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I had a lot of fun and a lot of “A ha!” moments reading religious satirist Becky Garrison’s ninth book, Gaslighting for God: A Satirical Guide to Save Yourself from Spiritual Narcissists. Garrison formerly wrote for The Whittenburg Door, a Christian satire magazine. Her social commentary is so insightful. In our conversation, Garrison discusses the intersections of narcissism, gaslighting, and spiritual abuse within religious communities and broader culture. She shares personal experiences, critiques of religious and political figures, and offers guidance on recognizing and resisting narcissistic dynamics. This is a very timely resource and is well-researched and comes from deep expertise.

Key topics in this episode:
Narcissism and spiritual abuse in religious communities
The role of humor and satire in exposing narcissistic dynamics
Personal experiences with narcissistic family and church systems
Connections between political figures like Trump and broader cultural narcissism
Strategies for recognizing and resisting narcissistic manipulation

Here are links for you to follow Garrison’s work:
Buy Gaslighting for God
Becky Garrison Website
Becky Garrison on Substack
YouTube Channel of Becky Garrison

Please enjoy this episode of The Beautiful Kingdom Builders podcast on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Substack, and more! 

TRANSCRIPT:

Ruth Perry (00:15)
My guest today is author, journalist, and religious satirist, Becky Garrison, whose most recent book is titled, Gaslighting for God, a satirical guide to saving yourself from spiritual narcissists. Thank you so much for being here today, Becky.

Becky (00:26)
Thank you for having me, much appreciated.

Ruth Perry (00:32)
I just finished your book yesterday and I was really amazed by it. It was really powerful. It wasn’t what I was expecting in some ways and then it was so more deep and insightful than I was expecting in other ways. And so I highly God anyone who wants to learn more about gaslighting and narcissism and how this intersects with the Christian church in America. It’s really fantastic.

But as I was reading your book, one of the thoughts that I kept having was, have producers or writers of the show, Righteous Gemstones, reached out to you, Becky? I think you’d be a great writer!

Becky (01:05)
No, they have not and in fact, I mean that show my only quibble with that show is that in real life Prosperity Gospels would never swear in public. We use words like sugar instead of other words. So that that was my only quibble and I don’t think they would have been quite as sexually up But that’s the Danny McBride did. He likes to have men walking around doing things and he did that but other than that he really captured I think the essence of someone even Eli and even his wife, they were still so caught up in their own narcissism that even the sweet, precious, matriarch, she was still narcissistic as all get out. It was more overt versus covert. But there was clearly an evidence that they never really cared about their congregation. They cared about the numbers and the pews and that’s what I think the ultimate definition of a narcissist versus someone who’s self-absorbed. I mean, we all like attention.

You know to be it’s nice to be recognized. It’s nice to get validated. And sometimes when you have a book coming out or another project and you can get full of your own But you can get a little too full of yourself, but then someone can call you out and say hey, wait a minute knock it off. That could not happen with the Righteous Gemstones. They lack empathy. They lack compassion. They had no self-awareness whatsoever of how their actions were impacting others. There’s also a grandiose sense of self. I am better than you. I am a better human being than you. I am smarter than you. If it’s one of those mean girl things, I look better than you. Whatever it is, I am better than other people. Not just I’m for myself, but I’m full of myself a little bit on times.

Ruth Perry (02:36)
I did appreciate towards the end of your book, you did talk about how it is important for us to take some pride in our work and to enjoy the process of creating things and putting things out there and creating community. And because in the back of my mind, I always have this little niggling thing, like I don’t want to be narcissistic, And sometimes,

Like now starting this podcast, I feel really passionate about putting alternative narratives about Christianity out there rather than the toxic forms that are so pervasive. But I don’t want to be narcissistic. And so I really did appreciate that at the end of your book, how you talked about how taking some pride in your work and like enjoying that process is good.

Becky (03:09)
Mmm. Typically, if you’re asking yourself, am I narcissistic? Odds are you’re not. The kind of celebrity who humblebrags, we’re all a little narcissistic or, I just might be narcissistic about that. Yeah, that person’s a flaming narcissist trying to deflect. But a lot of us, it is something that you struggle with. And I think it’s a legitimate struggle. How do you have an open conversation and admitting your humanity? You might look at your podcast when we can go, damn, someone’s doing better than me.

That’s normal, that’s okay to do. It’s acknowledging, it’s an inability, not there’s another human being on the other end and that person matters and they don’t matter as someone who can give you volunteer hours, who can give you their money, who can give you whatever you need from them, the affirmation, the accolades, et cetera, et cetera. But we all have that it’s important. It’s called either high self-esteem healthy narcissism. That’s what gets me to keep going up and keep going. I believe in what I’m doing. I believe in my work. I believe in it passionately and I will defend it and that might maybe come off as a bit of an a-hole. But that’s the difference between that and a narcissist.

Like if someone’s being kind of rude to me and kind of a jerk and I’m a little bit rude back, that might be justified in my behavior. I’m still going to feel a little something. I hurt someone’s feelings. I feel bad and I should feel a little bad because I hurt someone’s feelings. And what am I going to do to make that better? So I can become more regulated so I don’t snap at someone.

Ruth Perry (04:45)
How do you employing humor impactful when you’re having difficult conversations like this?

Becky (04:52)
Well, there’s role of the satirist, if you think of it. He functions as the court jestor. We keep the king honest. I’m thinking, one of my childhood influences was Monty Python. I was a prenatal Episcopalian. My late father was an Episcopal priest and a sociology professor. Do the math, do the ecclesiology. Yep, I was prenatal Episcopalian.

And so the way in which they lampoon the lunacies, you all can laugh at something collectively. And once you can laugh at something and say, my God, this is absolutely ridiculous. It helps break the energy down. And it really gives us a chance to see, because the point of a satirist is if we can break the idol, smash the idol, you can then see the glimpses of God or goodness underneath, but you first must smash the idol. And we’re in a period right now of a lot of idol smashing and that’s where you’re getting a lot of the pushback is that from the most extreme fundamentalist to the most enlightened guru, everyone has their idol and they love it. I mean, the people would love it. The Wittenberg Door, the progressives. I say this in the book when I would satirize a televangelist, all of a sudden we would satirize Jim Wallace, Tony Campallo, Brian McLaren, the whole emergent church gang. And all of a sudden you would have thought that we committed Harry Carrey on.

You know, it was like, and that’s why I did not understand that versus someone like Jerry Jenkins. So I mentioned the book. We satirized him. How can you not satirize the Left Behind series? You have to do that. It is ripe. I we had the plumbers edition, the Cleft Behind, everything. And he wrote us back and said, Hey, this is funny. I’m open for an interview if you’re up for it. And I did it. And we do not agree on probably anything theologically.

Or very few things we would agree on. But we had one the most pleasant conversations because he was a decent human being. You know, he was not a narcissist. He was kind, he was generous. And we had a very pleasant interview. Other people that I’ve agreed with on almost everything, theologically, and then all of a sudden I’ll just critique them and you would have thought that I did something horrible to them. They just go absolutely like Tasmanian Devil Ballistic.

Until the research in the narcissism. I had no clue what was going on. And now I can watch the news I can watch certain progressive pastors and their conservative counterparts and go yep. That’s a narcissistic meltdown. Okay, I don’t have to take that person seriously because you cannot have a dialogue with a narcissist. You can enjoy their entertainment If there’s no abuse involved, I want to make that clear if there’s abuse you should not be supporting this. But if the person is just a full-blown narcissist and you happen to like their music, you like their performance, go see it. It’s enjoyable. Just don’t expect anything beyond the evening’s fun. I think that’s where especially Christians, we’re looking for a form of a community. You cannot have that with a narcissist. And that’s what you have to give up is the hope that you’ll ever have a community with this person.

Ruth Perry (07:40)
So you have developed a very finely tuned narcissism detector, it seems. And then you also say in your book that coupled with that, you have an intense desire to speak truth to pastoral power. So before we dive into the content of your book, I was curious if you would share what is your personal background and experiences that have shaped you in that way.

Becky (07:45)
Okay. I was born to a hippie father from a very old, genteel southern family. He was the black sheep, to put it kindly, who was, I later discovered in my teens was an alcoholic. I’ve now since realized he was also a narcissist. And I realized that the majority of my extended family were narcissists. He married an enabling earth mother type, both of them died from their addictions in the 1970s. And at that time, the research was not there for alcoholism. So there was a lot of blame, a lot of shame. These were the bad people. And the family was displacing them. And I was also the family white elephant spotter, so to speak, in that I would say, why is so-and-so drunk? Why is this happening? I’m seeing something. And I would continuously be told, you’re making that up. That isn’t true. No, you’re not.

So I now have through the research learned that often the oldest child is the one scapegoat, because they’re the ones who can see the truth. My younger brother was the golden child. My younger sister was the golden beauty and I was the loser dreamer. So I was scape. So this dynamic came from my childhood, but yet my father in his research, I mentioned this in the book, he was studying how to reach those on the fringes. He was researching why were some kids joining SDS and others joining JAPUZA. What was it that was attracting these kids to these radical movements? Neither one of which we now have learning was really proven to be very healthy, but why were kids drawn to wanting to make a better difference? And that put them up to be easily manipulated by people that had more nefarious agendas. So that got it started.

When I discovered the Wittenberg Door, was the perfect outlet for all the anger that I felt about the church I mean I did go to divinity school because there’s a side of silly me thought I wanted to be like my father. Until I realized had I done that I don’t think I’d be here today. The church would have crushed me. I see a lot of my friends that have a similar spirit to me and the institutional church just crushed them. They do so much better when they’re outside the church doing their own thing instead of trying to function within what I would say is a highly narcissistic institution that I’m convinced that the institutional church is dead. I think there’s some individual churches doing some great work, but I think their institutional structure is just too necrotic. And through the Wittenberg Door, we began to satirize that. And that led to a lot of things. I did a lot of the faith and politics stuff. I also started when God’s Politics blog became a best seller.

That’s when I started critiquing the progressives and all of a sudden all the progressives that loved the Door, they loved how we went after the conservatives, that’s when they started to hammer us. They could not accept the fact that there could be narcissism in their midst in a more covert form. As one who grew up with the frozen chosen, as you call the Episcopalies, I would say hell yes, it’s rampant.

Ruth Perry (10:47)
I had a friend on, maybe a month ago to share a story of being a survivor of a marriage with a narcissist and her husband is Benjamin L. Corey, a progressive Christian writer about peace and nonviolence. But then in his personal life, just super controlling and passive aggressive and very much a narcissistic sponge, feeding off of my friend. And I’m just at a loss of how does someone like my friend get any justice? For right now, she was alienated from her children because of litigation after their separation. She can’t even see her children. And so it’s such a frustrating situation.

Becky (11:24)
It is and I don’t have an easy answer. I’m not a lawyer. I can’t give legal advice. I did notice that what was interesting I’m thinking about Phillip Yancey, there’s another case that came into play and that was very frustrating in that revelations came out that he had an affair. There was something involving his assistant that sounded a little nefarious. I mean, she died kind of suddenly in a freak climbing accident in a gym.

Ruth Perry (11:33)
Yeah!

Becky (11:47)
Which if you’re an experienced climber, almost never happens. So I’m still, there’s something a little fishy there. I’m just saying, I think in that case, he would never accept your responsibility. He never, he just said, I’m so great. He viewed the women in his life as pawns. And I think the best we can do is you just speak your truth to power. And I’ve been in that situation that she’s been in. When I saw abuse within the US emergent church movement in 2006, I spoke out.

And I got hammered. I got doxxed. I got cyber bullied. I was not was a very unpleasant situation. And the more I learned, I taught myself what gaslighting was and what scapegoating was, I understood the dynamics of what was happening. I learned how to do gray rock. ‘Cause in the beginning. I appeared crazy.

I would be like, what the, you know, what do you mean? I am not jealous. I am simply pointing out the fact that you claim that you’re inclusive and you have one female speaker. And then once the female speaker got on board, she immediately became just like the men because she had to preserve her place of power. So I was simply saying, you’re promoting religionless Christianity. And there’s a hierarchy. There’s a lot of abuse within this system. There’s this private networks that are spreading all kind of stuff. And because I had not

done enough work on myself and my own trauma triggers, I came off as crazy. I’m not going to recreate how I came off, but it was not to my best interest. So the first thing I say to anybody is get your own self together by finding whatever somatic therapy works for you. For me, it was EMDR. If I had not had EMDR, I don’t think I could have written the book because I would have been too triggered by bringing up past traumas. And I think that’s the first thing I would say is have you done your oxygen mask, taking care of yourself. And the second is what did not exist in 2006 that exists now are support groups. When Tony Jones tried to re-emerge as another emergent church speaker, other people all of a sudden started calling his crap out. That did not happen in 2006. Everybody was still part of, I want to be part of the cool kids crap.

Your friend now has other women who have been through something similar. You know Tia Levings has an excellent list of trauma resources on her page. Her book I Belong to Me is coming out in May. I would give it to her as a gift, you know What do you need to do for yourself? And once you get to that point, I think you’ll be in a better place. Your kids are gonna see a different mother They may be so poisoned in top that that you can’t control but you can control your response to a situation and find other people to support. When I had an experience, my first revelation of the narcissism, I had gotten to a professional and personal relationship with a mindfulness therapist who I’d later discovered is a narcissist. A malignant narcissist at best may even have some psychopathic tendencies. I couldn’t tell if he enjoyed inflicting his pain or he just didn’t care.

But I joined a narcissistic support group and I realized, this is 2016, so the research was much newer than it is now. And I realized I’m not alone. Other women have the same experience. This is a pattern. I could not see the pattern because I believed in the promise of whatever this person was preaching. I believed in the goodness. I had a good heart. I’m an empath and my God, we’re magnets for narcissists.

I’m now narcissistic resistant. Narcissists don’t approach me like they used to. You can become narcissistic resistant. They will go to somebody else. And you have to also get over your fear of missing out. And I’m also over my hypervigilance. If I narcissist, someone that I know has extreme narcissistic tendencies, hurting someone else, I’ll just point it out, but I’m not going to try to rescue people. We’ve made so much progress.

We’re in the narcissistic research right now where alcoholism was in 1980. I started the recovery movement actually in 83. And it was very nascent. There wasn’t a whole lot out there, but we were starting to understand that alcoholism was not a mental illness. It was a very complex dynamic that impacted the entire family. And how was I impacted? Being raised in an extended family of alcoholics who I now realize are many of were narcissists, including the ones that aren’t alcoholics. I mean, it was pretty much, I can count on one hand, the number of extended family members I know that are not narcissists, to be honest. And I began to realize a lot of that. And I think for people, find other people, they exist and you’ll develop a network and you’ll discover you’re not alone.

And once you realize you’re not alone, that eliminates so much of the anxiety and pain that you’re feeling. At least that’s been my experience.

Ruth Perry (16:16)
It does seem like narcissism is such a systemic and widespread issue in our culture today. And just listening to you speak, I’m a pastor’s kid as well, although my parents were teetotalers because they both came from alcoholic families. But that same dynamic was still in the family. also ⁓ dynamic those in my family that you name in your book is manipulators and martyrs.

You were quoting Brad Sargent’s friend, Linda O: “Manipulators and martyrs go together in matched pairs,” and I was thinking about how women are conditioned in the church to make ourselves smaller and to be quiet and meek and gentle and so we’re just trained from a very early age to be the martyr. And then we end up in, a lot of us end up in relationships like this where there’s a manipulator. And part of that is the culture training men too, to be this way where they feel entitled to things and they feel special.

Becky (17:00)
Mm-hmm. And then there’s people like me that just push back from the get-go and we’re always excluded. And it’s taking me a long time to develop sympathy for what I call the mean girls. I’ve been thinking about this and I began to realize that, my sister was a classic mean girl. And what it was is she from the beginning was ranked based on her beauty. She was ranked based on her looks, her ability to present. She never did the beauty pageant cheerleader thing.

But that is one of the dynamics, is that we want our women to look a certain way. We want them to appeal to the male gaze. And if you don’t, in the 70s and 80s, you’d be called lesbian, you’d be called, worse, which was really absolutely horrible for women that actually preferred same-sex relationships. To me, to use that term as a slur is just absolutely god-awful. And I kept telling them, no, I’m not a lesbian. I just don’t want a guy that’s going to be like the husband you guys married kind of thing. You know, and you tell people that sometimes you make a conscious decision that given my family dynamics, I decided it was best that I remained unmarried and without children. just decided that is the best. I cannot give a kid a decent family life. And I also need to do a lot of work on myself so I can now find a lot healthier relationships.

And so I made a conscious decision not to involve innocent humans in my family’s dynamic, which was not an easy decision to make, but it was one that I realized I needed to do because it was not be fair to an innocent third party. I think with the me girls, I just realized they got ahead by using their sexuality. They’re the ones that Harvey Weinstein, Jeffrey Epstein, other women preyed on. They wouldn’t have preyed on me because they could tell by looking at me, I wasn’t going to be that compliant. My attraction to narcissism was more the spiritual guru promising this. That’s where I would be attracted to people. But in terms of just the whole mean girl persona, I I resented those women like crazy for quite a while because they could make your life miserable. If you were the little nerdy writer, those kind of women can just make life hell.

And even today, I encounter them sometimes. I’ll do spirits reporting and beer reporting. I’m often the only woman there, so it’s no big deal. But if I do wine reporting, some of those women can just be absolutely mean girl central. And some of the publicists, and and I used to be worried about that. I used to get really like, I don’t fit into these women. Now I realize we’re all going through something, even these women, these beauty queen patterns. You you see these 24 year olds that are dating 60, 70, 80 year olds, it’s not healthy, but they’re going through something on their gotta be something going on, because a lot of the mean girls are not happy. Because if you are really pleased and content with yourself, you don’t need to be an outraging bitch to other people. You don’t need to do that.

What is it about you that makes them feel like in order for them to affirm you, they have to put you down. And over time, I think these women develop a narcissistic core. I don’t know if my sister, she didn’t start out that way, but over time she became more and more self-centered because her looks, that was her currency.

Ruth Perry (20:08)
When I started reading, I thought that you’d talk a lot more about Trump. I was surprised that you didn’t. And the way that evangelical and conservative Christians have embraced him, even though he appears to many people to be a Machiavellian, like the worst kind of just really dark triad personality type narcissist. What connections do you see between spiritual gaslighting and broader cultural patterns in politics and patriarchy and nationalism and all of those intersections.

Becky (20:37)
I had an agent try to sell this book in 2018. The original book proposal was Trump focused. Publishers didn’t want it. They said, we’re done with Trump books. We have enough books. Steve Hassan did the case against Trump. There is the book, Dangerous Case, Bandy Lee edited a book on the dangerous case of Donald Trump, lays it out. She ended up getting fired, by the way, for diagnosing someone which was very questionable, but still you’re not supposed to diagnose.

I believe that Trump is a symptom. We’ve growing up as a kid. Do you remember Lyndon LaRouche? Do you remember these we’ve always had crackpots. We’ve always had nutcases. The question for me was why in 2016 when they were presented with a slate of reasonable Republican candidates The voters chose Trump that is the question that I wanted to answer it to me. That’s a deeper question that was you brewing for some time now. When you look through his story, we’ve had these church splits that have been simmering and simmering Trump is just when it look at 1979, that’s the year the Episcopal Church first ordained women.

It’s also the formation of the Moral Majority. And it was not founded on abortion. Abortion came out in 1973. Naveen Jeltsin did not give a hoot. Jerry Falwell was quoted, That’s a Catholic issue. But they were really upset about was interracial dating and that’s why they really formed. But they pretty soon had to do, we have to do a family-friendly thing because even in 79 you couldn’t say we’re the white party. You just could not say that and get elected in 79. So we had the Moral Majority.

And then you look at the year I started writing for the Wittenberg Door, 1994 was the year the Republicans took over Congress with the Christian Coalition. And we thought, wow, that’s going to be… And then you found Clinton in 96. In addition to the Monica Lewinsky scandal, he also formed the DLC, which really started to alienate a lot of progressives. You can see a lot of these shifts starting to happen in a lot of years.

We thought in 2008 when Obama was elected, he was the first president to acknowledge atheists at the National Prayer Breakfast. We thought we’re hitting this progressive revolution. in 2016, I was really excited. The DNC put up the most diverse list of candidates ever. We had people of color. We had a gay man, more women, this dynamic lineup. The DNC stacked the deck and gave us Hillary.

And that was the moment I said, we’re going to get President Trump. And my friends who are progressive said, you’re wrong. I said, no. The will of the people were ignored. You have enough Bernie bros that want change. They’re going to vote for change. They did. And that’s how we got Trump. And then in 2020, the Democrats again, had a pretty good lineup, not quite as diverse. They gave us Biden, who we did not want. I felt that the progressives kept stacking the deck and further frustrating. And when people get frustrated and they feel like no one’s listening to them, that’s when they’re susceptible to cult dynamics. That’s when they’re susceptible to saying to they’re not listening to you.

Because guess what? They weren’t. And if people feel that no one is listening to them, they will go to someone who is telling them exactly what they need to hear. That is the moment when people are the most susceptible to joining cults. I think that’s what happened in 2020. And then in 2024, well, we’re going to give you Biden again, even though you don’t really want him. And then at the last minute, we’re going to switch aroo and give you Kamala, who never won a primary, she was never the most popular candidate. And then boom, Trump gets elected again.

I’m looking at this from a broader perspective. I also think that people did not realize in 2024 how bad it was going to get. I think they thought they were taking a malignant narcissist who didn’t care about anybody, but he was going to keep America out of war. He was going keep America first. He was going do something with sensible immigrant. don’t know if sensible is not the word I’ve used, but I think people thought it was going be a continuation of the first term. I don’t think they thought that you could get worse than Sarah Huckabee Sanders. I don’t think they thought you could get worse than Jeff Sessions and Richard Barr. I don’t think they could get worse than whoever was his defense secretary. I mean, the moment Pete Hegsath and they changed his Department of War, this is when I felt it went from malignant narcissism to Machiavellianism. Because in the beginning, I do think there’s a sense that, and anybody who lives in New York City knows this, he does not care about anybody but himself. He’s mobbed up.

The media wanted this conflict circus. I think if we had investigated his ties to Roy Cohn, for example, really thoroughly, this was scary. Roy Cohn was Joseph McCarthy’s lawyer. That was Trump’s lawyer. Roy Cohn repped several mob families. He introduced him to these mob families. And the media didn’t investigate that because I think they wanted the Hillary Trump matchup. That was great for ratings.

putting Biden against Trump, that was hysterical. I mean, that was like watching a really bad Saturday Night Live sketch to watch those two men debate. I was watching this going, no matter who gets elected, we’re either going to be screwed or absolutely completely effed. And in 2024, when they did the switcheroo, I said, this is not, we’re going to get Trump again. And I just knew it. I didn’t know how bad it was going to be.

What people might want to realize is that there’s a difference between a malignant narcissist and full-blown cult. The distinction is a cult leader by nature is an extreme narcissist. They’re also a psychopath, meaning they enjoy what they’re doing. A narcissist doesn’t care a psychopath enjoys. That’s how I distinguish it. And the Machiavellian nature is they want to take over the world. They want domination over their entire universe.

Whereas in our society it just wants to be number one. They don’t feel the need to dominate. They need to be the center of attention, but there’s not this need for the world domination that you see now. And we’ve got ourselves into this pickle and I don’t see the Democrats and the progressives offering candidates that are really going to get us out of it. At least on the presidential level. On the local level, yes, that’s why I’m shifting my focus somewhat, I think we could help rebuild at the local level. How do we care for our neighbor? There’s a difference between Trump and MAGA, and I make that distinction. And where we go from here, I’m not gonna be a politician, I’m not gonna be a fortune teller, but that’s why I didn’t make it Trump specific because this is gonna continue when he’s gone. MAGA is gonna be here. And there are also ardent progressives.

And I think it would help to look at what were legitimate concerns that people had the progressives ignored. And that’s the beginning of a step of healing is to look at that component. Like how many women who were MAHA, they just wanted alternative treatments for their kids. A lot of them, they were not full blown MAGA, but all of sudden they felt the Big Pharma was telling them how to rule their lives.

The Big Pharma was calling them idiots or education was calling them idiots for wanting to homeschool their kids. They wanted to do alternative things that were legal and justified and they were not allowed to do it. You know, women were trying to give their little kid who has epilepsy, giving him CBD and discovering it worked and then being told they couldn’t give it. They had to give the kid pharma drug that A, they couldn’t afford and B, cause their kid to be sick. What would have happened if the women who were interested in natural health had been taken more seriously, would they have gone full blown? So you always have to think of what could you have done? Were you so full of your own hubris and your own self-righteousness that you didn’t listen to what other people were asking and demanding? And I think that’s where I’m seeing the progressive movement is, is are they willing to listen to alternative views?

There’s a large group of people that I think are dissatisfied with everything. What are they going to do about that dissatisfaction? Where can they put that?

Ruth Perry (28:17)
So what is it narcissistic personalities that both woo and wound people?

Becky (28:23)
I would call it the Jekyll-Hyde syndrome. They can be incredibly charismatic. They’re also very tuned into when you’re vulnerable. You see this with certain rather nefarious dating coaches is I will give you what you’re looking for. You’re looking for women empowerment. You’re looking to explore your female sexuality. You’re looking to do better your business. You’re looking to be a better mother. Whatever you are looking for that you’re not finding, they have the answer. And they will just love bomb you to bits. They will give you everything you want. And to the point where you don’t realize how much money you’re spending, how much time you’re spending, because you’re getting that fix. You’re getting that high. You’re getting that adrenaline rush, that oxycutin. You’re getting that, ooh, that dopamine hit. It feels so good to finally be recognized, especially if you come from a background where you haven’t been recognized.

And then the moment, the nanosecond, you disagree. The moment you say, I can’t afford to pay it this month, I need to take some time for myself, I need to step back a little bit. Whatever, you have just drained them of their narcissistic supply. The moment you cut it off, they will turn into to Mr. Hyde and do what is called narcissistic collapse. They will go completely irrational. I think for a lot of us, we do get disappointed. If someone cancels on you last minute, you’re going to be disappointed. But that’s different than someone going completely ballistic. It’s someone saying, I’m disappointed that we’re not making this projections right. What can we do to make this better versus I’m disappointed in you for failing?

After you have a narcissistic collapse hit you, you sit there going what the hell just happened? It’s not as simple like I need to have a talk with you about your work performance or we need to discuss you being a bit cleaner or bit whatever. It’s complete annihilation of you or all of sudden they get with a one out of you, you wrote those three articles I needed you to write to make me feel good, okay, bye, I’m gone. They took what they needed from you and then they left you. Just bye. And you’re starting going, what the hell just happened here? And their words don’t match their actions. And after a while, you start to find yourself going crazy, which is why I find it very helpful to identify the pattern because it keeps you from going crazy.

Now I can identify it and I go, okay, that person’s having narcissistic collapse. I’m going to treat him like a three year old, a toddler. Just walk away. I’m not going to engage. You cannot rationalize with a toddler. You cannot be reasonable. And if you give him his binky or his Nobel Peace Prize, it’s not going to solve anything. It’s a temporary, it’s like a pacifier situation. They’re going to continue to escalate. This is not going to stop until you walk away and then let them find somebody else. And over time, it starts to crumble. And that’s what you’re seeing now is the starting of the crumbling.

Maybe I’m too naive to think that, but I do believe, and I’m looking at the Epstein files to me as the beginning of a revelation of we’re finally starting to see a lot of stuff start to crumble. And that’s a good thing. I say, hallelujah.

Ruth Perry (31:14)
What is the connection to and sex abuse in these kind of high control groups?

Becky (31:20)
Because they can. I do not understand the attraction to children. I do not understand why any man would want to have a relationship with someone who’s not age appropriate. I don’t get it. And I think that some of it is these men do not want adult relationships. They want relationships they can control. Men have always wanted, some have wanted significant younger women, and there’s always women who are willing naive enough.

In the case of children, you start to tell a kid who comes from a very broken home who’s never had any kind of love. They’re so susceptible to being loved bombed. And all of a sudden they’ve never had anything. Wow, I got a couple hundred dollars just for doing this little act. Can’t be that bad. And then before they know it, they’ve been trafficked beyond their beliefs because they didn’t understand what was going on. They didn’t understand the dynamics. An older woman would walk into that and go, what the hell?

But then I’m dealing, like I’m looking into something, as you might have there was a UMC minister in Missouri and she the executive assistant and then the grounds manager for Epstein Island. claims she didn’t see anything. At the time she was studying to be a minister, as I understand And the UMC has suspended her pending investigation because they feel that her involvement this case went against the UMC’s code of ethics around treatment of women. Hallelujah for small victories. However, I’m very shocked that she claimed she saw nothing. I mean, you see the photos of the house. You didn’t think it was odd there was a dentist chair in there. You didn’t think it was odd there were photos of underage girls. There was like Lolita on steroids.

You’re a pastor and I don’t expect a pastor to be a complete intuitive, because we all have different personality types. But if you’re a pastor and you don’t think there’s something wrong with unaccompanied minors getting off of a plane to meet a group of old men, if your spidey sense doesn’t do anything and you claim you saw nothing, then you’re not qualified to be a minister because at a basic core. A minister needs to notice when something that serious is going on. I would expect a pastor to know that youth minister is getting a little too handsy. Yes, that volunteer is being inappropriate. If you can’t even see something as blatantly obvious as underage girls, unaccompanied often with a lot of older men, and you think this is just a pool party, you’re not qualified for ordained ministry.

And the fact that she got called out on it, I’m glad the UMC is doing the right thing. What no one has figured out is how did she meet I want to know how did a UMC minister from Missouri meet Jeffrey Epstein and get offered that job? So always interested in looking at the connections because Epstein has made some referrals. He referred Eric Metaxas’ book to somebody.

Ruth Perry (33:59)
Yeah.

Becky (34:02)
No, I take it back, Ken Starr referred Eric Metaxas’ book to him. And then there was an instance where he forwarded on Rick Warren’s newsletter. Well, okay, what is Ken Starr doing referring the book written by the guy who was one earliest Trump supporters? Eric Metaxas was supporting Trump before anybody else did, just about. So he was a key figure in helping Trump get elected. Why is Ken Barr recommending this Bonhoeffer book, the book is terrible. Every scholar said it’s terrible. Then you have other, references like that. Epstein recommended Dobson’s Dare to Discipline book to a young survivor who was having problems with her family. These are very evangelical books. How are they getting into that network? So far that’s the only Christian connection I’ve been able to find.

Deepak Chopra is another thing. He claims I didn’t do anything inappropriate. And you’re sitting here discussing how, you know, God is a construct, cute girls are real. And I would never go to a guru that said that. That is disgusting. I mean, that is just the way he’s discussing about girls. Like, did you bring me girls? Did you bring me girls? You’re a grown adult male who is responsible, thanks to Oprah in large part, for bringing in all of these concepts of the East to the West. Oprah basically, now that we’ve realized, was a walking show for predators. She gave us Dr. Phil, she gave us Dr. Oz, she gave us the anti-vax movement. She supported John of God. And if you Google John of God in Brazil, he is in jail bizarre medical experiments and pedophilia.

So I think we have to look at ourselves and why did we ever trust Oprah? She’s not trustworthy. Look at all the people she’s introduced us to. She never took any responsibility. She also introduced us to the secret of Dr. Lisa Rankin is someone that I would recommend your listeners check out. She’s one of the people that spoke on Deepak’s stage, one of the few people speaking out. All these people that stood and profited by being connected to Deepak have not spoken out. And yet she did. A few people are speaking out. There’s some outliers who are saying, I’m willing to risk my book contract. I’m willing to risk my speaking, my place on the center stage. I’m willing to do what needs to be done to make this right. Now, why they didn’t speak out before is another story, but they’re speaking out now. And I think this is similar to the Weinstein in the Cosby case. It takes a while to convince people that someone this powerful is this evil.

Ruth Perry (36:24)
I had a funny interaction. I met Eric Metaxas seven or eight years ago. I was homeschooling my children by day and waitressing by night. And I live in the vicinity of Liberty University. And he had a group of conservative influencers at dinner at the steakhouse. And they were there for some event at the Falkirk Center at Liberty. And after the dinner, Eric Metaxas was standing up and he asked me if I knew who he was. And I said, I do know who you are. And he said, that’s so nice. I’m going to let my wife know that you said that. What did I say?

Becky (36:57)
I interviewed him for The Door and this is before the Wilberforce book. He was anti post veggie tales, not quite the best selling author. And it was one of most worst interviews of my life. It’s just all the oxygen in the room was sucked out and he was incredibly full of himself.

But what I appreciate about that was that I could get it, I knew to stay away from it from get-go. It was the progressives. Like I was drawn in to Nadia Bolz Weber, Pete Rollins, that more progressive line of thought. And actually I endorsed some of their stuff in the beginning, because in the beginning it sounded really good. So then all of sudden the moment they became bestselling authors, or if not bestselling in the case of Rollins, the moment they got their little click going.

It was just all of a sudden, ooh, wow. I mean, they were just as obnoxious as Eric Metaxas, but in a slightly subtler way. And it can be really when someone writes something that you believe and then you meet them and you go, crap. And so I’m telling people, take what’s good. Okay, if they wrote something that you enjoy, acknowledge that. There’s nothing wrong with you for taking someone’s words and saying, that word’s really…

Move me but just know that person didn’t live out those teachings, you know and try to find people that did live out those teachings They exist. I mean Henri Nouwen, there was never anything about him and he’s someone that I continue to rely on yes, there were some abuses within the community for him, but it was after his death. He had nothing to do with that There are a lot of good spiritual thinkers that don’t engage in this. So the question is don’t kick yourself, but then look and say where can I find better fruit?

Where can I find fruit from people who like that? Which is why I continue to recommend Tia Leving. There’s a lot of people in the religious trauma field that I tell people, be careful. Similar to the recovery movement. There’s people out there wanting to make a name for themselves as deconstruction coaches, religious trauma coaches, whatever you want to help someone with their faith. And that’s why I say I’m a writer. I mean, have an MSW.

Actually clinical social work is going to be particular, but I’m not licensed right now and I am going to sell myself as a writer. I am not going to sell myself as a life coach. I’m gonna stay in my own lane, I’m gonna leave that up to qualified trauma therapists who are working currently in that field and I will provide the education to hopefully give people the awareness that yeah maybe that kind of help would be helpful for me. But there are, a lot of people out there trying to sell you their own shtick and there’s some really good solid voices. And it’s important to kind of distinguish between the two of them. And it takes a while. I mean, to me, one of the biggest things is do you get a sense of community around them? Do you get a sense of care?

Or it’s all about them and their accomplishments and what they can do and what their success rate And we’re kind of in this gray kind of new frontier. The research in the narcissism is only about 10 years old. You still have a lot of therapists that think religious trauma is BS. They don’t think that you get trauma from a religious experience. So there’s a lot of education that needs to happen. Similar to where I said where alcoholism was in the 1980s.

Ruth Perry (40:00)
I also had EMDR therapy because I realized been reading about religious trauma for a long and it didn’t ever occur to me that I had religious trauma. But then it kind of clicked in place after many years of like myself just trying to make sense of all the different things I had experienced in the church and often very painful and things and having that EMDR therapy was extremely helpful.

Becky (40:26)
Oh yeah, and it’s not the only form of therapy that could work. There are other somatic forms. There’s brain spotting, emotional isometrics, a lot of different treatments. And you find a therapist that works for you. How I chose my therapist for EMDR is I began to ask and see, did she really listen to me? Like I described to her that I didn’t want to get married. I didn’t want to have kids. And I was describing my relationship status and whatnot.

I look to see in her eyes, was she judging You know, is saying that whatever choices, if I make healthy legal lifestyle choices, those should be mine. Like if you want to legally choose to be a sex, if you want to become a sex worker, that’s your personal decision versus being coerced into something. So I’d say when you go to a therapist, how does that therapist treat you? Do you get any kind of a creepy vibe? Get the hell out of there.

Find another therapist. There’s plenty of therapists that do EMDR, that do somatic work. And a lot of that is for women. Your gut is such a good tool and we don’t use it. We kind of just say, I’m not feeling good. I’ll just go take some Pepto-Bismol. We don’t tune into why are you feeling that? No, don’t medicate that. Don’t drink it away. You don’t need a glass of wine to deal with this. Think of why you’re feeling this way.

And that tells you something isn’t quite right. Now, this therapist might be right for somebody else, but it’s not right for you. Not everything is narcissistic. But something just might not be right for you. The more you’re in tune with what you need and what you want, you’re not going to be coerced into just doing and going along with what everybody else says.

And you also don’t hear what the mean girls say, which for women, I think that’s something that we really need to focus on because a lot of the mean girls got ahead and those of us who weren’t mean girls didn’t get the job. But what I’m starting to realize now is they paid a price for getting that job. They have had to sacrifice their looks. I mean, we can make fun of Maro Lago face all we want, but those women had to subject whoever they are to so deep inside of them that it’s almost like there’s not a person there anymore. I don’t know if they were born that way, I don’t know a lot of their childhoods, but they’ve become an incredibly self-centered narcissistic person that can only think of themselves from their own lens of beauty. And they’re doing whatever they can do to maintain their place of power. That is clearly a narcissistic move. I don’t know how many of them started out that way.

I suspect it’s like my sister that they were told from a very young age, they’re beautiful. Were never told they were smart. Were never told they could do whatever they wanted to do. So they began to focus primarily on developing their looks. And as they got to be in their thirties and forties, it got even harsher. You know, they had to continue to maintain that persona.

Ruth Perry (43:02)
Well, your book is a very helpful guide, social commentary that you give and your insight and how well you understand what is going on and how well you describe all these terms mean. Narcissism, gaslighting, the echo chamber. There’s so many different things that you describe and explain and it seems like you’ve read a hundred books in the process of writing this book.

Becky (43:24)
Well, it helps to read all the research that’s out there. And in fact, a lot of the narcissism books, what I didn’t like about it was they were focusing on dating, or parenting, which I think is an important thing. But it was also having a black and white view. And I take a gray view, which is why I said, if something’s risen to the level of malignancy, like what I was finding in the U.S. Emergent Church world, then I feel it’s wrong to participate in that group’s activities because you’re supporting an abusive culture. But if someone is just a full blown self-centered narcissist, but yet you enjoy their comedy show, I we don’t evaluate musicians or actresses or we say we like the show. And I found that by looking at something like, okay, I like your show. It really changes how I feel because I’m not looking to form a community.

I’m looking to have an enjoyable evening enjoying the social lubricant because we all need some degree of social lubricant. We have a loneliness epidemic. But I’ve also learned it’s okay to be alone. It’s better to be alone than to be trying to get the approval of a narcissistic system, a narcissistic community. And I was one of these Uber volunteers. I love to help. And for me, just pulling back and saying, nope, not going to do it. That’s been life changing for me truly.

And you can find communities that care. I go to tasting rooms like Misara, this winery run by a Persian winemaker and have an incredibly connected experience. At Kristoff Farms, Nick Kristoff and his wife, they do cider and community building conversations through cider and their Pinot Noir wines. There ways, even though you can say, oh, this one aspect of the industry is very narcissistic and superficial and only cares about wine scores and who’s this and who’s that. There’s another side that’s really connective and really community and grounded in sustainability. And I tell people, my reporting, I look to do stuff that’s reporting on sustainability, community, spirituality. And I consciously look for things that have those elements. If they don’t have it, I might say, this is a nice evening. Nice dinner, nice glass of wine, nice music, nice show. But I’m not gonna expect that to be my community connective place. I’m gonna go to those community connective places that really care about me. And it’s life changing once you can learn to make that shift. And I wish the best for everybody. But take care of yourself, for your friend and find other people.

There are other people like you. This is emerging as more and more of us start to come to these awarenesses. We’re finding other support groups. Tons of podcasts. I’ve been on a number of them and you know, there’s a lot of conversations happening, how to find authenticity. I think people are searching for that in this world. And I don’t think you can find it at the national level, but I think you can find it at the grassroots level.

Ruth Perry (46:02)
Thank you so much for all the work you’ve done to be a guide to others into this more hopeful and healthy way to live. Where is the best place for people to find you online and find your work?

Becky (46:12)
Well, it’s available to any online, most online retailers. My sub stack is, you Google Becky Garrison or Gaslighting for God. It’s my sub stack. That’s where I post a number of pieces. I also have a Facebook author page, Becky Garrison writer, and then an Instagram is Becky underscore Garrison. I’m also on LinkedIn as Becky Garrison and there’s a YouTube channel. So, but I don’t use the latter two that frequently. I’m also moving more and more towards Substack because I find out can have more substantial conversations there. The noise in Meta Universe is just not helpful and I’m not going to pay to play with Mark Zuckerberg. He does not deserve my money.

Ruth Perry (46:49)
Well thank you so much for being here today Becky. Would you like to have the last word before we sign off?

Becky (46:53)
No, well, just thank you for the work that you’re doing as well. I have not lost my optimism that first drew me to narcissistic energies. I just am now being far more discerning. I would say to them, be an optimist, but also be a discerning optimist, not a naive.

Ruth Perry (47:09)
Alright, thank you so much. God bless, Becky.

Becky (47:11)
You too, thank you so much.

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