31 - Live interview with Dan Carlson

[00:00:00] Welcome to the Healing for Male Survivors podcast. This is a podcast for male survivors

[00:00:09] of sexual abuse and assault, whether as a child or as an adult. Know that you are not

[00:00:15] alone and the abuse was not your fault. My name is Mike Chapman. I'm a certified recovery

[00:00:21] life coach and also a survivor. Let's find hope in healing together.

[00:00:34] Welcome to the Healing for Male Survivors podcast. This is Mike Chapman and I'm here today with

[00:00:42] Dan Carlson. I'll give his intro in a moment. And if you would like to join us live, like

[00:00:50] our live audience here today, you can find out more on how to join at polarlifeconsulting.com

[00:00:59] and for those of you who are in the audience today, if you would like to ask a question or make a

[00:01:07] comment to our guest, feel free to do so. We'll keep you as anonymous as you would like. Just

[00:01:13] enter in your questions into the Q&A area and we will only say your name if you manually type it

[00:01:20] in with your question. Dan Carlson, 62, married with four children, one son of 30 and three daughters

[00:01:29] ages 21 through 28. He has a two-year-old grandson and a 15-month-old granddaughter.

[00:01:37] Okay, grandparent goals. I'm jealous. Dan is an HVACR technician in Tucson, Arizona

[00:01:46] and gave his life to Jesus at age six. Dan's childhood, although very normal appearing, was

[00:01:53] full of trauma and there was also sexual abuse, wounds that he carried most of his life before

[00:01:59] Jesus set him on a path of healing. This is among the very first times that he's spoken about his

[00:02:05] life publicly in this way. But in the last two years, he's come to a place where he feels

[00:02:11] transparency and sharing is a way for him and others to heal so he's not hiding anymore.

[00:02:19] So welcome to the podcast, Dan Carlson, and we start out like we do most episodes with four

[00:02:30] questions. Now it's time for four questions. That part of the podcast when we get to know our

[00:02:36] guest a bit better by asking a few questions. Let's go. Dan, what is your favorite food memory?

[00:02:42] Okay, well I had to think about this one a little bit, but when I was gonna say nine to ten years old,

[00:02:51] I was living in Madrid, Spain, and I had moved to the American School of Madrid to a British

[00:02:58] school called St. Michael's Preparatory School. And I had two teachers and their names were

[00:03:03] and Miss Kanaite and Miss Smiles, very British ladies. I was absolutely smitten with both of them.

[00:03:11] So I got up the nerve and I asked them both. They would come to my house for dinner. My mother

[00:03:17] would make us fondue. We had a whole fondue service and my parents had done fondue entertaining

[00:03:24] others on a number of occasions. And they both agreed. And so they came to my house and my

[00:03:29] mother put on a fondue feast. I had these two heartthrobs teachers of mine came and ate dinner

[00:03:36] with my family. I felt like the king of the world, you know, the boiling oil with the meat and

[00:03:43] we had the little cake with the chocolate and all that kind of stuff. It was sublime.

[00:03:49] I felt, I just couldn't believe that they both accepted my invitation to come to my house.

[00:03:56] I was very, I don't know what to, I don't know exactly how to describe it, but I just thought

[00:04:02] it was amazing. Like they liked me. Wonderful. So what is your favorite Christmas or holiday memory?

[00:04:10] I would have to say in 2004 we bought the house that I'm currently in and my children were

[00:04:18] very sages. We have a long narrow dining room and we're able to put two of those, you know,

[00:04:25] Walmart plastic tables together. So we had this huge bomb table and we had my parents and my

[00:04:33] wife's parents and my children and some of their friends and some of our friends. And I'm sitting

[00:04:39] at the head of the table saying grace over everybody. And I just felt like here I was the

[00:04:45] patriarch of this meal. I provided the meal, I provided the setting came to God with the

[00:04:52] prayer over everybody there and it just felt so accomplished. I don't know exactly how to describe

[00:04:59] it, but I just felt like I never thought in my wildest dreams that I would be in that setting one

[00:05:06] day. It's kind of the ultimate adulting, hosting a family holiday get-together. Yeah, it's

[00:05:16] kind of an honor and right of passage. And yeah, I know the first time I did that,

[00:05:20] I think it was in college and it was like my home and they're all coming to my home for this.

[00:05:26] And it was yeah, it was cool. Yeah, we had the oars, dervishes and you know, the holiday music

[00:05:32] playing and it was just it was just sublime. Yes, wonderful. So what is your favorite church

[00:05:42] memory or house of worship's memory? I have to say that when I came back to the Lord,

[00:05:49] I had been on a long hiatus. I came back to the Lord and I came back to my family in 1986.

[00:05:56] Started going to a little Baptist church and I was so graded there, although it was, you know,

[00:06:03] as you'll hear later, I had been down some pretty rough roads and I was in all these people that

[00:06:09] just seemed like their life had been not like mine. You know what I'm saying? They were,

[00:06:14] I think they've been exposed to the things I've been exposed to. Now, I realize that's naive,

[00:06:19] but that's the way it felt. I had rededicated my life to Christ and we had a Sunday evening service,

[00:06:25] although I'd been baptized when I was 12 by my uncle, got rebadged because of my renewed

[00:06:32] commitment to Christ. That was the first time that I think I understood entirely what I was

[00:06:38] doing because of the path that I'd been down prior to that and felt like I was making a conscious

[00:06:45] decision for God against the ways that I had lived my life in the past. It was really good.

[00:06:51] So what is your favorite scripture or any inspirational quote that has helped you on your

[00:06:58] spiritual journey and what about it speaks to you? So in my most recent return to Christ,

[00:07:06] as B6 was not my most recent return to Christ, this was in more between June and September of 2022.

[00:07:14] I had an experience of surrender with Jesus and I experienced his present way that I never had before

[00:07:21] somewhere in that day or a few days after that, as I continually kept seeking him,

[00:07:28] wanting to know how I could remain in his presence the way that I was. The verses from

[00:07:34] Revelation 3.19 and 20 came to me. If you're on HM, you can look up those verses and you'll see a

[00:07:41] post that I put about them. He showed me this was a formula of those two verses in Jesus' own

[00:07:48] words. Revelation is a vision that John is having, heaven and of Jesus himself and of the Father

[00:07:55] and of angels and so on and so forth. In this there's red letters because Jesus is speaking

[00:08:01] in Revelation 3.19 and 20, he says, whom I love, that's me because he has redeemed me.

[00:08:08] Whom I love, rebuked, and I chatted. In the past, I thought that those words were condemnation

[00:08:14] and punishment. I realized at that point what he was showing me is they were conversation. That

[00:08:20] was still small voice that we all know as Christians. When he's talking to me, he's

[00:08:25] rebuking me for what I'm endeavoring to do. He's telling me what I need to do. So then it says,

[00:08:31] so be zealous and repent. In today's vernacular, I would say that that means hurry up and turn

[00:08:38] around. Look at me. And he says the same thing in a different word picture. And he says, behold,

[00:08:43] I stand at the door and knock. If any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come

[00:08:48] into him and I will eat with him and he will eat with me. I realized that all of the things

[00:08:54] that I was holding to Jesus all the time in my seemingly futile prayers in the past, things

[00:09:01] that I wanted him to change about me, the things that I wanted him to fix in my circumstances,

[00:09:07] the people that I wanted him to intervene on and change their outlook. Those were all subject to

[00:09:14] the idol of myself and my self image. I had to put them all down and actually face him

[00:09:21] and look at him. So when you're standing there on the other side of the door and you're holding all

[00:09:27] of your stuff and put it down, I guess what happens then your hand is free to open the door

[00:09:33] and you can let him in. And then he says, you will have communion with you. He will eat with you

[00:09:39] and you will eat with him and he will be an intimate conversation with you like people are

[00:09:45] over a meal. That changed my world and it is still to this day, clearing and crying to everybody,

[00:09:52] he's burdened and heavy-laving and thirsty for Jesus to realize that all they have to do is lay

[00:09:59] their burdens down and look at him, let him speak and he will tell them what he thinks of them,

[00:10:05] what he feels about them and how he has plans for them. Amen. So going back to your

[00:10:12] third question, there was a Q&A, what's your favorite church memory? Someone from the audience

[00:10:18] asks, would you say, Dan, that you sense the redemption the Lord gives his children at that

[00:10:24] Baptist Church? I did because I had been very, very far away from God and I realized that he

[00:10:32] was still my Savior and he was still my Lord at that time. I didn't have everything that I

[00:10:38] have now and understand a lot of things but I did know I was redeemed and that I was

[00:10:44] hatched out of the jaws of sin and death again in my life. Excellent. Now let's talk about your story.

[00:10:52] I know timeline-wise, a lot of stuff gets jumbled. I know my story jumps around because that's how

[00:11:00] things were revealed to me and so start wherever you would like with your story

[00:11:06] and all the way up to present day and then let me know more about your healing journey as well,

[00:11:14] what has worked, what hasn't worked and then all the way up to what you're doing these days.

[00:11:21] So I was born in Tucson, Arizona and my dad was going to college, mechanical engineering

[00:11:29] at the University of Arizona and my mom was still in high school and they met at

[00:11:35] Baptist Church of Tucson, which interestingly is not the same church but it's the same building

[00:11:42] that my parents and I and my children are all worshiping in now at a non-denominational church.

[00:11:49] Father, the headstrong super intelligent guy was a missionary kid, spent six or seven years

[00:11:57] of his childhood in the jungles of Venezuela where his parents were ministering to the Yanomami tribe.

[00:12:04] This is your own father. This is my own father so he spoke Spanish which plays into later on in

[00:12:10] my story. I was very involved with the church as was my mother and somewhere in that process

[00:12:16] he dated for a couple of years and somewhere in that process I like to say he later down in

[00:12:22] the tall grass and he got her pregnant. My genesis into life and into church and into Christianity and

[00:12:30] into my family was my parents' marriage. I was already on board standing up on the very podium

[00:12:36] that I watch every Sunday now. Three years of age I was up on that stage of a Sunday night

[00:12:42] citing stuff like John 316 for the congregation. My father obviously had to go tell my mother's

[00:12:51] parents and so on and so forth. There was essentially the shotgun wedding. I believe that this caused a

[00:12:57] lot of dysfunction and dysregulation for my dad, actually setting plans that he had. I honestly

[00:13:04] don't think that my mom was his ultimate goal as far as women goes. Now he was stuck with her.

[00:13:11] So during my gestation and then after I was born there's a lot of anger and frustration

[00:13:18] and violence on his part. The first time that he beat me as an infant was 11 months old to where

[00:13:24] I needed first aid. I do believe that my father loved me at the time. I also believe that my

[00:13:30] father had no idea how to be a father and he was driven by his own passions and his own very

[00:13:37] poor upbringing in terms of how to deal with children. It was very, very hard on me,

[00:13:42] my entire childhood until I left home at 16. The meetings that he gave me were severe and

[00:13:50] unregulated and I came to a place where I could actually give my body and observe myself being

[00:13:56] beat from some distance away because that's what my little mind had to do. It was also very,

[00:14:02] very intelligent and he was trying with every tactic that he could come up with to mold me

[00:14:08] into somebody he thought was going to be able to handle this life that I was facing. So he,

[00:14:16] as I like to say it, he mind fucked me really good. My mother was submissive and passive and he beat

[00:14:22] her and abused her and abused me and he continued to abuse me and abuse her after my sisters were

[00:14:30] born but he didn't do the same thing with them. So there was a definite difference in the way

[00:14:35] they were brought up and the way I was brought up. At the age of five, I felt like I had a neon sign

[00:14:40] over my head. I thought back on this and said, broken little boy come use me and an older

[00:14:47] teenager that was a neighbor of ours that my mom left me in his care when she went shopping

[00:14:52] and things started to come into the bushes behind the garage and introduced me to being

[00:14:58] the mommy family relationship. So that's when I was sexualized at that point and you're saying

[00:15:05] that person then abused you sexually? He did. Okay. And how old were you? You said you were

[00:15:10] five and how old were they? I was five. He was 15 to 18 and he, you know, he groomed me in the

[00:15:17] situation. We had a big bush behind my garage that was hollow inside so you could go in there

[00:15:25] and it was like a house so we go play house. And I was the mommy and you can pretty much figure

[00:15:31] out how that worked out. My parents eventually did get wise to what was going on and they did not

[00:15:38] afford me any counseling or even any your own counsel or speak of it at all or do anything

[00:15:46] to bring this neighbor kid to justice moves to another place was the solution was never spoken

[00:15:53] to me. But your family moved to another place at that time? Is that what you're saying? Right,

[00:15:58] we moved. Wow. That was the way that it was dealt with. Realized it was happening and they took

[00:16:03] me out of the situation because they had no training or context or knowledge of how to

[00:16:10] deal with something like this. Figured kids are resilient. He's still alive. No visible harm.

[00:16:16] They'll snap out of it, whatever, right? It wasn't until maybe a year later that I started

[00:16:21] to have dreams about a large penis with veins and stuff on it going into my mouth and I couldn't

[00:16:29] understand. Did not have direct memories of what happened but I started having these dreams about

[00:16:34] it, which obviously since I'm having the dreams and I don't remember how they started,

[00:16:40] of course as I'm processing this over the next several years think that it's something to do

[00:16:45] with me, my own twisted nature. That's how children at that age think that they're so self-centered

[00:16:56] just like when they pull a blanket over their head. Oh no one can see me because I can't see them.

[00:17:02] That's that part of their psychological development was very normal. They're very

[00:17:08] egocentric so if there's a problem, I must have caused it. That's where their mind

[00:17:15] automatically goes at that age. So fast-forwarding through my childhood, that was back in Peoria,

[00:17:22] Illinois. Pennsylvania, there were other children my age that approached me for being doctor kind

[00:17:30] of stuff and I always engaged. We later moved to Spain when I was eight and the Spanish

[00:17:36] children thought me quite a novelty and they had to get a look and a feel of me. So it's being handled

[00:17:42] throughout my early childhood by other adolescents and then when I came back to the states, we're

[00:17:48] adults. There's one man in particular that was stalking me, interacted with me and was grooming

[00:17:54] me and he actually got me to come to his house once to ostensibly get a book about tennis

[00:18:00] because he had met me on tennis courts at the U of A playing by myself. I didn't find out until years

[00:18:06] later when I was in the Navy and I got a ship to shore phone call from Tucson police that this man

[00:18:13] was a child predator and there was a bunch of kids buried in his backyard. Wow. So my father did,

[00:18:21] I told my father about this guy and about him lending me this book. He sent me back to give

[00:18:26] the book back and he said, then you get the hell out of there. I don't think I would have done that at

[00:18:31] that point but he sent me back to give the book back. This guy would show up anywhere that I happened

[00:18:37] to frequent. He would happen to be driving by and talk to me so it was one of those kind of deal.

[00:18:42] He had my number. He was watching me. I very well could be buried in somebody's backyard if

[00:18:48] God hadn't intervened in that situation. Yeah. So I had a really hard tough time with my dad.

[00:18:54] That was going on until I was 16. Eventually came to a place where he said, either you conform

[00:19:01] do everything that I'm telling you to do but that time included me not speaking to the girl

[00:19:07] that I liked at school because he didn't think she was good for me and I said, dad,

[00:19:11] you can tell me where to be, when to be, how to be, what kind of underwear I can wear.

[00:19:17] I'm a young adult and I'm in high school and you're not going to tell me that I can't

[00:19:21] say hello to somebody passing them in the hallway. And he said, well, if that's the way you feel about

[00:19:27] it, you can go. I found myself with a little bag on the streets on a Saturday night and I did some

[00:19:33] couch hopping. I was 16 years old. I eventually got a job at a Sambo's as a dishwasher on

[00:19:39] graveyards. I was still trying to finish high school. Remember Sambo's? I was still trying

[00:19:44] to finish high school but that was difficult working all night and going to school all day.

[00:19:49] I got an apartment and I had a bicycle that I'd had since I was living at home that I had done

[00:19:55] a lot of work on and it was my bicycle. One night I came out from work to go home in the middle

[00:20:02] of the night and somebody had cut my lock and taken the bike. So I started walking to my

[00:20:09] apartment that I was sharing with one of the cooks and a guy picked me up and he lived in

[00:20:14] a not fluent neighborhood and he took me to his house and he wind me and he smoked me up on some

[00:20:20] weed and then he... How did you meet this guy? He picked me up because I had to walk home that

[00:20:25] night because my bicycle... Oh, so he propositioned you to pick you up or he just picked you up

[00:20:32] and threw you in his car? He picked me up. He picked me up and then talked me into coming

[00:20:36] home with him. Okay. And he was a rich guy. He had a wine cellar and a jacuzzi and a pool.

[00:20:44] He got me feeling good and he oral on me in the hot tub and then he took advantage of me

[00:20:50] in his bedroom. And I felt at that point that this was my fault that I had agreed to it all

[00:20:56] though I was still in the same modality that I was in when I was being groomed up to that

[00:21:02] point. I had nothing that had corrected that for me and I was 16 years old. Now I felt like my life

[00:21:09] was over and that I was just damaged goods. I wasn't fit to be amongst humans and I got really high

[00:21:17] and I called my parents and I told them what had happened and they came and got me, took me back

[00:21:22] home but I was still a handful so they talked me into joining the Navy and they signed me up

[00:21:27] and I joined the Navy when I was 17. And nothing inappropriate ever happens in the Navy?

[00:21:34] No, several things inappropriate happen in the Navy.

[00:21:41] So I went through the Navy and there were other men that approached me and there were other

[00:21:47] situations. There were people that picked me up on the street and eventually I went to a

[00:21:53] New Year's party with some of my shipmates at a hotel and we were all dropping acid and I thought

[00:21:59] I was having hallucinations but it wasn't and apparently I did oral on one of the other sailors

[00:22:05] and one of the other sailors turned me in. So I was summarily booted out of the Navy

[00:22:10] in honor of discharge. Don't ask, don't tell days I'm assuming. Right. But they gave me an

[00:22:16] honorable discharge under unsuitability conditions due to homosexual tendencies.

[00:22:22] Well, so you did get an honorable discharge. I did. Okay. So after that I was in what we called

[00:22:29] Detachment Quarters where they were processing my discharge and I met a guy who was involved with

[00:22:36] a religious organization called the Way International and they had a course on biblical

[00:22:42] research and I took the course and I stayed in Philly which is where my ship had been

[00:22:48] and I joined their organization and I went out the fall of that year to a mission field as an

[00:22:55] itinerant missionary with other girls and a guy and we set up house and started holding

[00:23:00] Bible studies at our home and running this class and I moved my way up through the ranks of that

[00:23:07] organization until I was one of the city leaders on Gumrie, Alabama. But then one of my parishioners

[00:23:14] if you will, introduced me a female and she was into BDSM and she introduced me to

[00:23:22] certain literature and then offered herself to me as my slave and I started having an affair

[00:23:29] with her. Well, the other leadership finally found out and I was kicked out of there

[00:23:34] out of that organization. Hitchhiked around the country after that. I didn't have any money

[00:23:39] and I didn't have any prospects. Of course, there were horny men on the road and they would see

[00:23:45] the neon sign over my head and so I would sell myself for room in a warm bed and a warm shower

[00:23:53] and food along the way until I finally made my way back to Tucson. Things continued similarly

[00:23:59] while I was in Tucson. I was very confused. In 86, one of my girlfriends who I wasn't

[00:24:05] intimate with but she was a close friend asked me to take her to a clinic to get tested for

[00:24:11] pregnancy. I did and she came back positive so then she asked me to take her back for an abortion

[00:24:17] and as far off of the reservation as I had gotten in terms of my faith, I couldn't swallow that.

[00:24:23] I went to my parents and I asked them what they thought about the situation and they

[00:24:28] referred me to a crisis pregnancy center. I talked with the director who was a female

[00:24:33] and a groundskeeper volunteer who was a male three or four hours and I rededicated my life

[00:24:38] to Christ and this was in 86. I moved back. My parents invited me to move back home with them

[00:24:44] and I stayed with them for about a year with my sisters who were still at home and I got

[00:24:49] plugged into this church. So what happened with your friend? Did she go through with the abortion?

[00:24:55] She did. She did go through with the abortion but I didn't take it. I did not take it.

[00:25:00] Crisis pregnancy centers very often or rarely work with males especially when they're not the

[00:25:07] baby's father and yet I came to them for advice about the female. Right, exactly.

[00:25:15] Exactly and then you ended up rededicating your life. So I came back to the Lord

[00:25:20] and I plugged myself into the church. I was running Bible studies. I was proselytizing

[00:25:27] work and with my friends and I was on fire for Jesus. Eventually I met my wife who had used to

[00:25:34] go to the church and was actually formally been engaged to my best friend at the church. She

[00:25:40] was one of my mentors but he was getting prepared to go on the mission field with China and she

[00:25:45] was not prepared to go to China. They broke up so she had gone to a different church so

[00:25:50] that she didn't have to be close proximity with him but we showed up to a Christian play

[00:25:56] downtown that people from all kinds of churches were going to and I met her there. She gave me a

[00:26:02] ride back to the church as my vehicle was there. Talked to her three or four hours that night

[00:26:08] and I told her all about my life as far as I could tell. I was totally stunned and amazed

[00:26:13] that she did not run away screaming. A few years later I was married to her.

[00:26:18] Wow. She had her own issues. She had childhood trauma of her own. On that ACE test I score a seven

[00:26:27] and she scores a six if that tells you anything. Oh yes. I was supposed to be pretty bad.

[00:26:32] Anything really four and above has severe consequences. Yeah most of the results simply

[00:26:38] say five or above so anything five or above is like really high risk and I'll have a link in

[00:26:46] the show notes on the whole ACE adverse child experience test and what it means and what the

[00:26:55] results show but yes anything four or above or five or above is considered extreme in the fact that

[00:27:04] she had six you had seven. Wow that's a lot of trauma. So we got married. We had four kids

[00:27:11] during that time when her triggers and her triggers are my triggers were specifically

[00:27:18] designed for each other. So we had 30 years of some very very rough territory but Jesus had told me

[00:27:27] when I was thinking about marrying her said I am really screwed up Lord. I didn't even know

[00:27:32] about trauma then but I knew I was messed up. I knew she was messed up by the way she

[00:27:37] reacted to things and I said she's messed up and I messed up how is this supposed to work.

[00:27:43] I said you are both very messed up but you're both going to be healed. I married her. We have had

[00:27:48] 33 years of some wonderful times with some really really underlying issues between us for the

[00:27:56] whole time and of course when I felt disenfranchised and isolated and alone I went to porn

[00:28:04] masturbation and I didn't do it all the time but there were periods where I would just like

[00:28:10] fall off and go spend a week or a weekend or a day where I would come to my senses.

[00:28:16] That went on until 2019. A friend of mine told me about a cruising site and I was at the point

[00:28:23] where I thought that my bisexuality and my other propensities were literally a part of me

[00:28:30] that I could not ever escape and I needed to engage them somehow or I was going to lose my mind.

[00:28:36] So I jumped off into the fetish community to hooking up with men and being a dominant

[00:28:42] sadomasochist and I did that for about two and a half years and I had the freedom to do it

[00:28:47] because I'm an HVAC technician and I'm always out doing side work so my wife never really

[00:28:52] knows where I am anyway. And finally Jesus was talking to me the first day that I dove in

[00:28:58] there and he said, understand what you're doing, understand why you're doing it. I'm not surprised,

[00:29:04] not confused, not angry and I'm still with you. And he kept saying that for two and a half years

[00:29:10] while I reveled in my flesh and I reveled in the affirmation I was getting from the submissive

[00:29:18] community of men that I was engaged with and I thought that I had found my special purpose

[00:29:25] in life somehow. Finally my grandson was about to be born and he was born and I held him in my arms

[00:29:32] for the first time and Jesus said to me, life are you bringing for this child from his grandfather?

[00:29:39] You're going to be the hedonistic perverted bisexual fetishist doing whatever he wants.

[00:29:47] Are you going to speak life, love and grace and discipline into his life? Within two weeks

[00:29:53] after that I had come forward and told my family what I'd been up to. I walked away,

[00:29:58] all of it. I was doing a lot of weed at the time. I was doing poppers or rush or whatever you want to

[00:30:04] call it. I was doing a lot of stuff and I was enjoying myself immensely. I was on cloud nine

[00:30:11] but I knew I couldn't do that and have grandkids. That's how Jesus told me out.

[00:30:17] I finally came to Jesus on my face and I realized after I had told everybody what was

[00:30:22] going on, I'd been kicked out of church for a time until they could determine that I was okay to

[00:30:28] rebel with the rest of the congregation. My wife was completely destroyed and my kids were so hurt.

[00:30:34] I came to Jesus and I'm like you've been with me this whole time because you've been talking to

[00:30:39] me. I don't know what to do. I have nothing to say to you that you don't know. I have nothing

[00:30:44] to offer you that you are going to accept from me. I need to know from you why you are

[00:30:49] saving me right now. What is your purpose for me and what do you think about me? Then he flooded

[00:30:55] me with his presence and I spent hours just falling because I had learned how to surrender.

[00:31:01] Render means you lay everything down and you look right at him and you're like,

[00:31:07] don't have anything that you're worried about but he thinks. That's why I bring up those

[00:31:11] verses I did earlier. It was shortly after that that my wife shared with me an interview

[00:31:17] with Dr. Sherry Kiefer and Drew Boa on one of his podcasts and I discovered husband material

[00:31:25] and then I was able to start processing all of this loud, if you will, with the people

[00:31:31] and with the men in this community. Primarily you at the very beginning, Mike, you had to

[00:31:38] reign me in a few times because I was a wild card for sure but it has been such a blessing

[00:31:45] to be in husband material, process the struggle that I'm going through with these men and to also

[00:31:52] help them if I possibly can to see this idea of communion and fellowship and the presence of Christ

[00:32:01] in their life because it is the solution to porn and masturbation. Once you've experienced

[00:32:07] Christ in this way all you want is to go back there and it ain't porn and masturbation

[00:32:12] that's going to get you there and it's not even a wild sex thing that compares to being with Jesus,

[00:32:19] nothing. That's all I got to say. Intimate relationship for sure with Jesus. Yeah,

[00:32:27] and that's that God shaped hole in our hearts that we try to fill with other things until

[00:32:33] we get that real thing then everything else just pales and doesn't fulfill until you get the

[00:32:41] real thing and then you get it and there's nothing else like it. Once you've had it and once you have

[00:32:49] been in his presence in this way I don't see how it's even possible to think that you need to go

[00:32:55] back to anything else. Right. It's a question of, you know, it's like Jesus has got what I need

[00:33:03] and the only coin he accepts is surrender. Yes, very good. So what are you doing now

[00:33:10] with your healing journey? You've mentioned a husband material and are you in any in-person

[00:33:17] support groups or therapy or what things have worked and also what things have not worked that

[00:33:23] you've tried. So I am in another ministry called Better Pleasure which is run by a guy named Bo

[00:33:30] Olet. He's a Calvary pastor, have an in-person group and we do not follow a traditional

[00:33:36] 12-step program or anything like that. We are a group of men seeking sexual purity in community.

[00:33:44] I meet with them curiously enough Tuesday nights. Also, I've been through betrayal trauma recovery

[00:33:53] therapy with my wife and the C-SAT and I have not done well with that because I still have not

[00:33:59] really been able to process my own triggers and so I'm having a really hard time dealing

[00:34:04] with my wife's currently separated for the last five months and I'm planning on going back home this

[00:34:10] week not because anything is better but because I feel led that I need to be there and deal with

[00:34:18] things head-on. Jesus is with me every day and he sustains me. Suicidal ideation is a thing

[00:34:25] that's plagued me my whole life and it hasn't stopped entirely. I know where it's coming

[00:34:30] from now and I can run to Jesus and he sends it away. I had demons, a lot of demons that were

[00:34:36] involved in what I was doing for those two and a half years and they were my cohort. Sending them

[00:34:42] away was something I had to send Jesus to them and not try to fight myself. So on top of the

[00:34:51] trauma and the wounding from the trauma you also, so it sounds like dealt with spiritual warfare

[00:34:58] as well and you've dealt with actual demons that were working against you. Correct. Everybody who is

[00:35:06] being assaulted continue in porn and masturbation or any other type of unwanted sexual behavior.

[00:35:13] There's at least one demon that's talking to you every time you go there. It's not that

[00:35:18] you're possessed but they're on the job, they're on the job and they are talking to you

[00:35:23] and you have to know the difference between their voice, your own voice and the Savior's voice.

[00:35:30] I believe it's called a dynamic oppression. I believe it's the turnoff possession but oppression

[00:35:37] right in certain religious circles. I thought I was something when I was in that community

[00:35:43] and my avatar was me with rams horns growing out of my head. That imagery tells you guys

[00:35:49] anything tells you that I was identifying with demonic. So you mean when you were in the EBSM

[00:35:56] community you had an avatar that was on amalgam of your face with rams heads? Is that what you're

[00:36:02] saying? Right because I'm in Aries by my zodiac sign so I was identifying with the ram and with

[00:36:10] the sexual energy of the ram and so on and so forth and I didn't really think anything of it

[00:36:15] until you put a picture of what I had for my avatar up next to the typical picture of Satan

[00:36:22] and it was pretty much the same. Am I making any sense? Very much, yep. That's about all I got.

[00:36:29] Okay, all right. Is there any other questions from the audience? Feel free to put those in

[00:36:36] the Q&A section. Someone had asked about aces and for those on husband material I have a post

[00:36:43] there and I will also add a post in the show notes along with the PDF that I created on basically

[00:36:52] recreating that post for anyone who wants to share it as a PDF as well and I will add that to the

[00:36:59] show notes. So don't see any other questions coming in so any final thoughts, Dan? Yeah so

[00:37:08] for any of you who know me or want to get in touch with me you could text me on WhatsApp,

[00:37:16] Mike has my contact information there or you might even have it because of this group but

[00:37:21] if anybody wants to know what part of what I do on husband material and actually with

[00:37:26] Polar Life Consulting my own group we have a live chat room within WhatsApp and information

[00:37:34] on that group I will have in the show notes as well if you would like to join. So yeah if you

[00:37:39] have any questions about my experience with Jesus Christ which is I'm a one-trick pony that's what

[00:37:46] I talk about and how I know that anybody can approach Jesus Christ in a way that if they've

[00:37:53] never experienced him this way that they can that's I'm ready to talk about that as long as

[00:37:59] it takes. I'm wonderful and you've had the huge healing journey and you're still going on it

[00:38:06] and continuing to look at your own healing and the healing in your marriage as well

[00:38:12] so that's wonderful thank you so much for coming and sharing your story with us this week Dan.

[00:38:19] Again if you would like to join us live on future episodes you can find all the information

[00:38:26] on my website polarlifeconsulting.com slash live and with that we'll see you next time on the Healing

[00:38:35] for Male Survivors podcast. If you would like to learn more about my coaching with Polar

[00:38:43] Live Consulting where I provide one-on-one coaching and group coaching both with a focus on

[00:38:49] healing for male survivors reach out to me at polarliveconsulting.com that is polar spelled

[00:38:56] P-O-L-A-R I would love to hear from you I want to hear your story if you would like your story

[00:39:02] featured on this podcast contact me via my website if you like this podcast please rate and review

[00:39:09] because that's how other people can find me and I really want to spread this message of healing

[00:39:14] and hope to others and remember you are not alone healing is possible and the abuse was not your

[00:39:22] fault let me repeat that the abuse was not your fault see you next time on the Healing for Male

[00:39:30] Survivors podcast