Reclaiming Your Voice After Religious Trauma | Kate Johnson

What happens when the systems that raised you also silenced you?

In this episode, memoirist and survivor advocate Kate Johnson joins Leslie to talk about religious trauma, purity culture, and the long road of finding your voice after a lifetime of being told to stay quiet.

Kate grew up a pastor's daughter inside the PCA evangelical church, where Calvinist teachings around "total depravity" merged with authoritarian parenting to create a childhood organized around shame, obedience, and performance. When her family was placed on the sex offender registry, she learned a second, deeper lesson: her safety lay in her silence. This conversation traces what it took to undo that — through writing, embodiment, estrangement, anger, and the slow reclaiming of identity.

Whether you're deconstructing your faith, healing from purity culture, navigating estrangement, or just trying to reconnect with your own voice after years of self-silencing — this one is for you.

─── WORK WITH LESLIE ───

THROUGH — 8-week divorce recovery program: https://theloomlife.com/throughdivorceprogram

1:1 Coaching & Therapy: https://theloomlife.com

Book a discovery call: https://theloomlife.com

─── CONNECT WITH KATE ───

Substack (Quips & Confessionals): https://katejohnsonwrites.substack.com

Instagram: @katejohnsonwrites

TikTok: @katejohnsonwrites

Threads: @katejohnsonwrites

Bluesky: @katejohnsonwrites

─── CHAPTERS ───

00:00 Welcome & introducing Kate

02:30 Trapeze as healing & reclaiming the inner child

06:30 Growing up a pastor's daughter (PCA & Calvinism)

11:00 "You are bad" — how religious shame forms core beliefs

13:30 Parenting across generations: authoritarian to conscious

18:30 Why kids in divorce need their own therapist

23:30 Voice as savior: from buried to spoken

25:30 The sex offender registry: when silence becomes safety

30:00 What most people don't understand about the registry

35:30 Why women stay: shame, survival & "Conjuring the Hurricane"

42:00 Family courts, custody & protecting children

46:30 Purity culture, bisexuality & leaving evangelicalism

51:30 Estrangement, boundaries & what repentance really means

55:30 Embodiment, grounding & coming home to the body

59:30 Reiki, The Artist's Way & reconnecting to creativity

1:03:00 Anger as a signal & reclaiming identity

1:08:00 Quips & Confessionals: humor as reclamation

1:12:00 Final message: trust your body, use your voice

─── FOLLOW THE LOOM LIFE ───

Website: https://theloomlife.com

Therapy: https://loomlifetherapy.com

Leslie's site: https://leslieellenmathews.com

Instagram: @the.loom.life

TikTok: @leslieellenmathews

─── DISCLAIMER ───

This podcast is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for therapy, medical care, or professional mental health treatment. If you are in crisis, please contact a licensed provider or call/text 988 in the U.S.

Keywords: religious trauma podcast, purity culture recovery, evangelical deconstruction, healing religious trauma, pastor's daughter, finding your voice, embodiment after trauma, complex PTSD, mental health podcast for women, trauma healing stories podcast

#ReligiousTrauma #HealingAfterTrauma #IdentityWork #SelfTrust #PullingThreads