now, I
(29:19):
invite you to find a place where people can celebrate
the magnificent creation of the divine that you are. And
God speed until you find that place. Thank you so
much for being here with me and for sharing this space,
and for creating this little safe space we've created. You
(29:39):
and I hear in this conversation. I think it really
a came full circle for me that rage was really
important to me and getting out of a situation I
knew was harming me. It would be nice to end
my story to say, one day I just walked out
of Hillsong, But life isn't like that, and leaving wasn't easy,
(30:02):
it was messy. I went back because they were my family,
They were the people I thought were my family, and
when you're in a crisis, you often want to be
surrounded by your family, by your friends, the people that
you know. And so I went to church that Sunday
because that's where I felt like you needed to be. Now,
(30:24):
there are people who have experiences when they leave and
they are gone, but I'm not one of those one
of the people who, yeah, it was it was a
messy experience. And I did end up going back twice
or three times, I don't remember even, which is good
that I don't remember, because that says a lot. And
(30:45):
I remember the last sermon that I heard there. Carl
was preaching from New York. They were showing him live
in Boston, and he talks about labels and the day
of putting labels on and that we should only use
the label of child of Christ. And hearing that really
(31:09):
like showed me that that was in a safe space
for me. Like, what am I doing here? If you're
listening to this and you're identifying with a lot of it,
and I'm helping you feel validated in your feelings of
(31:31):
what you're going through currently, you can get out. I'm
here to tell you there is an exit door. And
the exit door is really bright and it says e
x I, and you can turn around and see the
exit and get up and go. There is hope outside
(31:53):
of it. You will find family outside of it. You
will find friends outside of it. I had that fear,
and I worthy and deserving of better. And when I
recognize that I am worthy and you are too, yeah,
you can get up and go. In the next episode,
(32:19):
I've organized the Hillsong Reunion. I'm heading to New York City,
the place where so much bad happened within Hillsong. I
haven't been to the city since I left the church.
There were too many painful memories. But this reunion is
all about the people who stood up, spoke out, and
won't stop fighting for answers.
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