Ep. 74 - This and That (Drew pt.2)

Nanette and Brad continue conversing with Drew, who shares his painful yet transformative journey. Drew discusses his experiences of child abuse and how people in his community, including church members, were complicit. He reveals the struggles and triumphs of escaping his troubled past, detailing his journey traveling across the country with nothing and working to attend BYU. Drew also touches on his sister's tragic death, and his ongoing efforts to provide a better life for his daughter as a result. The episode offers deep insights into spirituality, resilience, and the quest for self-worth.

Transcript

Brad: 0:00

As a way of warning, this episode does touch on the topics of child physical and sexual abuse. If these topics are triggering, please consider whether this episode is right for you.

Nannette: 0:10

Welcome to the Mormon to Medium podcast. I'm here with my husband, Brad

Brad: 0:14

hello, we are going to continue our conversation with drew. And you get to hear the answer to the question that Nan left off. On last episode.

Nannette: 0:24

Wait, what was the question? I forgot..

Brad: 0:26

Well, if you want to find out, you're just going to have to listen.

Nannette: 0:31

Welcome to the Mormon to medium podcast, where we'll talk about spirituality, the paranormal religion, and my journey going from Mormon to medium. I'm Nanette Wride. Thanks for listening. Now let's go have some fun. Did you ever wonder that this just popped into my head? Did you ever wonder if your neighbors, people in your ward knew you were being abused and just kept their mouth shut?

Drew: 1:22

They absolutely knew.

Nannette: 1:24

So you would be, because I felt the same way. Like my, my mom's neighbors and all of my neighbors knew it was always happening, but never said anything or would do anything. So in a way. being re victimized by everybody, just watching this, these children being abused,

Drew: 1:40

Well, the ring of pedophiles that was doing what they were doing, that included my sister and other members of the ward, We had state high councilmen on that.

Nannette: 1:48

shut the front door.

Drew: 1:50

one of them ended up in the Pennsylvania State Prison and died there. Yeah.

Nannette: 1:55

Wow.

Drew: 1:56

And then, yeah, there's one other person, I don't want to get into their name or who, but there's one other person that was never held accountable. And then my sister ends up taking her life in 2011. Largely a result of

Brad: 2:09

never

Drew: 2:10

having gone through all that and never dealing with it and then making life choices that reflected the objectification of her sexuality and her identity.

Brad: 2:20

So sorry to hear

Drew: 2:20

Yeah, it was, it was really tragic. Well, and that's what that tattoo is all about right there. The guitar. People think I like music. I'm like, no, that's about my sister. Yeah. Yeah. That's right there. All that's

Brad: 2:33

All that's her.

Drew: 2:34

Yeah. So, yeah. She she'll be the first person I hug in heaven. I promise you that. So, if there is a heaven, I don't know. Maybe, maybe I'll never see her again. I don't know.

Nannette: 2:45

not a heaven like we are taught in, in any religion, but there is.

Drew: 2:50

She, she never got to live her life. And so going back to my daughter real quick. One of the things I wrote and you can read it on my Facebook, but I, I wrote a piece called gone too soon. Probably the most popular piece I've ever written. And at the end of it, I said, I will raise my daughter to have the life you never did. So. Yeah.

Brad: 3:17

It's okay.

Drew: 3:18

And so far I have, you know, she's a, she's a beautiful nine year old girl and She will never know about life,

Brad: 3:28

a person.

Drew: 3:29

because I'll kill the person that looks at it wrong. So, well, I shouldn't say that. I would want to, but I will do harm to anybody that harms my children. But she is, she's being raised very well. And it's, it's the spirit of what my sister never had that guides that. And I do, I, again, I don't pray, but I often think about my sister and sometimes I say, Laurie, what should I do? I don't say God. I say, Laurie, what should I do?

Brad: 3:59

do? Hmm. Almost like you have guiding spirits

Drew: 4:01

Well, I did it the

Brad: 4:02

team to help out.

Drew: 4:03

I did it at Corey's grave the other day. I just sat there and said, Corey, how did I get through this, man? Just three days ago. You know, watching the sunrise, coming home from another officer's grave, and thought I better go say hi to Corey, and it was powerful, you know. Sometimes the answers are instant. Sometimes I just wait for things to come in through the day, you know, and then I go, oh, that's an answer. Does that make sense?

Nannette: 4:27

Oh, a thousand percent. I was just gonna ask you how you get your answers. Like is it a feeling? Is it a thought? Is it

Drew: 4:32

it? They're thoughts. I'm a very, I'm a very verbal very, yeah, my love language is words, words of affirmation. And if we want to go into that paradigm, but and so I just believe that whatever powers and forces are out there realize that for me, they're going to have to speak. I have to use language. Sometimes I'm guided to language in books.

Brad: 4:55

Audible books,

Drew: 4:56

like I listened to on the way down here. And I went, I've never thought about being unattached like that. This idea that we don't externalize our happiness, that we internally derive it. Because this religion teaches us that. It says, God is out there. And if we check this box and we do these things, the locus of, of control is always outside of ourselves and, and that's bad. The locus of control should be internal. But we're, but we're raised to believe that. If we check this box, and we do this thing, and we keep this, this bishop happy, and if we go on the mission, and we get married in the temple, and if we give enough money that this god someplace that never took the time to come save my sister from being raped but would help a kid find their teddy bear, I don't, I don't have time for that god. That's it.

Nannette: 5:42

time to do

Drew: 5:43

No.

Nannette: 5:44

No,

Drew: 5:44

No, I'm the one that lost them. That's probably on me.

Brad: 5:47

I've, I've been to, I've been to fast and testimony meeting and I know

Nannette: 5:51

have time to

Brad: 5:52

finds people's keys.

Drew: 5:54

And like I said, God would help people find their keys but not stop a kid from being raped by one of his own stake high councilmen that apparently he used the spirit to call them to that calling. So

Brad: 6:03

Well, it's the power of discernment,

Drew: 6:05

I don't have time for that.

Nannette: 6:06

Yeah,

Drew: 6:07

People don't want to have that conversation with me'cause I'll eviscerate them. Yeah. I will flip that script so fast to them and make them very uncomfortable. And, and I'm not going to be nice about it. I'm not.

Nannette: 6:19

need to be. Not at all.

Drew: 6:20

no, that's, it's insulting to me when people talk like that. I'm like, yeah, God can be whatever he wants to be to you. But this is the version of God I encountered. And until you can explain that, we don't have a lot to talk about. Don't tell me he's omnipresent, all loving. He's not.

Brad: 6:40

So what took you from, hey, I'm this fresh faced BYU, you know, student going through school and he was a zoobie, is what they call them, to going, all right, and now I'm done. This doesn't

Drew: 6:56

I think if I can go back, I think, I think the BYU experience is worth talking about for a minute because it is, it is the watershed moment of my life academically. It is the watershed moment. It's where everything changes. So if you grow up poor and you grow up in the environment, I do, and you grow up being abused and you don't have any therapy and you have all these broken ideas about who you are and you don't feel good about yourself, you have no self esteem. Not to mention, this smile is not the smile. I grew up with no dental care. Like, I don't know if you know what I had to go through to get this smile, but it's pretty amazing. But I was so not confident and I had no help in college. But I'll remember, and here we go with divine intervention again, right? I remember in 1992, I was done. So I'd come home from the mission, started sleeping around, breaking the law of chastity, wouldn't you know, and just didn't get anybody pregnant.

Brad: 7:46

Now wait a minute.

Drew: 7:47

yeah.

Brad: 7:47

doing that is akin to murder.

Drew: 7:50

I know, but I was, you know, here I am, this 22 year old kid hot off a mission full of hormones and and if, if I'm the only anomaly that's ever done that, well,

Nannette: 8:00

I

Drew: 8:01

I guess I should be interviewed for this

Brad: 8:04

for this. But

Drew: 8:05

But sadly I'm not. You just did it before your mission. I did it after. Neither one of us is better here.

Nannette: 8:11

better in

Brad: 8:12

all about timing.

Drew: 8:13

figured shit out sooner than I did. But

Brad: 8:15

I jumped right back

Drew: 8:16

Oh, did you? Well, God bless you. You had to save yourself, right? You had to go do the

Brad: 8:21

and everyone else.

Drew: 8:21

you could be absolved. Yeah. How'd that work?

Brad: 8:26

Well, on a former podcast II talked about that and I think part of that was just so I could be like F you to my ex's family who's always had to tell her how horrible I was. Yeah. So, anyway.

Drew: 8:37

so I came back from the mission and I knew I was making bad choices. And I was like, and I believe the church up to this one, I didn't know what I know now, obviously. And I thought, I'm going to get my life right. And God, I'm just going to come out here and I'm going to trust you with my life. I packed everything I had in two suitcases, bought a one way ticket on a Greyhound bus. Sound like a Simon and Garfunkel song, right? And and I ride off across America. And And I get off and I get let off at the Temple Square in the middle of the night. Nobody. And I sleep in a hotel. I get a Bishop's voucher and I work at Temple Square for a week at Welfare Square and I'm just this poor, needy 22 year old trying to figure out his life. And I'm like, I can't live in Pennsylvania. I can't be around my mom. I can't be around my dad. I had to categorically reject everything I'd ever been given. And literally. Go be out on my own with nothing. I had no money, no job, nothing. And so I love telling this story to my kids. I told it to him last year coming home from a BYU basketball game. I'll never forget my junior, my football player, just looking at me like, Damn, dad. Now look at you, and he goes, you have your own home, you've got this cool bar, and like it was just, it was a really tender moment, you know. And, and I don't think he realized that I'm like, all I ever wanted to do was have a family. And I just wanted, all I ever wanted is for my kids to know that they're loved, and they're cared for, and they'll never be hit, they'll never be told they're stupid, they'll never be sexually abused, and, and I'm not rich, but they'll have their medical and dental needs met, and I've done that. I've never failed to make a payment on anything, I have money in the bank, I'm not rich again, but I've taken care of my kids, I gave my kids every measure of childhood I never had.

Brad: 10:25

for you.

Drew: 10:25

And, and it feels good. And that, that, that's the hero's arc, right? The Joseph Campbell reference, the great anthropologist, but that's my heroic

Brad: 10:33

some of us aren't quite as academically inclined as

Drew: 10:37

as academically

Brad: 10:38

that is or what you're talking about.

Nannette: 10:40

He's a really good

Brad: 10:43

when you started

Drew: 10:44

Although, when you were talking about books,

Brad: 10:48

when you were talking about books, instantly what came to my mind is a scene from Hamlet. What are you reading? Words. Words. Words. Words. I, I, I'm pretty sure that's your favorite scene in the entire play.

Drew: 11:01

Yeah. Words, words, words. Anyhow, yeah. The, the heroic arc. I, I, it could be Yung, I don't know. Anyhow. But I always thought about that and I, I, I, I hope I'm a hero to my kids, right? I don't need to be a hero to anybody else, but I've had lots of people say, you should tell your story. It's really cool. I think it is, but I also think it's mundane and in a lot of ways I think a lot of people have had the same story. A lot of people go on to do some really amazing things and have been through much worse.

Brad: 11:27

a lot of people are afraid to be as vulnerable as they need to be to tell that story. And that's what makes it amazing. Because if you can be vulnerable and tell that story, then it becomes relatable.

Nannette: 11:40

That's so true.

Drew: 11:42

and I, I think you're

Nannette: 11:43

You look at me. So

Drew: 11:44

so I go on the mission. So now I'm at BYU and I'm going, but I know how I did in high school, right? I know I didn't do well and I'm not, and then, and then I start to doubt myself. And now my mom's voice is running space in my head again, and I can't do this. And I'm around, I'm at, I'm over on ninth East and King Henry appointment apartments in Provo, Utah. And, or by that I'm at Roman gardens, I think was the name of the place. And And I'm living there in student housing, but I'm not a student, right? So I'm around the whole academic college milieu and I'm seeing all these smart kids. I'm like, I want to be a part of this, but I had no help.

Brad: 12:17

help.

Drew: 12:18

I have no family. I'm working at Friar Tuck's at the University Mall. I'm

Brad: 12:23

loved Friar

Drew: 12:24

Remember that?

Brad: 12:24

They had the best deep

Drew: 12:26

Scones and the scones scones. Yeah, and I was the guy making them and I was just working fast food I was barely making enough to pay my half of rent for a to share a bedroom with a stranger that was rotating every semester But I was starting to do it, right? And then I ended up getting a job at JCPenney. And I'm able to start working and save, and now I've got benefits. So now I can take care of it. This is back when you could work 30 hours for a place like JCPenney and have full time benefits, right? And so now I'm able to start taking care of myself medically. And I finally said, I want to go to school. And I thought, I have no idea how I'm going to do this, because I couldn't save enough money for school. And I And then I realized by this time I'm like 26 and so I've been back from my mission four years and I've been out at BYU for three of those four years. And I'm just now starting to save some money and I'm like, wait, I can get. FAFSA, or I can get student loans. It's not based on anything my parents made. I've been on my own long enough

Brad: 13:23

to do that.

Drew: 13:24

so I applied for a Pell grant. Somebody was watching me and knew that I wanted to go to school. And this is back when UVU was, I think, UVSC. It could have even been UVCC before it switched to UVSC. It probably was in 92, but I remember it being yellow and blue. So I think it is UVCC, but I applied and I got accepted. And. Somebody had sent me this. Let me go back real quick. Somebody sent me a check in the mail three weeks before school. I'll to this day, I'll never know who it was, but I remember I was praying. This is why I always think there's something going on, right? It was 1, 200 in the month. The message said, we know who you are. We love your story. We want to see you be successful. This is your first tuition. So, you know, 1, 200 in 1992 paid tuition. Yes. For four classes and left me money for books. Yeah,

Brad: 14:11

Wow.

Drew: 14:12

so I end up for owing my first semester. Then I for the next semester. So now I have 16 college credits, core classes with a 4. 0. So I apply for the presidential scholarship at UVCC and I get it and I never pay for school again. And so a lot of things happen because of that. Somebody took a risk with 1200. and revealed the scholarship student in me and revealed the scholar in me. I've turned into this voracious student. And I'm working 30 hours a week, mind you, still working 30 hours a week and maintaining this GPA. I ride the bus everywhere. I don't have a car. I never did all through college. I rode the bus everywhere. And I put myself through

Brad: 14:53

Yeah, right. I'm up every morning at

Drew: 14:58

every morning at 5 30 and then I'm trying to figure out how to eat during the day. I don't have a cooler and then I've got to go catch the bus from the Wilkinson center up to the mall to go work and then get back home and hopefully it's not too late. It was just crazy. And, but I did this for five years. Well, so the day comes, I have my Rudy moment. I call it my Rudy moment. When I applied to BYU, I'd been four semesters at UVC, UVSC, or by that time it was UVSC, and I graduate with like a 398 from there. And I apply to BYU and they immediately accept me. And they offer me a full ride in it, they call it the That was some ladies named scholarship. Anyhow, I remember I wanted to have my moment. And so I got off the bus,

Brad: 15:44

And I

Drew: 15:44

kept the letter. It came in the mail to my apartment. I kept it, and I knew that I thought it would be either a rejection or acceptance letter to BYU. So I got off at the Wilkinson Center, and I sat in front of what then was the J. Reuben Clark Law School there. And you could walk over this walkway from the wilt to that. And there was a bench over there. And I sat there just like Rudy did it sitting at the front of the lake in the movie when he finally gets accepted the third time, right. And I read it and I just start to cry. Same thing. You know, you you've been fully accepted. We are offering you a full ride scholarship. And I, I, the rest is history, you know, I took some really difficult classes, some really challenging classes, I ended up graduating, I think, with a 396 from Brigham Young University,

Brad: 16:25

Which is a big deal. BYU

Drew: 16:27

Magna Cum Laude, I was in the

Brad: 16:28

school, A, to get into and, and B, to graduate from.

Drew: 16:32

And I graduated top 5 percent magna cum laude, so I graduated with honors from BYU in science. So that, so, I mean, now I have this piece of paper that says, Mom, you're so wrong. I'm not dumb, Mom. It was, it was, you talk about a transcendent moment. Like it was proof to myself.

Brad: 16:50

that,

Drew: 16:50

That, that kid I believed I was, I remember sitting on this doorstep or sitting in the stairs in an apartment in Hershey, Pennsylvania, just studying, my mom's in there screaming and yelling, going, I've got to pass this test. And that's the way it was. I was always riding the bus or walking to the Harold B. Lee library, wherever I was going, I am going to do this fucking thing if it kills me. But I'm doing this. Nobody else in my family has done this. I'll, you know, nobody, I think I was the only one to graduate high school. My other siblings, I think, went back and did their GED at one point, but then I went on and had the audacity to think I could do college, and look what I did. And the thing is, is, I say that not to boast, but because all I ever wanted was a means to change my socioeconomic trajectory, right? I wanted a means to be able to provide a different type of life for both myself and the people that would be brought into my sphere of influence, namely my kids and my wife at the time. And I did that. And I'm proud of that. I'm proud of the fact that I've had one job and one address for 25 years now or 23 years. My kids have only ever known one mom and one dad, and even though we're not married, we're very united in their co parenting and they're all thriving and, and there's a whole other story there. But, you know, so. Yeah, do I wish I could still be married and be happy and be doing this with their mom? I mean, if that's what was supposed to work out, but Ashley's much happier now than she ever was. And I honor that. I celebrate that. And it makes her a better mother. It makes her, it makes her better show up to this co parenting thing. And I'm totally fine with

Brad: 18:20

that. Well, and you absolutely should be proud of where you are now because from where you came and you know it as well as I do, most people in those situations do not

Drew: 18:34

they never get out of the ghetto.

Brad: 18:35

They stay in that environment because they think that's all they are. And they don't realize. There's so much more. There's so much more.

Drew: 18:43

The irony is, is that it was the LDS Church that told me I was better than that. So, you know, again, it's this and that. It's not either or. The church isn't totally bad. Their theology, I think, is harmful. But there were people that modeled, I think, as you said earlier about Christ, I think there was people that took to heart that message and imbued themselves and others around them with a sense of that. And they saw, my goodness, they saw this little boy that they knew was in a bad home. So, And this woman who took me in with her husband and her three boys, all of them were, I think, Benson scholars at BYU, all smart kids. They saw that in me. I just couldn't see it in myself. And for years, even though I'd gotten this degree and I'd gone on, you saw this a bit in the academy when you were my trainer, I just wasn't confident. I wasn't, I mean, if there was anything that really stuck out in my law enforcement career, it was just that I was not, I knew I wasn't as confident as I needed to be as an officer. I am now but I wasn't always. And I think it really started when I did my LEO. Okay. That's I wouldn't argue.

Brad: 19:50

through and going, okay, there are 5000 possible endings to this scenario. If I do a, B and C, I'll get X, Y, and Z.

Drew: 19:59

you're killing

Brad: 19:59

one and Five, I'll get three

Drew: 20:01

Because he's not wrong. He's not wrong.

Brad: 20:04

going

Drew: 20:05

Make a decision!

Brad: 20:06

stop overthinking it and just act.

Nannette: 20:09

just too smart. Okay,

Drew: 20:13

Okay, you're That's hilarious because it's so true. It's so true.

Brad: 20:19

so

Drew: 20:22

I wrote the book on analysis paralysis. In

Nannette: 20:24

That

Drew: 20:25

may, that may be my memoirs, analysis paralysis,

Nannette: 20:28

paralysis. But,

Drew: 20:29

but

Nannette: 20:29

so

Drew: 20:30

Anyhow, I just was never this confident kid and I was always faking it, you know, and it showed up for a while there in my law enforcement career. But as a parent as well, I would, I would just get to situations with my kids and I was like, fuck, I don't know what to do here because, because here's, well, here's the thing. If you grow up in the environment that I do and the abusiveness, you categorically reject everything out of hand, right? So I know what not to do. Yeah. But that says nothing about what to do.

Nannette: 20:56

Right.

Drew: 20:57

And so I'm, I, I'm like, I, I know where I, I want to smack the shit out of this kid. Right. But you can't do that. And I really don't want to hit my kid, but you feel that kind of frustration. Right. And, and you know, that's not going to solve anything, but I'm like, I don't know what to

Nannette: 21:11

you don't have the tools to know what

Drew: 21:12

I'm trying to manage finally unpacking all of my trauma and I've got babies in my arms.

Nannette: 21:18

many parents

Drew: 21:19

many parents has this ever

Nannette: 21:21

All of

Drew: 21:21

all of them, right? And, and so here I am trying to figure out how to be a better parent, trying to figure out how to be a good parishioner, good Mormon, right? And, and unpack all of this yuck. And then January 30th, 2014 comes

Brad: 21:38

it is.

Drew: 21:39

and there it is.

Brad: 21:40

I

Drew: 21:41

And I can't do it anymore. So

Brad: 21:44

And I'm going to stop you right there

Nannette: 21:45

thank you for listening to this episode of the Mormon to Medium podcast. We'll continue talking to Drew about how his faith crisis led him to where he's at next week

Brad: 21:55

and as we finished this interview up with Drew you're really going to see how some of these connections are far reaching not only do they impact just him, but some of the ripples from Nan's life move out and, and affect Drew in the way that he thinks about things.

Drew: 22:12

Right. So

Brad: 22:13

So thank you

Nannette: 22:14

for your support. Thank you for listening and taking your time. Let us know if you have any questions and if you'd like to support the show and we will see you. Do you

Brad: 22:23

On the other side of the veil.