 morning my beautiful internet friends welcome back Nick and I would like to say we hope you're having a fabulous day is touched his chest hair I don't have a problem with chest hair I just have a problem with Nick Cage's chest hair is this not the best pillow I just touched it again that you have ever seen my friend Megan got this for me he has actually been keeping me company all throughout my recovery he's never been in any of the shots I don't think unless like Nick Cage's face was lurking behind me while I was talking to you guys at one point that I was unaware of okay let's actually start the video I wanted to talk about this subject today that is also not annotation related much like a video a couple days ago and I really appreciate those of you guys who watch that and who stuck it through so much like the video a couple days ago I wanted to talk to you guys about different parts of my life right we talked a lot about amputee shit but there's a lot more to me and Nicholas's relationship if you have been a part of the footless show community for a while you know this but I was raised in a very conservative Christian household and way more than that I adhered to the evangelical conservative Christian mindset I was a big part of purity culture which was incredibly damaging if you don't know what I'm talking about a couple links down below I've really made my faith my entire identity it was like the only thing that mattered to me from ages I'd say 15 to 20 and to make a long story short a few years ago I started a Facebook group called dismantling purity culture actually I think it was maybe just a year ago essentially I began realizing how much purity culture had damaged my life my relationship with my husband how I view sexuality pretty much everything and I wanted if there are people like there like me out there turns out that there was turns out that this is actually a really big issue as I was kind of realizing it for myself a lot of books got written on it a lot of information was released a lot of people started sharing their stories about how toxic it was for them growing up in purity culture often mimics a lot of the same symptoms as PTSD like it's just not a really good thing in that group just a couple days ago someone wrote their story and they talked about how the toxic parts of religion and Christianity had torn their family apart nothing against Christianity a lot of my belief is very Christian but people are flawed religion can hurt people and Christianity really hurt this person's family and they wrote at the end of the post I ache for the days when we were a happy little God-fearing family I so clearly remember who I was when I was like 19 I feel like 19 was like the golden age of Joe even though that's not at all accurate because I like myself so much more than I did when I was 19 now I feel like I I'm at least aware of how much I don't know I'm way less judgmental I feel like I've grown in a lot of really positive ways but at 19 I was a really great person I've talked about this in other videos but I structured my entire life around like serving other people and I legitimately loved everybody and saw the best in them and I saw no evil in the world except for like the evil of you know Satan and that kind of evil and the world was really really black and white to me and there is so much comfort and ease in living in a world that's black and white I think that's why so many people choose to do it and just to be clear I am not at all saying that you can't have faith and not live in a black and white world in fact I think if you really study the Bible it encourages you to live in kind of the gray area and the discomfort but religion often boils things down and makes them really simple and I fell into that mold where I had the right answer for everything because it was biblically based and you know what if there was an answer in scripture and there was for absolutely everything then I was good to go and I knew I was in the right I don't think I was an arrogant asshole about it but I I know that there were definitely some moments that I was but I felt safe I felt so like there's so much comfort in having a community that that all believes the same thing that accepts you because you believe the same thing even though when your beliefs change that falls apart and it's horrible there's so much comfort in Bible study conversations with people and in knowing that you have people there to support you in your faith and the routine of religion I think can be a beautiful thing sometimes you know like going to church every Sunday and I really like marks the week routine is really helpful I mean there are a lot of really really positive things but when I was 20 an abomb of trauma was dropped on my life when I was abused by a pastor it was like everything I had ever known crumbled that things were not black and white anymore nothing was safe the the simplistic answers that I had been fed by most people in the church based on scripture just didn't cut it anymore because I was asking questions like for real the same person who abused me abused a very good friend of mine who was 14 at the time and for past Joe I could not rectify the idea that God would just sit and watch that happen to her because the amount of rage that I felt for that I still have a lot of that rage but it was I could not fathom it so all my simplified answers that always done the trick before for me crumbled and I was left with like very very shaky ground and I saw what that person wrote today in that Facebook group and you know what I do too I ache for the days that things were so simple that things were like so black and white to me and I feel like that's almost a bad thing to say like that's a dirty sentence because I do feel like it's better to have your eyes opened and to have a better understanding of people and the world a more balanced view of things and a less judgmental view of things to have a more open mind while holding your own beliefs but I I so miss the safety that existed for me in that world where there was an order to everything and everything came back to biblical answers for me and there was a routine to absolutely everything and I knew what I was gonna do with my life because God was gonna tell me what I was gonna do with my life that's gone now and I can't go back to that because once your eyes are open to something you can close them but it's not good to it's it's not good to close your eyes to something once you've learned it I am incredibly grateful for where I am now I am so thankful for the help that I've had along the way in figuring out what faith means to me now I'm still very much in the process of discovering that and I really like living in a world where I can have conversations with people and not go into them knowing that I know the answer because Romans 12 18 tells me so you know I like living in a world where I can be open-minded and like I said I have my own beliefs there are things I absolutely very strongly believe but I don't go into every conversation with someone kind of arrogantly or closed-mindedly assuming that I've got it you know but life was so much simpler when that was the case and I realized today that I miss it it's nice to live in a black and white world I get why so many people do it so I'm just gonna button here real quick and say I feel like I really need to explain something I am not saying that if you have faith you live in a black and white world no I'm saying that when I had faith when the only thing that I had was faith and that was my entire identity when that was everything that I did the world was black and white to me and that felt safe that felt cozy and comfy and I was great living there and I knew who I was and what I was doing and I had a final authority for everything and I'm kind of struggling with that right now I don't have that I know that everything doesn't have an answer I realized that there are gray things I realized that there are things that may never have answers and that is hard that is uncomfortable and that's what I'm talking about please know that I'm really really not saying if you have a belief system you're living in a black and white world that's truly not what I'm saying it's really hard to ask the real questions to dig deep to open your eyes to things to realize that you can be very very wrong and there's a lot of pain in that but as happy as I am for who I am now there is a significant part of me that also aches for the days when we were a happy little God fearing family like that post said I don't mean my family in particular my parents are still believers and I am somewhere in the middle but things aren't gonna be black and white for me ever again and that is painful I think there is grief in that and let me know if you can relate to that I know so many people have gone through similar things a lot of people are brought up in the church whatever the church means to different people and then life happens and sometimes it gets complicated and it's hard and and as good as it is to grow it's also really painful to leave the past behind it's wonderful when things are simple when there's an order to things when you feel like you have an answer for everything it's hard when the world feels gray and unsafe and you suddenly become aware that there's really really deep pain and it doesn't always have an answer but I believe it's better to live there I believe it's better to live with compassion real compassion I believe it's better to live with less judgment but there's also pain in leaving that simplicity behind let me know if this made sense or like I said if you can relate to it that post just really got me thinking today and if you are someone who grew up in purity culture feel free to request to join that group it is a closed group I really try to keep that safe as much as I can because purity culture hurt people and hey that group supposed to be a healing place please only join if you have good intentions of doing so thank you for listening thank you to my patrons for your incredible generous support of me and my channel what I'm doing here I love you guys thank you so much for spending a few minutes out of your day with me and Nick gotta wash my hands now I love you guys I'm thinking of you and I will see you in the next video bye guys