This episode of Cults and the Culting of America features guest Jess M. (aka White Mess Express), a former nurse, alongside hosts Daniella Mestyanek Young and Scot Loyd. The conversation explores how the U.S. healthcare system—particularly nursing—resembles a cult in its culture, practices, and systemic issues.
Jess describes the hierarchical "rite of passage" culture in nursing (e.g., new nurses being called “baby nurses” and forced through hazing-like experiences). They highlight systemic contradictions: nurses are told to always be learning but punished for questioning authority, encouraged to self-sacrifice at the expense of their own health, and held individually responsible for systemic failures.
The discussion broadens to the U.S. healthcare system as a whole—its prioritization of profit over care, its inequities toward marginalized groups, and the emotional toll on providers and patients alike. Daniella and Scot connect these patterns to cult dynamics: degradation rituals, infantilization, blind obedience, toxic positivity, and punishment for dissent.
Jess shares personal experiences of disillusionment: discovering nursing’s promises of stability and meaning were hollow, dealing with disability from the physical demands of the work, and grieving the loss of identity and purpose after leaving the profession. They emphasize the need for gratitude toward frontline staff, patient self-advocacy, and systemic change.
The episode closes with encouragement: while healthcare workers may feel trapped in a “cult of medicine,” deconstructing the experience allows them to reclaim their skills and narratives. Jess also shares where listeners can follow their ongoing work on TikTok and other platforms.
Jess's Links:
Daniella's Links:
You can read all about my story in my book, Uncultured-- buy signed copies here. https://bit.ly/SignedUncultured
For more info on me:
Patreon: https://bit.ly/YTPLanding
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:25):
Welcome to another edition of Cults and the Culting of America podcast.
My name is Scott Lloyd and Daniela, how are you?
are you?
I am good.
Coming to you from Seattle where it is not 730 at night, which is lovely.
Yeah, it's a earlier.
You've been all over the country in the knitting cult RV.
(00:47):
two countries.
We went all over Canada too.
Yeah.
We've run it into fans along the way.
I think we have like 40 people coming out to see us in Seattle tonight right after this.
So it's pretty, it's pretty exciting.
Absolutely, absolutely.
And speaking of exciting, I'm glad to introduce our guest for this evening.
(01:07):
Her name is Jess.
And Jess, why don't you take a moment and introduce yourself to our audience?
Hi, my name's Jess.
I am clearly a white woman.
uh I'm autistic.
have ADHD, uh multiple different things I won't go into.
I have my Bachelor of Science in Nursing and I became a registered nurse in 2019.
(01:31):
uh Currently my license is inactive due to a technical issue.
But yeah, so I'm presently unemployed, primarily dedicating my time to social media.
I go buy white mess express on there.
Well, we're thrilled to have you tonight and we're going to be talking about how we, thinkwe can all agree, right?
That the health industry uh in the United States, the healthcare system is pretty much auh horrible mess.
(01:58):
uh But beyond that, um you're here to make the argument and I tend to agree with you thatit's also a little bit culty.
uh What do you mean by that?
Well, where do I start?
ah I think, I mean, there is so much in the nursing profession in general.
(02:22):
uh So obviously I'm not the expert on colts, but I do know that when you, sorry, my dogis, okay.
I do know that when you are,
moving up, it's almost like there's a tiered system.
So you have to start at this level.
And then at some point, maybe you'll be competent enough to move to the next level.
(02:46):
ah There's this whole thing with nurses.
When I was a new grad, they said, oh, you have to start on medsurg.
You can't work outpatient as a new grad.
That's not a thing.
And I was like, but I don't want to work.
medical surgical nursing.
And it didn't, it didn't compute in my brain why that was necessary.
And it was because it was almost like a rite of passage, like that you have to work thishorrible unit before you can do something you actually want to do.
(03:16):
So yeah.
Let me jump in on that because we see that all the time, right?
And we recently had a podcast guest who said that in their cult, like everyone had tostart at the bottom and including, you know, their husband came in with all these
technical skills, had to start off at the bottom.
What you talk about, that was my experience in the army where they're like, Lieutenant isa Lieutenant is a Lieutenant.
(03:39):
don't care what skills you have brought in with you.
So we're going to take.
Daniela, a trilingual woman, and make you go do the same thing.
And it is that exactly that rite of passage that like, you know, a lot of Christian cultsdo the whole, have to be a baby, you know, we got to bring you back to basically
(04:01):
infantilize you and make sure that we've put you all through this basic experience wherewe get to humble you.
And if we don't know.
degradation experiences, degradation rituals is another big part of cults.
Yep, and that is a huge thing in nursing.
I'm sure you've heard about the people that talk about like the bullying that happens,like especially with new nurses or travel nurses.
(04:29):
There is a whole kind of culture of
you're either up here or you're not.
And you are literally called a baby nurse when you come out of nursing, like that's whatthey call you.
Like what you just said, they refer to you as a baby nurse.
And every time you start a new nursing position with a different, so if I worked inoncology and then I switched to a different kind of unit or a different outpatient
(04:59):
environment, I would again be a baby nurse because
I don't know anything anymore.
And when they do those kinds of things, what do they tell you is the purpose of it?
does anybody talk about that?
Does anybody try to justify it?
Yes.
So ah I wrote something down earlier because I didn't want to forget.
(05:20):
ah And I think it speaks to that.
And one of those is you must be constantly learning, but not if it's on topics that aren'tapproved or your scope of practice.
So please be always learning.
And that's why you're the baby nurse, unless that's about these things.
ah You must critically think.
(05:43):
but not if you're rocking the boat.
You must come to work when you're sick, but if you kill a cancer patient because you cameto work with the flu, like you'll live with that.
That'll be your problem.
um So it's a lot of these like, yes, be constantly learning because that's why you're ababy nurse again, because you always can learn more, but not too much.
(06:07):
You don't want to step on toes.
And that sounds like a lot of what we've discussed here on this program as far as culttactics.
And so when people, I suppose that you're also punished if anybody speaks out about it orcomplains about the process.
Yes, ah somewhat.
(06:29):
So I think one thing that's a little bit unique about health care is that it really talksso much about this environment of ah that it's a systemic problem, not a personal problem.
But then we see all the time, I was just terminated from a job for not being productiveenough in February.
(06:52):
um
productive enough, like meaning I wasn't working fast enough as they wanted me to work.
cause speed is not my skillset.
I do have multiple of them, but speed is not one.
Um, and so people are suffering the consequences of that all the time.
So they talk about quality and how it's a systemic problem, but you're still treated on anindividual basis, according to how much you are contributing or not contributing.
(07:23):
if that makes sense.
And that ends up being a huge thing that I find across the board with cults is, you know,blaming individuals for systemic issues and or having everything be an individual's faults
and just sort of never willing to look at the larger problem.
And hint hint, maybe the larger problem is everyone isn't exactly the same.
(07:45):
And if you actually put people in areas of their skill set, they're going to do muchbetter.
I will tell you, like,
Everything that I talk about, everyone else that compares all their stuff to what I talkabout, the two that I absolutely get the most are teaching and nursing.
And very recently I've started to think of, you know, the whole medical system orhealthcare system in the U.S.
(08:13):
as its own cult, like this one big system that's over everything.
Why nursing specifically?
Why is nursing?
more intense and more culty than like doctors.
That is a very good question.
think my personal opinion would be that the doctors are in the position of power.
(08:36):
So it's not that they aren't in the the culty behaviors or that in and of itself, as weknow, a lot of doctors struggle with mental health issues, um but they are typically the
ones that are looked to as the authority, whereas nurses are.
less than, um where the ones that must follow the orders follow the direction.
(08:59):
um mean, Florence Nightingale has a lot of history that's not great.
um But people still do the Florence Nightingale pledge for for nurses, which basicallysays sacrifice yourself, put your patients first and everything you do.
And like, something about being pure, the actual pledge is a little wild.
(09:22):
So it was
created this way.
And when I was 19, I went to, or not 19, it was in 2019, sorry.
I went to London, England, for a public health and nursing trip with my nursing school.
And they talked about the history of how nurses were single women that didn't like...
(09:47):
have families or lives outside and they would actually live at the hospitals to work.
So I think from the, not necessarily the beginning, but since years and years ago, likenurses were built to be kind of a culty little group.
that, yeah.
Well, and it makes sense because what we see from like more traditional cults, we see manymore women that will get out and tell their stories than men.
(10:14):
And one of the reasons we think that that's true is because, the men quite simply aren'tusually getting the most abused by the cult system.
So I guess nurses are like the women of cult and doctors are the men.
uh Obviously it often breaks down that way too, but.
what you said about the abuse being stronger on the nurses, that makes so much more senseto me.
(10:37):
Yeah, and surprise, surprise, patriarchy and sexism uh raised their ugly head once again,right?
It's like it's in everything.
I want to talk a little bit about the health care system in the United States in general.
uh Why is it as somebody who has worked on the inside of that profession, why is it thatyou think we have so many issues with our health care system?
(11:05):
in the United States?
Is it capitalism?
Is it money that is driving it?
And uh if so, is there anything that we can do about it?
Or do you see any hope on the horizon for it changing?
That's a really, really good question.
I don't even know how to answer that.
It's definitely a mess.
do think so.
(11:27):
I've heard it said before, and I do agree with that.
Healthcare is a business and in the U S um it's, it's a business.
So I, I do think it is about the money.
Now there's not for profit hospitals, but they have to have a profit sector and they relyon the government programs like Medicare, Medicaid to function.
um
(11:48):
So I do think it is about making money.
this is going to not be very hopeful, but I don't really see it uh getting better.
I think that I only see it getting worse.
And a lot of health care employees have felt that way for years.
ah And especially the direction that things are going right now, we're moving so far awayfrom any
(12:17):
Thank you.
uh
system that it's not looking good from my perspective, but I do think that it's even moreso functioning as a business now.
Sorry, my dog just decided he wanted to be the star of the show tonight.
that's fine.
You know, it strikes me uh that for so long in the United States, we have uh approachedhealth care as a privilege instead of a right.
(12:47):
And when as long as we continue to view it through that perspective, we're going tocontinue to have these issues because it attaches to what you've already touched on the
idea of how women are treated, but it
but it extends beyond that, right?
If we talk about the rest of the marginalized uh people groups in our society, black andbrown individuals, black women especially, uh poor people in our society.
(13:17):
uh So many times we see that the marginalized or the oppressed are on the fringes andbecause we treat healthcare as a privilege,
for those that can afford it and not as a right for those that have it, we continue tohave this cycle in the United States.
(13:38):
I'm curious as a nurse who's worked in the profession, obviously your first priority is tocare for the patient, but beyond that, do doctors and nurses, do you talk about these
particular issues or do doctors and nurses really not have a say in how
(13:58):
prices are set, things of that nature.
The economic end of the healthcare system, if you will.
That's a really, really good question.
uh We may talk about it, but it's more of an opinion base.
uh Typically, unless you are in some way ahead of a board for the hospital as a doctor,you are not involved in the money making decisions of the hospital or how much the care
(14:25):
costs.
And those things a lot of times aren't even determined by the hospital itself.
It's by insurance metrics and all of these different things.
you
typically the people that are, at least in my experience, the people that are the mostinvolved either don't have any patient care experience or very little.
(14:49):
ah you know, they weren't the ones that, that started.
You know, from, don't like to use the terminology, but like from the bottom, uh, if youwill, like as a CNA or something, you know, they're the ones that just went to school for
healthcare.
business and, you know, got their masters and now they wear a suit and come to work acouple of days a week.
(15:10):
And they're the ones that are deciding uh all of, all of these things.
And I completely agree that it should be a basic right.
It is a basic human right to have healthcare.
And it is very much so treated like a privilege.
And we don't have really any, any say in that.
(15:33):
um
but we're the ones delivering that care.
So we are the ones that get told about it, I guess.
Right, and you also have to deliver the news, right, to a patient if they need a certainprocedure or a certain drug or a certain uh plan of care and their insurance doesn't cover
(15:54):
it, there's nothing that you can do as providers on your end to provide that for them.
Yeah, not much.
Sometimes there's some programs that we can look into.
ah But even that, that's while you're doing 20 million other things.
And so it's very hard to juggle.
if there's not a specific program, yeah, we don't have uh much control.
(16:19):
So what happens is we end up mainly caring for those with some aspect of privilege orthose that are critical and don't have a choice any longer.
And people go into debt, right?
Like one of the main reasons Americans declare bankruptcy is medical debt.
You know, and this was South Africa after apartheid, I was listening to Trevor Noah'samazing book for the third time, Born a Crime, so good.
(16:47):
And there's this part where his mother literally has been shot in the head.
And they are
turning him they're literally telling him she doesn't have insurance and if you can't putdown a credit card for could be millions of dollars we have to send her somewhere else and
it's one of those moments I feel like it's almost we're almost there in the US you knowand it's one of those moments that makes you realize it's like the first thing about
(17:17):
America right to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness do people have a right to lifeif you don't
have accessible healthcare.
Exactly.
My mother is uh 90 years old now and we, uh me and my siblings are facing the difficultyof transitioning her into an assisted living care facility.
(17:39):
And we're having to navigate all of the issues that have to do with Medicaid and Medicare.
And we see that from legislation that has been passed recently in the United States, thatall of that is becoming increasingly more
complicated.
And if we talk about the aspect of the cultiness of the healthcare uh profession andsystem uh in our country, um like so many other cults, right?
(18:10):
The folks that end up getting hurt by this are the most vulnerable.
Or the people that are there providing the services, as you've already mentioned, as anurse, you have to deal with all of this
for lack of a better term, think hazing fits, right?
It's bullying and hazing and uh initiation into that.
(18:33):
And then you have the added pressure of dealing with people and patients that can't affordthe services.
So that's gotta be incredibly frustrating.
And you mentioned the mental health issues that just adds to the trauma oh on the frontlines of people that are endeavoring to help.
back seat could come out and be here.
(18:54):
You just the way they are, I the way they're doing it, think, is we need to do.
I think that's need to do.
that's we need to I think that's what we need to do.
I think that's what to I think that's what we need to what I that's do.
(19:20):
so accurate.
So on the vulnerability, ah I'm trying to think I feel honestly, sometimes like I'veblocked out so much of my ah like nursing experiences, because it's just not very pleasant
to think about.
ah But I, there has been so many times that there has been
(19:44):
I a I lot I I
such vulnerable people uh that either should be sent home but they don't have a place togo um or they are treated differently by the healthcare system as a whole for who they are
(20:06):
or the conditions that they have.
And it's very evident.
when you see people that are marginalized.
one, one example I can think of is, um, we had, we had one patient that was there and itwas a man that was unhoused.
And there was this situation where, like, he did not have clothes to wear because they hadbeen destroyed essentially or soil before, um, coming into the hospital.
(20:36):
And there's no, they didn't have anything to do about that.
So generally if a patient is unhoused, like when he gets discharged and goes home, hewould either need to put back on the soiled clothes because they're not going to put
clothes from the street into the laundry.
um Or he would have to leave the hospital in like paper scrubs um that, you know, thedoctors and nurses wear.
(21:04):
So there's already a societal judgment.
Uh, for, for unhoused people in the first place.
And so then if you're, if you're discharging them from the hospital and they are wearingpaper scrubs, for instance, what people see is not necessarily the situation.
They see someone that's unwell, um, in some way, or form.
(21:28):
Um, and so in that specific patient's case, like, and this isn't to get, you know, acookie or a trophy, but
I took, it was around Thanksgiving, I took my little sister, I was like, hey, you and yourfriend are gonna learn about like what, you know, being thankful is all about today and
we're going to get some clothes for this patient on this floor.
(21:49):
So let's go.
And we went and got, you know, just like an outfit or whatever and took it to him.
But if it wasn't for that, I don't think that there would have been very many options forhim to have.
And so it's put on the people that either work there or choose to because there aren'tsystems in place for the most vulnerable.
(22:10):
Yeah.
And that's real.
And I imagine you could tell a thousand stories like that.
And there's a thousand stories like that, you know, just in our society.
When you were training to become a nurse, what surprised you when you actually became anurse versus when you were preparing to be a nurse?
I think all of us sort of have that experience and it dovetails with the cult experience,right?
(22:35):
Because
Cults often make these promises that they never deliver on to candidates.
And I imagine the nursing profession was the same way.
So what did you expect going into the nursing profession as you were preparing?
And then what was the reality and what surprised you the most after becoming a nurse?
(22:57):
Yeah, that's a great question.
much.
uh So this is not a very common um experience, I don't think with nurses, but I'm notreally sure why I became a nurse.
Well, I know a little bit, but I was a CNA because I just wanted benefits and I wanted tomake money because I had been a hostess, waitress or bartender for years and I wanted
(23:21):
something consistent because then I would be a real adult.
uh So I, you
That's why I ended up going to nursing school because I loved my memory care patients.
They were all older and I loved them so much.
And so I was like, well, you I love these people.
So I might as well become a nurse.
ah They really push the fact that you make really good money, that you have really goodbenefits, that it's in some ways, like in many ways easier than...
(23:53):
a lot of other jobs and CNA is hard work.
Like I, I think that's one of the most difficult jobs in a hospital personally.
Uh, you know, you're pushing, pulling, cleaning, like doing all the things.
And so they really push that there's going to be this like,
Thank
like pink clouds and rainbows or whatever the saying is that's gonna be afterwards andyou're just gonna be like happy, like I'm a nurse and everything's great.
(24:17):
ah That I did not find to be true.
um And also maybe that is true for some people, but many times you're sacrificing yourmental health, your physical health, um your quality of life.
um
So anything less than a 12 hour shift in the nursing world and a lot of healthcare iscalled a princess shift.
(24:41):
So you are the expectation is to work at least 12 hours and anything less than that, likeyou're a princess that day and like that's how much you're expected to work.
And most places have mandatory overtime.
So you're not even just going to work, you know, those 36 hours plus whatever give ortake, but you're going to be
(25:03):
uh, working over that.
Um, and you're literally only going to have time to sleep and maybe eat.
Although many times I just didn't even choose to eat.
I just went to bed.
Um, so that's probably one of the biggest, I would say one of the biggest things is thequality of life that, that you'll have that they really talk about how this is great, but
(25:26):
it's not, and, uh, yeah.
It's so similar to being a soldier, think, honestly, where it's like, you know, the wholetime you're being recruited into the military, nobody's ever like, you're going to work 12
hours a day when you're expected to show up at six o'clock in the morning to work out andyou don't typically go home till five or six at night.
(25:47):
Like you're working 12 hours a day all the time.
You know, the military, like we don't have overtime, right?
Like you're just going to work overtime whenever they want you to.
And then, you know, the other thing of what you said that really stood out to me is theexpectation for the continual self-sacrifice.
Right.
And this is one of the things that I find to be literally a deceptive part of the process,which is the amount that you're going to be told every day that you're expected to
(26:17):
self-sacrifice.
And I think in
nursing, just like in soldiering, because it's so easy to tie it to life and death.
Right?
It's easy for them to be like, well, just got to do it.
You just got to suck it up.
In the army, we literally have a saying, embrace the suck, you know, and I truly, trulybelieve that the constant requirement for self-sacrifice is the reason why we always see
(26:45):
suicides associated with cults, because
Nobody can just give and give and give and give.
I completely agree.
I'm sure it's like, I don't know for sure, but I imagine that it would be like this in themilitary as well, where you're also not allowed to outwardly show any of your emotion or
(27:07):
dissatisfaction with what's happening.
So we were literally taught in nursing school, um you know, like you're going to go do CPRon a patient, which this happened multiple times, like you're going to go try to save a
patient's life.
You're not going to save their life.
and you can go in the bathroom and your eyes can tear up and you can like cry for like twoseconds.
And then you need to put your nurse face on.
(27:27):
Like this is what the teachers would do.
They'd be like, nurse face, nurse face.
And then you get back out there and you go take care of your other patients and you'refine.
Like you needed to put on essentially a mask as soon as you exited that moment to yourselfwhere you were no longer feeling any of the emotions so that nobody could tell.
(27:49):
You'd be like, hi, Mrs.
Smith.
What a great day as you just like saw someone die.
I literally have probably talked about this on this podcast too many times, but I had anevent overseas where we lost 10 people in one day, right?
And so the next day at the funeral, I literally get pulled aside and questioned as to whyI am crying.
(28:13):
and that it's unprofessional and it's making them think I was having an inappropriaterelationship with one of the men.
And then I'm literally told again, don't let your soldiers see you cry.
I'm very proud of the fact that I angrily stomped over to my soldiers and said, let's go,we're all going to go cry.
ah You know, but this emotional deadening that you're supposed to have and this
(28:40):
Like even just the idea that your patient seeing you upset by somebody else's death wouldupset them.
You know, I feel like having a nurse whose emotions I could see would probably be morecomforting to somebody in a hospital than nurse space.
(29:01):
But
It's not in a cult.
No, and they don't teach you that either.
They don't teach you how to interact with like families and stuff when you're not thatthey should, but they don't, you you're expected to not have this emotion, but then they
don't really tell you.
Like I remember the first time that I had a patient that was, you know, coding in a very,very emergent situation.
(29:25):
It was before they let families into the room.
Now a lot of hospitals will do it where they'll let the family stay bedside while all ofthe stuff is going on for transparency, I guess.
But the wife was standing outside of the room and I went over there and I didn't even knowit wasn't my patient, but she was just standing there all alone outside the room while
(29:47):
potentially her spouse is, you know, like dying in the room.
And I had no idea what, like, what do you say to that?
So I was like, do you want a cup of coffee?
And she was like, no, I'm good.
But like I did, I had nothing.
Like there was no nothing in my brain except to ask if she wanted coffee.
Cause what do you say to people?
(30:08):
And you know, this is actually something that stood out to me.
So my daughter, when she was born, did not breathe for seven minutes.
I'm pretty sure it's just because she's that ornery and nobody asked her if she was readyto breathe yet.
But what stood out to me the most, right?
So it's like, right, I'm lying in the bed, my husband's like, why is she blue?
(30:29):
They boom, code pink, 12 people are in the room and nobody the entire time.
said one word to me about like, it's gonna be okay.
It was literally not one thing from the people.
And it's like, you're very glad that they're focused on the child.
(30:51):
But and I asked about it afterwards.
And he actually said the doctor said, yeah, labor and delivery is the most sued ofanything.
And like, they can't.
They can't tell you it's gonna be okay, because what if it's not?
know, and that, like, it's not like I have an answer of what they should have said.
(31:11):
It was just very isolating and alone.
at a crazy, crazy time.
can't imagine, especially right after.
I never worked labor and delivery, but I can't imagine, especially right after.
that's when you're, you you're supposed to, it's supposed to be different.
Yeah.
Jess, I'm curious as someone who worked as a nurse on the inside and uh perhaps have hadopportunities now to go to the doctor and to be a patient, how have your experiences
(31:43):
changed the way that you interact with your healthcare providers?
uh Well, I have some, I guess, strong opinions as far as that goes.
uh
So I think, and Danielle was talking a little bit about it earlier.
um This wasn't the terminology used, but it was something like pull yourself up by thebootstraps, like suck it up, you know, deal with it.
(32:11):
um That's also, I think, the way a lot of us were raised as kids to do.
And I think working in healthcare, it reaffirms that narrative even more, even in going tothe doctor and interacting with your own
doctors where I'm like, okay, well, I have to seem like I'm okay.
(32:32):
I have it all together.
Or they might think that I'm seeking drugs or that I'm, uh you know, hysterical in quotes,for lack of a better word.
um You know, and I had multiple horrible experiences in the emergency room and in doctorsoffices, like, where they
(32:53):
just didn't listen and I did not know what to do.
was like, what am I supposed to do because people like many healthcare providers won'tlisten if you're too emotional or too anxious or because they think that that must be the
reason why.
but they also won't listen if you're too okay or like you're too put together or you'retoo this or that.
(33:15):
And so I would try to make sure that I wore certain outfits because I had heard thingspeople had said about how you should be dressed.
I would tell everybody like, I'm a nurse.
Did that make me get treated any better?
I don't think so, but maybe, And so it...
You know, coming from that side of it, I think that many of us trust the healthcare systemless than maybe the public does.
(33:44):
But we're also supposed to stand behind that no matter what.
Don't speak ill it in public by any means.
Yeah, in that tracks, right?
Because you've seen it up close, you've seen it firsthand, and so you're in a position toknow, right?
And that's, you know, there's so much of this, uh for lack of a better term, uh toxicpositivity that gets tossed around in our nation when it comes to a lot of these
(34:09):
instances.
We're not willing as a society to deal with the problems and what isn't acknowledged willnever change.
And so kudos to you on speaking out about this.
I wonder, was there a particular moment or was it a collection of experiences?
uh We use this terminology when we're talking about cults, when the brainwashing startedto crack for you and you saw, hey, this isn't what I was promised.
(34:41):
It's not what is presented to the public.
Or was it a collection of instances for you?
think it was most likely a collection.
can name a time that I started to think maybe I don't want to do this anymore.
Earlier, we were talking about the things, the promises that were made that didn't cometrue.
(35:04):
So something a lot of people say about nursing in particular is you can do anything withnursing.
You can do anything.
So what I wanted to do long-term was to
work for the CDC and do epidemiology type, like I wanted to do data, infectious disease,that kind of thing, like investigations regarding healthcare.
(35:26):
That was what I really wanted to do.
Well, as it turns out, it's very, very competitive and they prefer doctors for thatprogram.
So that wasn't really, I could have tried, but it wasn't necessarily realistic.
So it,
If you combine that with all of the little things that come, for instance, I startedhaving back problems.
(35:56):
um Only, I would say about two years after I graduated nursing school, most likely fromworking as a CNA and a nurse for all this time, but my disc had completely collapsed.
So I could no longer walk anymore to work my shifts.
And I said like, Hey, is there any administrative work that I can do?
(36:16):
No, we don't have that.
That's not, you know, we don't have 40 hours a week for you as far as that goes.
So you're going to need to take FMLA or do something else.
And so then it started clicking, like, you can do anything with nursing or withhealthcare, as long as you are able bodied enough, as long as you are like mentally fit
(36:38):
enough, as long as you are all of these things.
I also think there's this thing with cults where they're like, it's part of the deceptiverecruiting.
It like, you can do anything in theory.
And there's an example of someone who did it, right?
So this is true in the army, right?
So I wanted to be a foreign area officer, which is basically the military's diplomats.
(37:01):
And they'll tell you about that program.
They won't tell you that you don't even get a chance to apply for seven years.
So you're going to what we call in the military kick rocks for seven years.
We're gonna get seven years of your labor.
And then you can apply.
You know, and I remember when I was getting out of the military, was like, no, this isridiculous.
I'm not giving you any more of my time when you can't even promise me a path into this.
(37:27):
And somebody said to me, they're like, well, Daniela, you're not just going to walk intoan embassy and run the joint.
And I was like, no, but I could walk into an embassy and get a job there at entry levelwith skills that I already have.
Right.
And so the military does that just like
nurse where they literally say you can do anything in the military, any job that you wantto have, like the military is a version of that.
(37:50):
And that's a huge point for them in recruiting.
But they don't actually talk about like your odds of actually doing that your odds ofactually getting into that program and what that looks like.
And this is to me, this is like part of the question that Scott asked earlier, which isjust like, what were the things that surprise you when you actually get in?
(38:12):
You know, because I think if they wanted to let people know what the military was reallylike, they could.
If we wanted doctors and nurses to know what the medical system was like beforehand, theycould.
But they pretty much wait till you are in.
You've bought in so hard that they then just think you're going to keep going with thislike carrot.
(38:35):
if they would actually tell people the truth on the front end, it's likely that you wouldhave better quality recruits because they would know exactly what they're signing up for.
And there, there's a large part of the population that wants that kind of challenge thatrises to the occasion.
(38:57):
I think Daniella is a excellent example of that kind of person, right?
And Jess, you had that kind of experience as well, right?
You wanted to be a part of this, but once you got on the inside, it was completelydifferent than what you expected.
Mm hmm.
Yes.
And the goalpost constantly moves to like to what y'all were saying.
(39:19):
like once you at least for nursing, once you're doing it and you're like, this money orthe benefits or the quality of life isn't what I thought it would be, then people start
saying like, are you going to go back and get your nurse practitioner?
No, I hate this job.
Why would I do that?
Like, I don't actually want to do this at all.
I should have went for public health.
(39:39):
It would have been way easier.
oh
and less time consuming.
ah But it's too late now and I'm in debt and also disabled.
So then it's like a vicious cycle kind of.
Jess, if you were to give some advice to those of us who haven't had the experiences thatyou've had from the inside of the health profession, uh is there anything that I can do?
(40:02):
Is there anything that someone listening in our audience can do to be a better patient,right?
If we go into the doctor's office, are there questions that we should ask that perhaps wearen't asking?
Do doctors and nurses get offended?
Like if I show up?
with information like I'm buying a car and I've done my homework, that kind of thing, orhow does that work?
(40:26):
That's a good question.
So often people do.
I am a person that likes a plethora of excessive information.
So I would never get offended if somebody did their research, so to speak.
But many people do think that if you're trying to tell them what's what, that that istypically frowned upon.
(40:51):
Although that is to say that especially with rare diseases, sometimes the healthcareprofessionals have no idea what they are, they haven't heard of that, you know, what
they're doing.
So they don't really know.
um That is to say that I think they're so, it's such a short staffed field.
um And so the main thing that I could think of as far as like to be a better patient isjust,
(41:17):
Thank
you uh
and any other medical professional that's not necessarily a doctor or in a position ofauthority.
like medical assistance, nursing assistance, ah I think to remember that they're dealingwith all of the front lines.
(41:44):
ah And when people do express gratitude, it really does go uh a really long way.
Um, because, know, usually what they're getting is a pizza party, um, from, from thecompany.
And there's like a big joke on social media about the pizza parties because that's whatthey do to say thank you to nurses is throw this big pizza party instead of actually doing
(42:07):
something that people would want.
Like, yeah, pizza's great and all, but like, we could buy our own pizza.
as well, right?
They do that for seventh graders.
Yeah, yeah.
Or they'll give you like a little coffee mug with like the hospital name on it.
Like, yeah.
And so sometimes like the biggest reward that at least when I was still working, thebiggest reward I could get was for a patient to express, you know, like, genuine
(42:33):
gratitude.
And that, like, got me through my day a lot of days.
Yeah.
There's also, you know, kind of an interesting thing of like an interesting balancebetween like the doctor might be an expert on medicine, but you're an expert on you.
(42:53):
And I think
You know, there's so much about authority when it comes to cults and coercive control andsimply like what you said, just like understanding like they're not on a pedestal.
This is just a person that went to school for something you didn't go to school for, andthey're not more special, more important or anything than you are.
(43:15):
Cause so many times people just don't stand up for themselves in hospitals, you know, andthat can be a huge thing.
totally agree that made me think of how paternalistic it can be, ah which, you know, withthe cults of white supremacy and all that, it all goes hand in hand.
But like the doctor-patient relationship is often, or even sometimes the nurse-patientrelationship is often, I know best and you should listen to me and do as I say, or, you
(43:47):
know, follow directions and then you'll be good.
ah But you're exactly right.
you know your body and you know yourself and it's okay to say that did not work for mebefore and if you will not help me in the way that I would like to be helped then I will
find someone that will.
I think that's totally accurate and people don't do it very often.
(44:10):
And I think the, it's very important that the flip side of this, unfortunately in thesociety that we're living in now is there's so much misinformation as we're recording this
podcast.
Just this week, there was a guy in Atlanta that shot up the CDC because he had issues withthe vaccines and all of that nonsense that is out there.
(44:36):
And he was blaming the COVID vaccination.
of the human as well as change the human and put it out there in the world.
So, I'm going to tell you a things that could really help you.
The first thing is, how to talk to us.
And we're going to talk about the ways in which can you.
(44:57):
be critical of the information that you're receiving, um but also to make sure that theinformation that you're receiving is valid because there's so much out there
And unfortunately, it's coming from a lot of people in our own government today.
Yes, yes.
And thank you for saying that because that is so true.
(45:19):
is such a there's such a fine line between wanting to be an expert on something that youhaven't taken years to study versus advocating for yourself and where your information is
coming from to you know, if you have like a group of trusted healthcare professionals,ones that either you've had for a long time, like it's been your your primary care doctor
(45:43):
or your
your people for quite some time and multitudes of these people are saying the same thingregarding the science.
I don't think that you have to know necessarily how to interpret all of that data to thinklike logically this is probably not horrible.
um And that's another thing is trusted healthcare professionals.
(46:06):
But nursing was voted at one time the most trusted profession, I believe.
Yeah.
So that leads me to a funny question, which is something I say is cults always hatemedical care.
(46:33):
Does the system of health care hate medical care?
I'm gonna go a little further, right?
So in the military, we have very good healthcare, medical care, but we're not supposed touse it.
And there's an attitude of shut up and drink a Motrin and carry on.
And literally to the point that when we get out, we have to deconstruct that attitude.
(46:58):
And so I've heard of many doctors and nurses that won't go to medical care, won't taketheir children to medical care.
And I wonder if there's some sort of like institutional messaging that like, you're notsupposed to use this.
That was a mic drop.
how did you say it?
Does the system of medical care hate medical care?
(47:18):
Yes, we do.
Like we don't, and you're supposed to still come to work.
Like, no, you don't need, you don't need a test.
You don't need, uh you know, just take some ibuprofen.
Like you'll be fine.
And so many, so many of us do that.
um I personally would never go to the emergency room unless I was quite
(47:43):
quite clearly going to not be okay.
um And even then, I always say, I always joke that I um that I might deceased from amedical emergency because I'll probably just assume that they'll say, you'll be fine and
then go away because we do.
We normalize people's uh symptoms and experiences and we ourselves are acting like it's nobig deal.
(48:09):
oh
Your kid's fine.
Why are you ever reacting?
Yeah.
Jess, we've got a few minutes left here and I want to give you the opportunity.
Is there something that you want us to know or want our audience to know about what you'veexperienced in the healthcare profession that perhaps we haven't talked about yet?
And if so, what is that or what is one thing that you want to leave us with uh in thisepisode?
(48:36):
And then also we want to talk about when you finish.
that observation, how folks can follow you and get in touch with you if they'd like to doso.
Sure, yeah.
So I think what I would want to leave people with is clearly I've said many things hereand my experience is just my experience as with any group.
No one's a monolith and we touched on this earlier, but so many people are meant to benurses and to be doctors and to be, just because that was not my experience and maybe I...
(49:10):
wasn't aware of what I was getting into doesn't mean that it's going to be yours.
And so if that is something that you want to do by all means, like we need we have we weneed you, you are not obligated, but, uh you know, just to, let people know that they can
do it.
Like I was somebody that was a complete wild child teenager, um had substance abuse issuesfor a while, like all of these things and, you know, really ended up
(49:41):
trying something completely new and like rebuilding my GPA.
And so you can do it regardless of your circumstances.
um And so I don't want to deter people necessarily from it.
But like y'all said, I think have a critical eye and be skeptical and don't sugarcoat whatmaybe you are signing up for.
(50:04):
And to anybody that is it's too late, you're already in.
(50:25):
And this is one of, think, across the board, one of the ways that I tell people to protectyourself from coercion and
harm from cults is to value your time and your labor.
And obviously, you can only do that so much when you're in a system that doesn't allow youto do that.
But you can do it sometimes, you know, I remembered how mad I was from being overworked asa young officer.
(50:51):
And so then I stood up as much as I could when I was a senior officer.
So that kind of thing.
uh
want to talk about real quick, The Culting of America, because it is out on presale now,which is my new book.
And I do talk about nursing quite a bit and just the caring professions.
(51:12):
And if anyone wants to check that out, presale links are in the the deets.
uh One of the things I talk about specifically with medical care is the exit costs and notjust the cost, right?
One of the, think the most hidden things that I've heard from nurses and doctors is losingthat sense of certainty, losing that sense of what you were doing mattered and that you
(51:42):
were going to be able to kind of make your life in this system.
How have you dealt with that?
First of all, I cannot wait to read your book.
I'm so excited.
But yes, the exit costs.
It has been, I describe it to people as a grieving process that I have gone through frommultiple things that I was in a job for a while that had a great culture, great
(52:07):
leadership.
And that job specifically really gave me this
false sense of like, it's going to be fine.
Like I actually love it here and I love these people.
Uh, it turns out that since then they did layoffs due to, uh, the end of the pandemic, umbut they did some layoffs and since then it's been, I never have found a similar, uh,
(52:34):
feeling of emotional safety, um, in the job.
And so I think that
For me, it's a grieving process.
a while, I was very angry or I was hurt or I was, you know, and for a minute I was indenial.
And so it is very difficult to feel like you kind of wasted time.
(52:59):
I don't know how else to say it, but also the rewarding aspect.
So I've been...
lucky that I still feel in a sense that I can do that a little bit through social mediaand through different communities that I'm in through social media.
But the costs I think are are high to my emotional health, especially when you findyourself in your 30s and, ah you know, like without a career now.
(53:30):
So
Well, here's a here's the thing I have for you.
Some of my favorite fiction books are by people who went through.
So there's one called Discovery of Witches, right.
And it's written by a historian.
And there are like.
Maybe you write a uh novel series on nurses, right?
(53:52):
You know, like they're.
you are still, you still have that what you went through in the background, right?
Like one day I have to submit everything I write to the Pentagon.
So one day I'm going to write feminist military erotica simply for the purpose ofsubmitting it to the Pentagon.
But like, you know, even though I'm out of the military, even though I kind of regret whatI went through, but like I still always have.
(54:20):
that background of being a military officer and understanding that world.
So especially as you are a creator, right?
Like maybe there's still something about the nursing experience and knowledge that youhave that you can bring to bear on what you do.
(54:40):
And that's one of the things that I actually think is really cool about deconstructingyour cult experience.
And so like when I was leaving the military,
They were ruining my career.
was basically told that the last three years of my career wouldn't count.
I would have to do everything over again.
All this silliness.
As soon as I got out of the military, everything counted.
(55:03):
I can use every part of my experience, right, to bear going forward.
So, and I think that is the cool thing about deconstructing, right?
Like I don't have to decide if...
my experience growing up in a cult in Brazil was good or bad, I still speak Portuguese andI can use that anyway I want.
(55:24):
So that I guess would just be my hopeful message to you.
And like if you wrote a series about nursing and you could have even like the cult ofovertones to it.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
And Jess, you're doing some of that now as far as speaking out and uh making your voiceheard.
(55:47):
And we want you to continue to do that.
If folks that are listening want to follow you, what's the best way to do that?
Sure, I'm on most social medias as white mess express, WHITE, MESS, EXPRESS.
uh Right now, primarily I post on TikTok, but I'm also on sub stack uh YouTube, of theplaces mostly, I've just been very inconsistent.
(56:12):
So TikTok, if you really wanna see me uh more frequently.
Thank you.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
And thank you so much for everything that you've shared with us tonight.
And we encourage everyone just to follow you and to listen to what you have to say.
And pre-order Daniela's brand new book, The Culting of America.
(56:35):
Absolutely.
And thank you all.
Absolutely.
Thank you all for being with us.
Until next time, I'm Scott Lloyd for...
Knitting Cult Lady, Daniella Mestenek-Young, will see you on the next episode of Cults andthe Culting of America.
Welcome to another edition of Cults and the Culting of America podcast.
My name is Scott Lloyd and Daniela, how are you?
are you?
I am good.
Coming to you from Seattle where it is not 730 at night, which is lovely.
Yeah, it's a earlier.
You've been all over the country in the knitting cult RV.
(00:47):
two countries.
We went all over Canada too.
Yeah.
We've run it into fans along the way.
I think we have like 40 people coming out to see us in Seattle tonight right after this.
So it's pretty, it's pretty exciting.
Absolutely, absolutely.
And speaking of exciting, I'm glad to introduce our guest for this evening.
(01:07):
Her name is Jess.
And Jess, why don't you take a moment and introduce yourself to our audience?
Hi, my name's Jess.
I am clearly a white woman.
uh I'm autistic.
have ADHD, uh multiple different things I won't go into.
I have my Bachelor of Science in Nursing and I became a registered nurse in 2019.
(01:31):
uh Currently my license is inactive due to a technical issue.
But yeah, so I'm presently unemployed, primarily dedicating my time to social media.
I go buy white mess express on there.
Well, we're thrilled to have you tonight and we're going to be talking about how we, thinkwe can all agree, right?
That the health industry uh in the United States, the healthcare system is pretty much auh horrible mess.
(01:58):
uh But beyond that, um you're here to make the argument and I tend to agree with you thatit's also a little bit culty.
uh What do you mean by that?
Well, where do I start?
ah I think, I mean, there is so much in the nursing profession in general.
(02:22):
uh So obviously I'm not the expert on colts, but I do know that when you, sorry, my dogis, okay.
I do know that when you are,
moving up, it's almost like there's a tiered system.
So you have to start at this level.
And then at some point, maybe you'll be competent enough to move to the next level.
(02:46):
ah There's this whole thing with nurses.
When I was a new grad, they said, oh, you have to start on medsurg.
You can't work outpatient as a new grad.
That's not a thing.
And I was like, but I don't want to work.
medical surgical nursing.
And it didn't, it didn't compute in my brain why that was necessary.
And it was because it was almost like a rite of passage, like that you have to work thishorrible unit before you can do something you actually want to do.
(03:16):
So yeah.
Let me jump in on that because we see that all the time, right?
And we recently had a podcast guest who said that in their cult, like everyone had tostart at the bottom and including, you know, their husband came in with all these
technical skills, had to start off at the bottom.
What you talk about, that was my experience in the army where they're like, Lieutenant isa Lieutenant is a Lieutenant.
(03:39):
don't care what skills you have brought in with you.
So we're going to take.
Daniela, a trilingual woman, and make you go do the same thing.
And it is that exactly that rite of passage that like, you know, a lot of Christian cultsdo the whole, have to be a baby, you know, we got to bring you back to basically
(04:01):
infantilize you and make sure that we've put you all through this basic experience wherewe get to humble you.
And if we don't know.
degradation experiences, degradation rituals is another big part of cults.
Yep, and that is a huge thing in nursing.
I'm sure you've heard about the people that talk about like the bullying that happens,like especially with new nurses or travel nurses.
(04:29):
There is a whole kind of culture of
you're either up here or you're not.
And you are literally called a baby nurse when you come out of nursing, like that's whatthey call you.
Like what you just said, they refer to you as a baby nurse.
And every time you start a new nursing position with a different, so if I worked inoncology and then I switched to a different kind of unit or a different outpatient
(04:59):
environment, I would again be a baby nurse because
I don't know anything anymore.
And when they do those kinds of things, what do they tell you is the purpose of it?
does anybody talk about that?
Does anybody try to justify it?
Yes.
So ah I wrote something down earlier because I didn't want to forget.
(05:20):
ah And I think it speaks to that.
And one of those is you must be constantly learning, but not if it's on topics that aren'tapproved or your scope of practice.
So please be always learning.
And that's why you're the baby nurse, unless that's about these things.
ah You must critically think.
(05:43):
but not if you're rocking the boat.
You must come to work when you're sick, but if you kill a cancer patient because you cameto work with the flu, like you'll live with that.
That'll be your problem.
um So it's a lot of these like, yes, be constantly learning because that's why you're ababy nurse again, because you always can learn more, but not too much.
(06:07):
You don't want to step on toes.
And that sounds like a lot of what we've discussed here on this program as far as culttactics.
And so when people, I suppose that you're also punished if anybody speaks out about it orcomplains about the process.
Yes, ah somewhat.
(06:29):
So I think one thing that's a little bit unique about health care is that it really talksso much about this environment of ah that it's a systemic problem, not a personal problem.
But then we see all the time, I was just terminated from a job for not being productiveenough in February.
(06:52):
um
productive enough, like meaning I wasn't working fast enough as they wanted me to work.
cause speed is not my skillset.
I do have multiple of them, but speed is not one.
Um, and so people are suffering the consequences of that all the time.
So they talk about quality and how it's a systemic problem, but you're still treated on anindividual basis, according to how much you are contributing or not contributing.
(07:23):
if that makes sense.
And that ends up being a huge thing that I find across the board with cults is, you know,blaming individuals for systemic issues and or having everything be an individual's faults
and just sort of never willing to look at the larger problem.
And hint hint, maybe the larger problem is everyone isn't exactly the same.
(07:45):
And if you actually put people in areas of their skill set, they're going to do muchbetter.
I will tell you, like,
Everything that I talk about, everyone else that compares all their stuff to what I talkabout, the two that I absolutely get the most are teaching and nursing.
And very recently I've started to think of, you know, the whole medical system orhealthcare system in the U.S.
(08:13):
as its own cult, like this one big system that's over everything.
Why nursing specifically?
Why is nursing?
more intense and more culty than like doctors.
That is a very good question.
think my personal opinion would be that the doctors are in the position of power.
(08:36):
So it's not that they aren't in the the culty behaviors or that in and of itself, as weknow, a lot of doctors struggle with mental health issues, um but they are typically the
ones that are looked to as the authority, whereas nurses are.
less than, um where the ones that must follow the orders follow the direction.
(08:59):
um mean, Florence Nightingale has a lot of history that's not great.
um But people still do the Florence Nightingale pledge for for nurses, which basicallysays sacrifice yourself, put your patients first and everything you do.
And like, something about being pure, the actual pledge is a little wild.
(09:22):
So it was
created this way.
And when I was 19, I went to, or not 19, it was in 2019, sorry.
I went to London, England, for a public health and nursing trip with my nursing school.
And they talked about the history of how nurses were single women that didn't like...
(09:47):
have families or lives outside and they would actually live at the hospitals to work.
So I think from the, not necessarily the beginning, but since years and years ago, likenurses were built to be kind of a culty little group.
that, yeah.
Well, and it makes sense because what we see from like more traditional cults, we see manymore women that will get out and tell their stories than men.
(10:14):
And one of the reasons we think that that's true is because, the men quite simply aren'tusually getting the most abused by the cult system.
So I guess nurses are like the women of cult and doctors are the men.
uh Obviously it often breaks down that way too, but.
what you said about the abuse being stronger on the nurses, that makes so much more senseto me.
(10:37):
Yeah, and surprise, surprise, patriarchy and sexism uh raised their ugly head once again,right?
It's like it's in everything.
I want to talk a little bit about the health care system in the United States in general.
uh Why is it as somebody who has worked on the inside of that profession, why is it thatyou think we have so many issues with our health care system?
(11:05):
in the United States?
Is it capitalism?
Is it money that is driving it?
And uh if so, is there anything that we can do about it?
Or do you see any hope on the horizon for it changing?
That's a really, really good question.
I don't even know how to answer that.
It's definitely a mess.
do think so.
(11:27):
I've heard it said before, and I do agree with that.
Healthcare is a business and in the U S um it's, it's a business.
So I, I do think it is about the money.
Now there's not for profit hospitals, but they have to have a profit sector and they relyon the government programs like Medicare, Medicaid to function.
um
(11:48):
So I do think it is about making money.
this is going to not be very hopeful, but I don't really see it uh getting better.
I think that I only see it getting worse.
And a lot of health care employees have felt that way for years.
ah And especially the direction that things are going right now, we're moving so far awayfrom any
(12:17):
Thank you.
uh
system that it's not looking good from my perspective, but I do think that it's even moreso functioning as a business now.
Sorry, my dog just decided he wanted to be the star of the show tonight.
that's fine.
You know, it strikes me uh that for so long in the United States, we have uh approachedhealth care as a privilege instead of a right.
(12:47):
And when as long as we continue to view it through that perspective, we're going tocontinue to have these issues because it attaches to what you've already touched on the
idea of how women are treated, but it
but it extends beyond that, right?
If we talk about the rest of the marginalized uh people groups in our society, black andbrown individuals, black women especially, uh poor people in our society.
(13:17):
uh So many times we see that the marginalized or the oppressed are on the fringes andbecause we treat healthcare as a privilege,
for those that can afford it and not as a right for those that have it, we continue tohave this cycle in the United States.
(13:38):
I'm curious as a nurse who's worked in the profession, obviously your first priority is tocare for the patient, but beyond that, do doctors and nurses, do you talk about these
particular issues or do doctors and nurses really not have a say in how
(13:58):
prices are set, things of that nature.
The economic end of the healthcare system, if you will.
That's a really, really good question.
uh We may talk about it, but it's more of an opinion base.
uh Typically, unless you are in some way ahead of a board for the hospital as a doctor,you are not involved in the money making decisions of the hospital or how much the care
(14:25):
costs.
And those things a lot of times aren't even determined by the hospital itself.
It's by insurance metrics and all of these different things.
you
typically the people that are, at least in my experience, the people that are the mostinvolved either don't have any patient care experience or very little.
(14:49):
ah you know, they weren't the ones that, that started.
You know, from, don't like to use the terminology, but like from the bottom, uh, if youwill, like as a CNA or something, you know, they're the ones that just went to school for
healthcare.
business and, you know, got their masters and now they wear a suit and come to work acouple of days a week.
(15:10):
And they're the ones that are deciding uh all of, all of these things.
And I completely agree that it should be a basic right.
It is a basic human right to have healthcare.
And it is very much so treated like a privilege.
And we don't have really any, any say in that.
(15:33):
um
but we're the ones delivering that care.
So we are the ones that get told about it, I guess.
Right, and you also have to deliver the news, right, to a patient if they need a certainprocedure or a certain drug or a certain uh plan of care and their insurance doesn't cover
(15:54):
it, there's nothing that you can do as providers on your end to provide that for them.
Yeah, not much.
Sometimes there's some programs that we can look into.
ah But even that, that's while you're doing 20 million other things.
And so it's very hard to juggle.
if there's not a specific program, yeah, we don't have uh much control.
(16:19):
So what happens is we end up mainly caring for those with some aspect of privilege orthose that are critical and don't have a choice any longer.
And people go into debt, right?
Like one of the main reasons Americans declare bankruptcy is medical debt.
You know, and this was South Africa after apartheid, I was listening to Trevor Noah'samazing book for the third time, Born a Crime, so good.
(16:47):
And there's this part where his mother literally has been shot in the head.
And they are
turning him they're literally telling him she doesn't have insurance and if you can't putdown a credit card for could be millions of dollars we have to send her somewhere else and
it's one of those moments I feel like it's almost we're almost there in the US you knowand it's one of those moments that makes you realize it's like the first thing about
(17:17):
America right to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness do people have a right to lifeif you don't
have accessible healthcare.
Exactly.
My mother is uh 90 years old now and we, uh me and my siblings are facing the difficultyof transitioning her into an assisted living care facility.
(17:39):
And we're having to navigate all of the issues that have to do with Medicaid and Medicare.
And we see that from legislation that has been passed recently in the United States, thatall of that is becoming increasingly more
complicated.
And if we talk about the aspect of the cultiness of the healthcare uh profession andsystem uh in our country, um like so many other cults, right?
(18:10):
The folks that end up getting hurt by this are the most vulnerable.
Or the people that are there providing the services, as you've already mentioned, as anurse, you have to deal with all of this
for lack of a better term, think hazing fits, right?
It's bullying and hazing and uh initiation into that.
(18:33):
And then you have the added pressure of dealing with people and patients that can't affordthe services.
So that's gotta be incredibly frustrating.
And you mentioned the mental health issues that just adds to the trauma oh on the frontlines of people that are endeavoring to help.
back seat could come out and be here.
(18:54):
You just the way they are, I the way they're doing it, think, is we need to do.
I think that's need to do.
that's we need to I think that's what we need to do.
I think that's what to I think that's what we need to what I that's do.
(19:20):
so accurate.
So on the vulnerability, ah I'm trying to think I feel honestly, sometimes like I'veblocked out so much of my ah like nursing experiences, because it's just not very pleasant
to think about.
ah But I, there has been so many times that there has been
(19:44):
I a I lot I I
such vulnerable people uh that either should be sent home but they don't have a place togo um or they are treated differently by the healthcare system as a whole for who they are
(20:06):
or the conditions that they have.
And it's very evident.
when you see people that are marginalized.
one, one example I can think of is, um, we had, we had one patient that was there and itwas a man that was unhoused.
And there was this situation where, like, he did not have clothes to wear because they hadbeen destroyed essentially or soil before, um, coming into the hospital.
(20:36):
And there's no, they didn't have anything to do about that.
So generally if a patient is unhoused, like when he gets discharged and goes home, hewould either need to put back on the soiled clothes because they're not going to put
clothes from the street into the laundry.
um Or he would have to leave the hospital in like paper scrubs um that, you know, thedoctors and nurses wear.
(21:04):
So there's already a societal judgment.
Uh, for, for unhoused people in the first place.
And so then if you're, if you're discharging them from the hospital and they are wearingpaper scrubs, for instance, what people see is not necessarily the situation.
They see someone that's unwell, um, in some way, or form.
(21:28):
Um, and so in that specific patient's case, like, and this isn't to get, you know, acookie or a trophy, but
I took, it was around Thanksgiving, I took my little sister, I was like, hey, you and yourfriend are gonna learn about like what, you know, being thankful is all about today and
we're going to get some clothes for this patient on this floor.
(21:49):
So let's go.
And we went and got, you know, just like an outfit or whatever and took it to him.
But if it wasn't for that, I don't think that there would have been very many options forhim to have.
And so it's put on the people that either work there or choose to because there aren'tsystems in place for the most vulnerable.
(22:10):
Yeah.
And that's real.
And I imagine you could tell a thousand stories like that.
And there's a thousand stories like that, you know, just in our society.
When you were training to become a nurse, what surprised you when you actually became anurse versus when you were preparing to be a nurse?
I think all of us sort of have that experience and it dovetails with the cult experience,right?
(22:35):
Because
Cults often make these promises that they never deliver on to candidates.
And I imagine the nursing profession was the same way.
So what did you expect going into the nursing profession as you were preparing?
And then what was the reality and what surprised you the most after becoming a nurse?
(22:57):
Yeah, that's a great question.
much.
uh So this is not a very common um experience, I don't think with nurses, but I'm notreally sure why I became a nurse.
Well, I know a little bit, but I was a CNA because I just wanted benefits and I wanted tomake money because I had been a hostess, waitress or bartender for years and I wanted
(23:21):
something consistent because then I would be a real adult.
uh So I, you
That's why I ended up going to nursing school because I loved my memory care patients.
They were all older and I loved them so much.
And so I was like, well, you I love these people.
So I might as well become a nurse.
ah They really push the fact that you make really good money, that you have really goodbenefits, that it's in some ways, like in many ways easier than...
(23:53):
a lot of other jobs and CNA is hard work.
Like I, I think that's one of the most difficult jobs in a hospital personally.
Uh, you know, you're pushing, pulling, cleaning, like doing all the things.
And so they really push that there's going to be this like,
Thank
like pink clouds and rainbows or whatever the saying is that's gonna be afterwards andyou're just gonna be like happy, like I'm a nurse and everything's great.
(24:17):
ah That I did not find to be true.
um And also maybe that is true for some people, but many times you're sacrificing yourmental health, your physical health, um your quality of life.
um
So anything less than a 12 hour shift in the nursing world and a lot of healthcare iscalled a princess shift.
(24:41):
So you are the expectation is to work at least 12 hours and anything less than that, likeyou're a princess that day and like that's how much you're expected to work.
And most places have mandatory overtime.
So you're not even just going to work, you know, those 36 hours plus whatever give ortake, but you're going to be
(25:03):
uh, working over that.
Um, and you're literally only going to have time to sleep and maybe eat.
Although many times I just didn't even choose to eat.
I just went to bed.
Um, so that's probably one of the biggest, I would say one of the biggest things is thequality of life that, that you'll have that they really talk about how this is great, but
(25:26):
it's not, and, uh, yeah.
It's so similar to being a soldier, think, honestly, where it's like, you know, the wholetime you're being recruited into the military, nobody's ever like, you're going to work 12
hours a day when you're expected to show up at six o'clock in the morning to work out andyou don't typically go home till five or six at night.
(25:47):
Like you're working 12 hours a day all the time.
You know, the military, like we don't have overtime, right?
Like you're just going to work overtime whenever they want you to.
And then, you know, the other thing of what you said that really stood out to me is theexpectation for the continual self-sacrifice.
Right.
And this is one of the things that I find to be literally a deceptive part of the process,which is the amount that you're going to be told every day that you're expected to
(26:17):
self-sacrifice.
And I think in
nursing, just like in soldiering, because it's so easy to tie it to life and death.
Right?
It's easy for them to be like, well, just got to do it.
You just got to suck it up.
In the army, we literally have a saying, embrace the suck, you know, and I truly, trulybelieve that the constant requirement for self-sacrifice is the reason why we always see
(26:45):
suicides associated with cults, because
Nobody can just give and give and give and give.
I completely agree.
I'm sure it's like, I don't know for sure, but I imagine that it would be like this in themilitary as well, where you're also not allowed to outwardly show any of your emotion or
(27:07):
dissatisfaction with what's happening.
So we were literally taught in nursing school, um you know, like you're going to go do CPRon a patient, which this happened multiple times, like you're going to go try to save a
patient's life.
You're not going to save their life.
and you can go in the bathroom and your eyes can tear up and you can like cry for like twoseconds.
And then you need to put your nurse face on.
(27:27):
Like this is what the teachers would do.
They'd be like, nurse face, nurse face.
And then you get back out there and you go take care of your other patients and you'refine.
Like you needed to put on essentially a mask as soon as you exited that moment to yourselfwhere you were no longer feeling any of the emotions so that nobody could tell.
(27:49):
You'd be like, hi, Mrs.
Smith.
What a great day as you just like saw someone die.
I literally have probably talked about this on this podcast too many times, but I had anevent overseas where we lost 10 people in one day, right?
And so the next day at the funeral, I literally get pulled aside and questioned as to whyI am crying.
(28:13):
and that it's unprofessional and it's making them think I was having an inappropriaterelationship with one of the men.
And then I'm literally told again, don't let your soldiers see you cry.
I'm very proud of the fact that I angrily stomped over to my soldiers and said, let's go,we're all going to go cry.
ah You know, but this emotional deadening that you're supposed to have and this
(28:40):
Like even just the idea that your patient seeing you upset by somebody else's death wouldupset them.
You know, I feel like having a nurse whose emotions I could see would probably be morecomforting to somebody in a hospital than nurse space.
(29:01):
But
It's not in a cult.
No, and they don't teach you that either.
They don't teach you how to interact with like families and stuff when you're not thatthey should, but they don't, you you're expected to not have this emotion, but then they
don't really tell you.
Like I remember the first time that I had a patient that was, you know, coding in a very,very emergent situation.
(29:25):
It was before they let families into the room.
Now a lot of hospitals will do it where they'll let the family stay bedside while all ofthe stuff is going on for transparency, I guess.
But the wife was standing outside of the room and I went over there and I didn't even knowit wasn't my patient, but she was just standing there all alone outside the room while
(29:47):
potentially her spouse is, you know, like dying in the room.
And I had no idea what, like, what do you say to that?
So I was like, do you want a cup of coffee?
And she was like, no, I'm good.
But like I did, I had nothing.
Like there was no nothing in my brain except to ask if she wanted coffee.
Cause what do you say to people?
(30:08):
And you know, this is actually something that stood out to me.
So my daughter, when she was born, did not breathe for seven minutes.
I'm pretty sure it's just because she's that ornery and nobody asked her if she was readyto breathe yet.
But what stood out to me the most, right?
So it's like, right, I'm lying in the bed, my husband's like, why is she blue?
(30:29):
They boom, code pink, 12 people are in the room and nobody the entire time.
said one word to me about like, it's gonna be okay.
It was literally not one thing from the people.
And it's like, you're very glad that they're focused on the child.
(30:51):
But and I asked about it afterwards.
And he actually said the doctor said, yeah, labor and delivery is the most sued ofanything.
And like, they can't.
They can't tell you it's gonna be okay, because what if it's not?
know, and that, like, it's not like I have an answer of what they should have said.
(31:11):
It was just very isolating and alone.
at a crazy, crazy time.
can't imagine, especially right after.
I never worked labor and delivery, but I can't imagine, especially right after.
that's when you're, you you're supposed to, it's supposed to be different.
Yeah.
Jess, I'm curious as someone who worked as a nurse on the inside and uh perhaps have hadopportunities now to go to the doctor and to be a patient, how have your experiences
(31:43):
changed the way that you interact with your healthcare providers?
uh Well, I have some, I guess, strong opinions as far as that goes.
uh
So I think, and Danielle was talking a little bit about it earlier.
um This wasn't the terminology used, but it was something like pull yourself up by thebootstraps, like suck it up, you know, deal with it.
(32:11):
um That's also, I think, the way a lot of us were raised as kids to do.
And I think working in healthcare, it reaffirms that narrative even more, even in going tothe doctor and interacting with your own
doctors where I'm like, okay, well, I have to seem like I'm okay.
(32:32):
I have it all together.
Or they might think that I'm seeking drugs or that I'm, uh you know, hysterical in quotes,for lack of a better word.
um You know, and I had multiple horrible experiences in the emergency room and in doctorsoffices, like, where they
(32:53):
just didn't listen and I did not know what to do.
was like, what am I supposed to do because people like many healthcare providers won'tlisten if you're too emotional or too anxious or because they think that that must be the
reason why.
but they also won't listen if you're too okay or like you're too put together or you'retoo this or that.
(33:15):
And so I would try to make sure that I wore certain outfits because I had heard thingspeople had said about how you should be dressed.
I would tell everybody like, I'm a nurse.
Did that make me get treated any better?
I don't think so, but maybe, And so it...
You know, coming from that side of it, I think that many of us trust the healthcare systemless than maybe the public does.
(33:44):
But we're also supposed to stand behind that no matter what.
Don't speak ill it in public by any means.
Yeah, in that tracks, right?
Because you've seen it up close, you've seen it firsthand, and so you're in a position toknow, right?
And that's, you know, there's so much of this, uh for lack of a better term, uh toxicpositivity that gets tossed around in our nation when it comes to a lot of these
(34:09):
instances.
We're not willing as a society to deal with the problems and what isn't acknowledged willnever change.
And so kudos to you on speaking out about this.
I wonder, was there a particular moment or was it a collection of experiences?
uh We use this terminology when we're talking about cults, when the brainwashing startedto crack for you and you saw, hey, this isn't what I was promised.
(34:41):
It's not what is presented to the public.
Or was it a collection of instances for you?
think it was most likely a collection.
can name a time that I started to think maybe I don't want to do this anymore.
Earlier, we were talking about the things, the promises that were made that didn't cometrue.
(35:04):
So something a lot of people say about nursing in particular is you can do anything withnursing.
You can do anything.
So what I wanted to do long-term was to
work for the CDC and do epidemiology type, like I wanted to do data, infectious disease,that kind of thing, like investigations regarding healthcare.
(35:26):
That was what I really wanted to do.
Well, as it turns out, it's very, very competitive and they prefer doctors for thatprogram.
So that wasn't really, I could have tried, but it wasn't necessarily realistic.
So it,
If you combine that with all of the little things that come, for instance, I startedhaving back problems.
(35:56):
um Only, I would say about two years after I graduated nursing school, most likely fromworking as a CNA and a nurse for all this time, but my disc had completely collapsed.
So I could no longer walk anymore to work my shifts.
And I said like, Hey, is there any administrative work that I can do?
(36:16):
No, we don't have that.
That's not, you know, we don't have 40 hours a week for you as far as that goes.
So you're going to need to take FMLA or do something else.
And so then it started clicking, like, you can do anything with nursing or withhealthcare, as long as you are able bodied enough, as long as you are like mentally fit
(36:38):
enough, as long as you are all of these things.
I also think there's this thing with cults where they're like, it's part of the deceptiverecruiting.
It like, you can do anything in theory.
And there's an example of someone who did it, right?
So this is true in the army, right?
So I wanted to be a foreign area officer, which is basically the military's diplomats.
(37:01):
And they'll tell you about that program.
They won't tell you that you don't even get a chance to apply for seven years.
So you're going to what we call in the military kick rocks for seven years.
We're gonna get seven years of your labor.
And then you can apply.
You know, and I remember when I was getting out of the military, was like, no, this isridiculous.
I'm not giving you any more of my time when you can't even promise me a path into this.
(37:27):
And somebody said to me, they're like, well, Daniela, you're not just going to walk intoan embassy and run the joint.
And I was like, no, but I could walk into an embassy and get a job there at entry levelwith skills that I already have.
Right.
And so the military does that just like
nurse where they literally say you can do anything in the military, any job that you wantto have, like the military is a version of that.
(37:50):
And that's a huge point for them in recruiting.
But they don't actually talk about like your odds of actually doing that your odds ofactually getting into that program and what that looks like.
And this is to me, this is like part of the question that Scott asked earlier, which isjust like, what were the things that surprise you when you actually get in?
(38:12):
You know, because I think if they wanted to let people know what the military was reallylike, they could.
If we wanted doctors and nurses to know what the medical system was like beforehand, theycould.
But they pretty much wait till you are in.
You've bought in so hard that they then just think you're going to keep going with thislike carrot.
(38:35):
if they would actually tell people the truth on the front end, it's likely that you wouldhave better quality recruits because they would know exactly what they're signing up for.
And there, there's a large part of the population that wants that kind of challenge thatrises to the occasion.
(38:57):
I think Daniella is a excellent example of that kind of person, right?
And Jess, you had that kind of experience as well, right?
You wanted to be a part of this, but once you got on the inside, it was completelydifferent than what you expected.
Mm hmm.
Yes.
And the goalpost constantly moves to like to what y'all were saying.
(39:19):
like once you at least for nursing, once you're doing it and you're like, this money orthe benefits or the quality of life isn't what I thought it would be, then people start
saying like, are you going to go back and get your nurse practitioner?
No, I hate this job.
Why would I do that?
Like, I don't actually want to do this at all.
I should have went for public health.
(39:39):
It would have been way easier.
oh
and less time consuming.
ah But it's too late now and I'm in debt and also disabled.
So then it's like a vicious cycle kind of.
Jess, if you were to give some advice to those of us who haven't had the experiences thatyou've had from the inside of the health profession, uh is there anything that I can do?
(40:02):
Is there anything that someone listening in our audience can do to be a better patient,right?
If we go into the doctor's office, are there questions that we should ask that perhaps wearen't asking?
Do doctors and nurses get offended?
Like if I show up?
with information like I'm buying a car and I've done my homework, that kind of thing, orhow does that work?
(40:26):
That's a good question.
So often people do.
I am a person that likes a plethora of excessive information.
So I would never get offended if somebody did their research, so to speak.
But many people do think that if you're trying to tell them what's what, that that istypically frowned upon.
(40:51):
Although that is to say that especially with rare diseases, sometimes the healthcareprofessionals have no idea what they are, they haven't heard of that, you know, what
they're doing.
So they don't really know.
um That is to say that I think they're so, it's such a short staffed field.
um And so the main thing that I could think of as far as like to be a better patient isjust,
(41:17):
Thank
you uh
and any other medical professional that's not necessarily a doctor or in a position ofauthority.
like medical assistance, nursing assistance, ah I think to remember that they're dealingwith all of the front lines.
(41:44):
ah And when people do express gratitude, it really does go uh a really long way.
Um, because, know, usually what they're getting is a pizza party, um, from, from thecompany.
And there's like a big joke on social media about the pizza parties because that's whatthey do to say thank you to nurses is throw this big pizza party instead of actually doing
(42:07):
something that people would want.
Like, yeah, pizza's great and all, but like, we could buy our own pizza.
as well, right?
They do that for seventh graders.
Yeah, yeah.
Or they'll give you like a little coffee mug with like the hospital name on it.
Like, yeah.
And so sometimes like the biggest reward that at least when I was still working, thebiggest reward I could get was for a patient to express, you know, like, genuine
(42:33):
gratitude.
And that, like, got me through my day a lot of days.
Yeah.
There's also, you know, kind of an interesting thing of like an interesting balancebetween like the doctor might be an expert on medicine, but you're an expert on you.
(42:53):
And I think
You know, there's so much about authority when it comes to cults and coercive control andsimply like what you said, just like understanding like they're not on a pedestal.
This is just a person that went to school for something you didn't go to school for, andthey're not more special, more important or anything than you are.
(43:15):
Cause so many times people just don't stand up for themselves in hospitals, you know, andthat can be a huge thing.
totally agree that made me think of how paternalistic it can be, ah which, you know, withthe cults of white supremacy and all that, it all goes hand in hand.
But like the doctor-patient relationship is often, or even sometimes the nurse-patientrelationship is often, I know best and you should listen to me and do as I say, or, you
(43:47):
know, follow directions and then you'll be good.
ah But you're exactly right.
you know your body and you know yourself and it's okay to say that did not work for mebefore and if you will not help me in the way that I would like to be helped then I will
find someone that will.
I think that's totally accurate and people don't do it very often.
(44:10):
And I think the, it's very important that the flip side of this, unfortunately in thesociety that we're living in now is there's so much misinformation as we're recording this
podcast.
Just this week, there was a guy in Atlanta that shot up the CDC because he had issues withthe vaccines and all of that nonsense that is out there.
(44:36):
And he was blaming the COVID vaccination.
of the human as well as change the human and put it out there in the world.
So, I'm going to tell you a things that could really help you.
The first thing is, how to talk to us.
And we're going to talk about the ways in which can you.
(44:57):
be critical of the information that you're receiving, um but also to make sure that theinformation that you're receiving is valid because there's so much out there
And unfortunately, it's coming from a lot of people in our own government today.
Yes, yes.
And thank you for saying that because that is so true.
(45:19):
is such a there's such a fine line between wanting to be an expert on something that youhaven't taken years to study versus advocating for yourself and where your information is
coming from to you know, if you have like a group of trusted healthcare professionals,ones that either you've had for a long time, like it's been your your primary care doctor
(45:43):
or your
your people for quite some time and multitudes of these people are saying the same thingregarding the science.
I don't think that you have to know necessarily how to interpret all of that data to thinklike logically this is probably not horrible.
um And that's another thing is trusted healthcare professionals.
(46:06):
But nursing was voted at one time the most trusted profession, I believe.
Yeah.
So that leads me to a funny question, which is something I say is cults always hatemedical care.
(46:33):
Does the system of health care hate medical care?
I'm gonna go a little further, right?
So in the military, we have very good healthcare, medical care, but we're not supposed touse it.
And there's an attitude of shut up and drink a Motrin and carry on.
And literally to the point that when we get out, we have to deconstruct that attitude.
(46:58):
And so I've heard of many doctors and nurses that won't go to medical care, won't taketheir children to medical care.
And I wonder if there's some sort of like institutional messaging that like, you're notsupposed to use this.
That was a mic drop.
how did you say it?
Does the system of medical care hate medical care?
(47:18):
Yes, we do.
Like we don't, and you're supposed to still come to work.
Like, no, you don't need, you don't need a test.
You don't need, uh you know, just take some ibuprofen.
Like you'll be fine.
And so many, so many of us do that.
um I personally would never go to the emergency room unless I was quite
(47:43):
quite clearly going to not be okay.
um And even then, I always say, I always joke that I um that I might deceased from amedical emergency because I'll probably just assume that they'll say, you'll be fine and
then go away because we do.
We normalize people's uh symptoms and experiences and we ourselves are acting like it's nobig deal.
(48:09):
oh
Your kid's fine.
Why are you ever reacting?
Yeah.
Jess, we've got a few minutes left here and I want to give you the opportunity.
Is there something that you want us to know or want our audience to know about what you'veexperienced in the healthcare profession that perhaps we haven't talked about yet?
And if so, what is that or what is one thing that you want to leave us with uh in thisepisode?
(48:36):
And then also we want to talk about when you finish.
that observation, how folks can follow you and get in touch with you if they'd like to doso.
Sure, yeah.
So I think what I would want to leave people with is clearly I've said many things hereand my experience is just my experience as with any group.
No one's a monolith and we touched on this earlier, but so many people are meant to benurses and to be doctors and to be, just because that was not my experience and maybe I...
(49:10):
wasn't aware of what I was getting into doesn't mean that it's going to be yours.
And so if that is something that you want to do by all means, like we need we have we weneed you, you are not obligated, but, uh you know, just to, let people know that they can
do it.
Like I was somebody that was a complete wild child teenager, um had substance abuse issuesfor a while, like all of these things and, you know, really ended up
(49:41):
trying something completely new and like rebuilding my GPA.
And so you can do it regardless of your circumstances.
um And so I don't want to deter people necessarily from it.
But like y'all said, I think have a critical eye and be skeptical and don't sugarcoat whatmaybe you are signing up for.
(50:04):
And to anybody that is it's too late, you're already in.
(50:25):
And this is one of, think, across the board, one of the ways that I tell people to protectyourself from coercion and
harm from cults is to value your time and your labor.
And obviously, you can only do that so much when you're in a system that doesn't allow youto do that.
But you can do it sometimes, you know, I remembered how mad I was from being overworked asa young officer.
(50:51):
And so then I stood up as much as I could when I was a senior officer.
So that kind of thing.
uh
want to talk about real quick, The Culting of America, because it is out on presale now,which is my new book.
And I do talk about nursing quite a bit and just the caring professions.
(51:12):
And if anyone wants to check that out, presale links are in the the deets.
uh One of the things I talk about specifically with medical care is the exit costs and notjust the cost, right?
One of the, think the most hidden things that I've heard from nurses and doctors is losingthat sense of certainty, losing that sense of what you were doing mattered and that you
(51:42):
were going to be able to kind of make your life in this system.
How have you dealt with that?
First of all, I cannot wait to read your book.
I'm so excited.
But yes, the exit costs.
It has been, I describe it to people as a grieving process that I have gone through frommultiple things that I was in a job for a while that had a great culture, great
(52:07):
leadership.
And that job specifically really gave me this
false sense of like, it's going to be fine.
Like I actually love it here and I love these people.
Uh, it turns out that since then they did layoffs due to, uh, the end of the pandemic, umbut they did some layoffs and since then it's been, I never have found a similar, uh,
(52:34):
feeling of emotional safety, um, in the job.
And so I think that
For me, it's a grieving process.
a while, I was very angry or I was hurt or I was, you know, and for a minute I was indenial.
And so it is very difficult to feel like you kind of wasted time.
(52:59):
I don't know how else to say it, but also the rewarding aspect.
So I've been...
lucky that I still feel in a sense that I can do that a little bit through social mediaand through different communities that I'm in through social media.
But the costs I think are are high to my emotional health, especially when you findyourself in your 30s and, ah you know, like without a career now.
(53:30):
So
Well, here's a here's the thing I have for you.
Some of my favorite fiction books are by people who went through.
So there's one called Discovery of Witches, right.
And it's written by a historian.
And there are like.
Maybe you write a uh novel series on nurses, right?
(53:52):
You know, like they're.
you are still, you still have that what you went through in the background, right?
Like one day I have to submit everything I write to the Pentagon.
So one day I'm going to write feminist military erotica simply for the purpose ofsubmitting it to the Pentagon.
But like, you know, even though I'm out of the military, even though I kind of regret whatI went through, but like I still always have.
(54:20):
that background of being a military officer and understanding that world.
So especially as you are a creator, right?
Like maybe there's still something about the nursing experience and knowledge that youhave that you can bring to bear on what you do.
(54:40):
And that's one of the things that I actually think is really cool about deconstructingyour cult experience.
And so like when I was leaving the military,
They were ruining my career.
was basically told that the last three years of my career wouldn't count.
I would have to do everything over again.
All this silliness.
As soon as I got out of the military, everything counted.
(55:03):
I can use every part of my experience, right, to bear going forward.
So, and I think that is the cool thing about deconstructing, right?
Like I don't have to decide if...
my experience growing up in a cult in Brazil was good or bad, I still speak Portuguese andI can use that anyway I want.
(55:24):
So that I guess would just be my hopeful message to you.
And like if you wrote a series about nursing and you could have even like the cult ofovertones to it.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
And Jess, you're doing some of that now as far as speaking out and uh making your voiceheard.
(55:47):
And we want you to continue to do that.
If folks that are listening want to follow you, what's the best way to do that?
Sure, I'm on most social medias as white mess express, WHITE, MESS, EXPRESS.
uh Right now, primarily I post on TikTok, but I'm also on sub stack uh YouTube, of theplaces mostly, I've just been very inconsistent.
(56:12):
So TikTok, if you really wanna see me uh more frequently.
Thank you.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
And thank you so much for everything that you've shared with us tonight.
And we encourage everyone just to follow you and to listen to what you have to say.
And pre-order Daniela's brand new book, The Culting of America.
(56:35):
Absolutely.
And thank you all.
Absolutely.
Thank you all for being with us.
Until next time, I'm Scott Lloyd for...
Knitting Cult Lady, Daniella Mestenek-Young, will see you on the next episode of Cults andthe Culting of America.
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