In this episode (and its only Part One) of Beyond the Surface, Katrina shares her remarkable journey of religious abuse within a remote East African missionary setting, shaped by her adventurous father, her mother’s struggle with depression, and the unique challenges of being an African orphan adopted by American missionaries. She reflects on the cultural dissonance of navigating life between Africa and the United States, confronting issues of race, identity, and the expectations tied to diverse Christian traditions. Katrina’s resilience is illuminated through her candid account of academic sabotage, highlighting how mentorship and self-awareness guided her beyond her family’s limitations. Her story offers hope to anyone seeking to redefine their path amid rigid religious and cultural constraints.

More About Katrina

Speaker and life coach that specialises in religious abuse, academic sabotage, and good girl syndrome, Katrina is currently living her best life in her renovated garage, feverishly writing away and creating motivational speeches! She hopes her ongoing projects will help others find the same peace she has found.

Katrina is a teacher to toddlers by day, an overachieving writer by night, and a coffee-drinking socialiser on the weekends! As a never-ending psychology enthusiast, Katrina is not ashamed to seek trauma-informed therapy every week!

Katrina loves making new connections with churches and colleges through her speaking career and collaborating with other artists who are trying to create beauty out of pain. Katrina's biggest focus is to speak around the US and eventually around the world, including Africa, where she was orphaned, adopted, and raised as a missionary for 20 years.

Connect With Us

• Find out more about Katrina on her website - https://www.speakwithkatrina.online/
• You can also connect via Facebook or Instagram

• You can find out more about Sam on her website - www.anchoredcounsellingservices.com.au
• To connect with Sam on Instagram - @anchoredcounsellingservices
• Want to contact with Sam about the podcast or therapy? Use this contact form.

00:18 - Sam (Host)

01:08

I'm still here talking about religious trauma, faith deconstruction and cults and all of the messy, glorious parts of healing. Whether you are diving in for the first time or you've been here along for the ride since the very beginning, I'm so grateful you're here. This year I've got some incredible conversations lined up, the kind that will make you laugh, cry and maybe go oh, wow, that hit a little bit too close to home, and what better way to start than with an episode that was so good we couldn't fit it all into one go. That's right. Today's a two-parter. I hope you enjoy the first episode of the year. Buckle up, it's a good one. This is Beyond the Surface. Welcome, katrina. Thank you for joining me.

01:57 - Katrina (Guest)

Thank you for having me.

01:59 - Sam (Host)

I'm really excited about this episode, like I was saying to you before we hit record um that I just loved the episode that you did with Maggie on the Hello Deconstructionist podcast, um, and I was like I don't know who this woman is, but I love her and I need her on the podcast and so I'm really excited um that you're joining me. Um, before we get into it, whereabouts in the world are you for people for, like geographical context?

02:28 - Katrina (Guest)

02:53 - Sam (Host)

It's a crazy story, yes, okay, so let's jump into. My first question is nice and vague and broad, which is where does your story start?

03:08 - Katrina (Guest)

I like that. Okay. My story starts as an African orphan in a orphanage in East Africa okay, um, and so, oh goodness, that's like even just like.

03:27 - Sam (Host)

What was your childhood like?

03:31 - Katrina (Guest)

04:12

My parents are older and so our life was a little slower than usual, kind of just going with the flow of my elderly parents. Even on the mission field we kind of stood out because we were a little different. I was homeschooled, so that even made my life a little weirder. I stood out at youth group because I was that awkward homeschool kid that didn't have very good social skills. And then, let's see, at the age of about eight years old my dad decided to take us out of the city and go to a very desert-like area with a people group that I must keep confidential, but it was a little bit on the dangerous side and nobody looked like us. No, we couldn't speak their language, they couldn't speak our language, and so we lived in a house surrounded by thorn bushes as a perimeter around our house and then like a really tall metal gate perimeter around our house and then like a really tall metal gate every house in Africa is surrounded by some sort of wall and then a very tall gate with spikes on the top to keep robbers out. Um, and then we didn't have grass in our yard because we lived in the desert area.

05:41

So one of my earliest memories as a youngster is being terrified to go outside because of thorns, snakes and what are those called Scorpions and yeah. So we'd have to wear boots outside at all times of the year, not just because it's raining, but because we didn't want to step on thorns and we also had bats hanging from our trees. My dad loved this lifestyle because he's very adventurous and his dream was to be a missionary, but it had a toll on the rest of us, I would say. And then one of my earliest memories is my mom getting depression and that was what we lived in this desert-like area and she was our homeschool provider.

06:28

And I would wake up and go where is mommy? Where is mommy? And it was just shh mom is sleeping, shh mom is sleeping. And actually I haven't said this on any of my other podcasts, but I think we'd actually get in trouble if we said we didn't know what to do, and so the expectation of the eight, nine and 10 year old was you should know what to do. Go work in your booklets. But there was no structure. And then we, as soon as my mom would wake up which was oftentimes very late in the day we would sit on her bed and do bible classes for hours and hours and hours.

07:10 - Sam (Host)

So those are some of my earliest memories in africa yeah, I mean, I'm there's, I have so many questions that I'm trying to like, I'm trying to like rein them in and also like weed them out so that they don't come out in a jumbled mess, um, but I mean the imagery that you just gave of like just the physical location that you were living in, like what was that like? As like a little girl who probably just wanted to play and run around and have fun, like what was that like to not be able to do those things?

07:54 - Katrina (Guest)

Oh, my goodness, no one has ever asked me that before. Thank you, um. You know, actually I'm going to tell you a quick story to kind of describe that I remember going mom and dad. Can I please go to tell you a quick story to kind of describe that I remember going Mom and Dad? Can I please go out the gate and go over to my neighbor's house and ask them if they want to come and play, even though I don't speak their language? And so they said yes, which is surprising because my parents were very controlling and very scared.

08:20

And so I go out the gate and I go to my neighbors and this little girl had an uncle who would chew mara and mara I don't know what that is in English, I think it's tobacco, but it was like green, disgusting stuff just oozing out of his mouth and it smelled bad and he part of his body was, um, paralyzed and so he looks scary, um, he would kind of limp and um, and his eyes were red. And I go into his property to go and ask his niece if she wants to play, and he comes up to me and he grabs my arm and he's speaking in his language really fast and really loud and I'm just this little girl and I'm terrified. And so the little niece comes up and she's speaking in the language, explaining why Katrina is on our property. And so I remember running home scared and crying, and then my parents were like, yeah, you're never going outside the gate again like that by yourself. And then if we ever wanted to take a walk, we had to go in a group and we had to cover ourselves in skirts and wrap our heads and we were walking in dust, we weren't walking on pavement. And yeah, like we didn't even go to church for that season. If we did go to church, we had to drive 45 minutes or an hour away and a lot of times it was church services that weren't in our language.

09:53

So you're sitting there, sweating, covered in flies flying all around you and like this is the missionary lifestyle. Um, but to answer your question, I watch like Netflix movies now and I'm like that's what teenagers do, that's what like 12 year olds, like I didn't do that or I don't know the lingo, or I do feel like I missed out on a lot of stuff. Um, and I remember actually having a phone call with my dad to ask him about that. Like you. You know, dad, what was it like choosing to go to this rural area, knowing that, like your kids, didn't have any friends or that mom had depression and his only answer was Katrina. This is what missionaries do, this is what the missionary life is, and I was like that just doesn't feel like just a very interesting answer. Missionaries do sacrifice a lot, but I do say in my book that I'm writing if the family is not doing well, if the family is not healthy, we shouldn't be on the mission field. The family comes first, and I would say we weren't doing well and we needed help.

11:13 - Sam (Host)

Yeah, the comment that your dad said around, like that's just what it's like to be a missionary, strikes me as like mirroring almost what we hear when we go to pastors or religious leaders and we say why is this happening? Why is this the way that is? And the response is something in the realm of that, that's just the way that God designed it, or like that we just like God's ways are higher than ours and and that sort of very bypassing type of comment that requires us to just suppress how we are feeling about it and um, sacrifice and it's, it's so harmful and so painful for that to happen.

12:11 - Katrina (Guest)

yeah, you nailed it. Oh my goodness. You nailed so many things in my story that I maybe haven't even used that language. Spiritual bypassing, yeah, like it's an excuse, or it literally is the reason that I stayed, and all of the religious abuse that I did is because, well, this is what God expects and Jesus will be proud of me if I stay just a little longer. Just a little longer because, this is what it means to be a strong, good girl. Christian.

12:45 - Sam (Host)

Yeah, okay. So I want to ask about what it was like for you, as a young African girl, being raised in a white family, and what impact that had on you in terms of being able to embrace your cultural heritage or not embrace that.

13:10 - Katrina (Guest)

That's a really good question. Oh, my word. Yeah. So, living in a white household surrounded by a beautiful country of Africans, my dad really loves different cultures. He embraces it so well, so I do have to give that to him. In fact, I really struggled to learn my native language, but my dad picked it up and he would go to the grocery store and speak um in that african language and everybody just fell in love with him. Like who is this white dude that knows how to speak our language so well? And then people would stare at us like so you are black, but your father is white. We don't understand um. But it wasn't racist actually. It was just a whole lot of curiosity, um, and needing to be educated on that. So I love that it wasn't racist. The you know, really I have not experienced any racism in Africa growing up. I've only gotten the racism here in the US.

14:28 - Sam (Host)

I'm I'm so not shocked by that.

14:31 - Katrina (Guest)

I'm so not shocked, oh yeah, oh, my goodness, so I didn't run around going, oh.

14:38

I'm black oh, yep, that's right, I'm black. Um, I just kind of like you know, people were like but what is it like to not be with your real family? And we didn't talk that way in our household. It was just this understanding that, though I was not born in my mother's womb, I was born. I was born in my adopted mom's heart and that's just the way we talked about it. But my parents were also very talkative about like you were adopted and we are just so happy and we're so proud and if you have any questions, like, we are here to talk about it. So they weren't ashamed to do that and I'm very glad and I'm very thankful for that. Um, so I would say, living in Africa with that, it was very beautiful.

15:21

Maybe, now that I'm thinking about it, we had African aunties and I was like, man, how do I, how do I bring that up in America? I don't know if people will understand that, but I was on another missionary podcast talking about that and they were like, yeah, that's something that actually all missionaries deal with in all different cultures, but that is something that Americans struggle to understand. So, in Africa, as a missionary, something that you can do to help the African communities is give moms jobs, and so moms would be hired to come and be nannies, but in Africa we would call them aunties, and so I guess that could be considered very strange, that I had African nann. I feel very drawn to them and even in the workplace I'm like there's another African American that looks like me, like we stand out because the majority of workplaces are mostly white people, and then I stand out and then I see an African American and I quickly want to bond with them, and a lot of times it's like why? Why are you acting like this, katrina?

16:51 - Sam (Host)

I could never put.

16:53 - Katrina (Guest)

I could never put words to it and then I realized, oh my goodness, it's just, I'm drawn to you because it reminds me of Africa. It reminds me of the relationship that I had with my African aunties and all my other African beautiful, chocolate, brown skin friends. Um, but even though I am African and American, um, there definitely is this sadly, there's like this separation between me and African Americans here in the US.

17:21 - Sam (Host)

Yeah, yeah, and I mean so you've mentioned a few times about like, uh, being a missionary kid and a missionary family, and so I'm curious what? Because obviously that's a very broad term, right. So like, um, I like, what flavor of Christianity was this type of missionary? Like, what flavor of Christianity was this type of missionary? I like to use the word flavor because it just is like way better than denomination, because denomination sucks, love that question.

18:00 - Katrina (Guest)

I just feel like we are kindred spirits, because I use that kind of language, like even we were at the beach and I'm like, ooh, did you see that delicious wave? And people are like, what? So I'm like, what flavor of Christianity. I love that. That is so me, okay. Well, my dad is an Anglican pastor. Well, my dad is an Anglican pastor. My brother, who we shall hear about, is a Presbyterian deacon. Okay, and for several, several years in Africa, we went to a vineyard church. Ooh, yeah, yeah, um, I, yeah, I don't, yeah, sorry, your face is no, it's just.

18:57 - Sam (Host)

It's like. Whenever I'm talking to people in the US, it's like always, um, obviously it's by and large like evangelical, um, but we don't tend to use the term evangelical in Australia uh, it's not common for us, uh, but the like, the flavors you are throwing out, are much more prominent in Australia in terms of like Anglicanism and Presbyterian and um. I actually had frequently visited a vineyard church when I was part of the church, so that's why I was like, oh, I know all of these, yeah, yeah, I mean, and they're all like. The three of those are actually um, they've all got some pretty key differences, which is interesting as well. Like they're not all like the same. That's a very like Neapolitan type of ice cream in that like they're all three very different flavors, if we stick with the flavor theme. So what did that look like in terms of like, what were you taught about god and the bible? And like, what beliefs were internalized in you growing up?

20:19 - Katrina (Guest)

man bam, you get deep.

20:21 - Sam (Host)

No one, no the difference between me and maggie is that I'm a therapist.

20:24 - Katrina (Guest)

I'm dying to be a therapist, by the way, I want to be a trauma therapist so bad, um, I want to be a trauma therapist so bad. Basically, the foundational stuff. You are a sinner in need of Jesus. He died on the cross for your sins. You need to have Bible classes every single day. When we lived in the desert area, we would do church in our living room. I like these are flashbacks my dad would wash our feet, um, and then we would have communion. I'm trying, I'm sorry, I'm trying to think oh interesting, we would go to the vineyard church. This one's a bit sad for me. I don't want, I want to be intentional not to do this, but we would go to the vineyard church and then we would go home and we would dissect everything about church afterwards and a lot of times, um, it was just criticizing, um, and I don't want to do that.

21:30 - Sam (Host)

When I grow up and when I have kids, so you mentioned Bible classes and that obviously being like a really foundational part, and I remember from your episode with Maggie that Bible classes outweighed any other type of education like typical normal education. And so tell me a little bit about, like, your homeschooling experience. Like what was that like?

21:57 - Katrina (Guest)

That is one of my favorite topics. That is like the first half of my book, Religious Blacksheet, that I am in the middle of editing and publishing. I'm so excited and I'm getting ready to do several speaking engagements. Just find a stage and go and speak and have it filmed and start putting these things on YouTube. Because my favorite question that Americans ask me is what in the world is academic sabotage? And I'm like let me tell you. And so I want to be an. I am an academic sabotage life coach, but the thing is I really haven't met anyone that has gone through the level of academic sabotage that I have.

22:45

So, bottom line, I was homeschooled my whole life and I grew up knowing that I had a strange eye muscle problem. I was very flexible as a baby and my parents took me to the doctor and the doctor could never figure out why I was so flexible, and so that also affected my eyes, and so I grew up different and special when it came to school. I grew up with my parents whispering about me and my education and never knowing what was going on. I grew up doing very basic little sprinkles of math and science and spelling, and then everything else was Bible classes and Bible classes. We'd go on for a couple hours. And when I was 17 years old, I came back to the US to go to a music camp in Nashville and that is when the spiritual bubble popped and I realized that all of my friends who now I turned 18 in America so now I was 18. And I'm at this music camp with all these other 18 year old friends and my colors, my flavors, started coming out. I wasn't just acting out of be a good daughter, I was going hey, this is who Katrina is. And I realized my love of speaking. I could get a crowd all together and speak. I found that I had this really strong confidence where I went on the grand old Opry stage and saying and realized I want to be a motivational speaker.

24:36

And before I got back on the flight to go to Africa, back to Africa, I had a coffee date with my older brother and who's 11 years older than me, and he goes Katrina, where are you in school? I just I don't understand. Where are you in school? And this, this is the moment I I didn't know. What do you mean? You don't know, You're 18. How do you not know where you are in school? And I just didn't know. He kept asking all of these questions and I couldn't answer him. And then he said you know, we observed that every time we have a video call with you in Africa, you're cooking and mom is sleeping and dad is pleased with you. We don't understand, yeah. And so I get on a plane and, lo and behold, did not realize that as I was flying back to Africa, all of my newfound friends were 18, going to college and I was an 18 year old starting ninth grade.

25:42 - Sam (Host)

That's insane yeah, what I mean. What was that flight back like for you to have that real, like that's a long flight to have that realization. Like, what was it like to go? How has this happened? Like, how has this happened.

26:01 - Katrina (Guest)

I should have said it a little differently. I should have said little did I know that as I was flying back, all of my friends were 18 and going to college and I was 18 and in ninth grade. So I got home and I think this was it. I was in shock after being in America and then coming home to our tiny cottage of just four walls and it was a dark house crammed with lots of things and just going right back into this household full of depression, and my mom's depression got worse and so she would sleep until like four o'clock in the afternoon or six o'clock, and I just went back into my good girl mode and mold of cooking meals but really not knowing what was going on with my life. And so all of a sudden, sudden, I called my Bible study leader See, this is the good girl coming out Before we do anything, we call our Bible mentor and I said can I have permission to call a therapist and ask her why this is happening in our household? She was like, yeah, there's nothing wrong with that.

27:16

Little did I know that that phone call would literally turn me from the good Christian girl into the religious black sheep. So I called this doctor and she was like this is wrong, this is unhealthy. You guys need help. Basically, you've been trained under parentification and you are filling the shoes of a mother when you were supposed to be a child and a student. Getting through high school, yeah, had no faith because what I had gone into was if my parents are pleased with me, then God is pleased with me, and because my parents are pleased with me, then God is pleased with me and because my parents were pleased with me, I was like everything is great, my identity is set.

27:59

And so, because I had eye problems growing up, school went on the back burner and being a good mommy figure was on the front burner. Even in the African culture people would praise. We have trained our two-year-olds to get up seven o'clock in the morning, make themselves chai, make themselves breakfast like a good gal. And I'm like but is it? It's like a two-year-old shouldn't have to do that. A two-year-old is a two-year-old, they're meant to just be children. Um, and so even my african aunties would be like ah, katrina, be a good gal, you know that mom stick, you make a meal, make papa proud of you. But it was like but it wasn't my job to make the household proud of me, it was my job to be a little girl. Yeah, no, you see, here comes the crisis, and please interrupt me, therapist, if you have anything to say.

29:01 - Sam (Host)

No go ahead.

29:04 - Katrina (Guest)

So switching roles, and now you are in this midlife crisis very early on. So, basically, you are an 18 year old that has to go back to being a child to get your education needs met, but in order to be pleasing and functional in this household, you have to still play your mom role. So, at the same time, you are a mom and a child. A mom and a child. You're an 18 year old, but you're in ninth grade. You're an 18 year old but you're in ninth grade. And then, in order to get your education needs met, you have to lean into your masculine, but then, in order to be a safe woman in the household, you have to lean into your feminine. And so it is this absolute midlife crisis You're an adult, a child, feminine and masculine all at the same time in order to be a safe, good Christian girl. And then in order to be this bold, confident woman who gets school done.

30:05 - Sam (Host)

Yeah.

30:05 - Katrina (Guest)

And so I played that role for the next three years in order to get four years of high school done, and because of that, I was no longer the good Christian girl that my parents had raised me to be for the last 18 years. So an example of that would be mom and dad, I am no longer doing Bible classes with you because I cannot get any more high school credit for doing Bible class with you every single day, and that, whoo, the household was a wreck. Because of that, it was Katrina has left God. She is no longer in right relationship with God, and so I would get school done and go in the kitchen and make dinner and, instead of us sitting down as a healthy family going how was your day? How can I pray for you? What was the best part of your day? What was the worst part of your day? What's your plan tomorrow?

31:02

It would be child and mother eat your food while father gets the Bible and strategically opens it to a certain verse that he thinks his religious black sheep daughter is struggling with. So we're going to figure out what her sin pattern and sin struggle is, because no longer is she good by submitting to our authority. Instead, she's pursuing education, and so I would shove my food in my mouth. Get up and go, excuse me, I have to go back to school. My food in my mouth, get up and go, excuse me, I have to go back to school. And, um, my dad actually tried to trick me into staying for more bible class by going. If you stay for devotions tonight, you'll get more high school credit, which is an extreme form of academic sabotage, because you're the academic provider and you're lying to the student that is dependent on you for that education. Um, and you might go well, this academic sabotage exists because your parents didn't get an education. No, no, no, no, no, no. Um, my parents both have their masters. It's insane. Um, like, my dad is in newspapers old newspapers, from being in a very good university, and so what's also so fascinating is that, on the mission field, one of the things that they did was provide education for kids in villages. So why would you sabotage your own African daughter's education but then go and support other kids to go to school, like it was celebrated? And you know how in culture, like you don't talk about finances, husband and wife don't talk about finances in front of their kids, but on the mission field it's different. It was always oh, this mother needs money for this problem and this child needs money for their education, and and this, this parent is in the hospital, and so we always heard how all of these kids needed money for education. But it was your job as the missionary, good girl, to be silent and just trust that when mom and dad blessed you to graduate, you will graduate. And so, sam, this just it gets deeper and it gets deeper and it gets deeper.

33:22

After that flight, I sat my parents down and I said I need paperwork to prove where I am in high school. What grade am I in? Like, what is the last? Like? Where is it? I need those grades? I need to know what grade am I in? Uh, like, what is the last? Like? Where is it? I need those grades? I need to know what grade I'm in.

33:38

And I was met with anger. That's another sign of academic sabotage the fact that your academic provider, um, is threatened by you asking for your basic right of paperwork and understanding where you are so deep mid crisis. It meant you have to accept that you will live in a very dysfunctional home if you ask for your basic needs to be met, and so I would leave these three hour meetings sobbing, with angry parents yelling after me to come back because they had one more thing to say about Jesus, one more thing to say about God, one more thing to say about reconciliation, but zero answers about where you are in your education. That is so wrong. And so, again, if you could even help me understand how to say this properly. But basically, you are switching roles with your parents. In those meetings they become the child and have their spiritual temper tantrums. Well, the student who is dying for their academic answers to be met, becomes the adult. So there has to be an adult in the in the equation, and there has to be a child in the equation, um, and so, yeah, I would walk away with no answers, but walk away having to be the adult in those meetings, which is so fascinating.

34:56

So I say in the book you were expected, I was expected to run my academic career blind. You're supposed to run the race blind, because that's what good, religious, good girls do, religious, good girls do. And then I said in the book dodging spiritual bombs of warfare, which sounds dramatic, but it really was. It was really bad. So I ended up starving myself. I said if my parents aren't pleased with me, then I don't deserve to eat your food. So I would wake up early in the morning and I would crank out four tests and then, in shame, tiptoe to the kitchen to get breakfast or ask my auntie text my auntie and ask her to bring me breakfast to my room, and I would hide in my room and eat breakfast. I mean, it sounds like an eating disorder was about to start. I was so ashamed. And then my identity was like you're dumb. You're dumb for being 18. And in ninth grade my best friend was a 16 year old and she was further along in school than I was. In fact I haven't said this on any of the other podcasts. She graduated before me. Yeah, so I was 18 and she was 16. Both starting ninth grade. I should just buckle down and put that part in the book. It is so embarrassing.

36:26

But this book is not for my glory, it is for deeply explaining the damage that is caused in academic sabotage.

36:36

So what academic sabotage does to a person is it teaches you to be a workaholic and it teaches you that your identity is in performance and when basic human, that basic human necessity of education, is taken away or sabotaged. It trains the person that things can't be done in a simple manner. You have to strive to such an inhuman level for everything. So, even like I'm trying to come up with some simple examples, like taking a power walk, katrina can never just take a walk. To take a walk, I have to be striving so much that my hips and my legs are in agony at the end of a walk. And I'm like so I'm trying to practice now, like what does it look like to do things in just a really calm manner? Katrina, I don't know how to do it. And so I got my first job when I moved to America and became an adult only two years ago, and my idea was well, I can't just have one job, I have to have two jobs. And my friend was like calm down, yeah, or I like writing this book.

37:46

I was like, well, I have to have this book done in six months so that I can write the next book. And it was like, who is coming up with these expectations? And it's because, what is it? Everything that you learn in high school bleeds into the next parts of your life. If you weren't taught how to have a good work and life balance in high school, then you're not gonna. It's not gonna bleed into the rest of your life.

38:15 - Sam (Host)

Academic sabotage, tortures it tortures you, and I mean like you. Like we use the term academic sabotage, but I think it's also really important to note here that, like the academic sabotage, like saboteurs were your parents, right. So so like this is not just like a separate educational system that is actively working against you, like what we're also talking about is like the intersection between academic sabotage, religious abuse and family abuse, right, and that like all wrapped up in one is like like that's the Neapolitan ice cream nobody wants to eat. Like that's that's a combo nobody wants. Because, like your identity is wrapped up in your religion and who you are supposed to be in your family is also wrapped up in your identity, coupled with the sabotage that is happening, is like it's like the ultimate combo of like how, who am I and how am I supposed to be in the world?

39:30

oh good well, I mean, it's awful like it's good, it's probably not the one I like. You said it was fascinating.

39:37 - Katrina (Guest)

I was like fascinating is not the word I would use when I say so good, I just love the way a therapist is able to say it I was gonna say oh, um, actually, oh, this is so fascinating and please interrupt me at any moment because I love hearing your intake on it. But Katrina, becoming a workaholic meant that mom and dad couldn't function in the household, so they would lock themselves in their bedroom and pray and whisper and talk, and then they would come out holding hands as a symbolization of spiritual authority in the marriage, and they would come up to my room and they would go Katrina, we have to talk to you, and my mentor had to literally teach me what it meant to have boundaries during a work day, that even if your parents aren't going to symbolize that for you and show it to you, you have to show it to them. And guess what? That's not simple, and so I would have to go. I'm so sorry, mom and dad, but it is only 11 o'clock in the morning and I have a whole school day. You can talk to me after school hours, and that was so disrespectful that they would stand there and just jab at me and poke at me until I would listen, and so I would have to suck the tears away, listen to them and then suck myself back into what it looked like to be a responsible student, and I had to learn to have self-control. That, even though the household wasn't functioning because of my choice to finish high school like a responsible adult, just because they weren't functioning didn't mean that I had to fall apart either. But even that that's so hard, yeah, like a student, like, oh, a student can't thrive in a high school where they are being constantly bullied. I have never heard of a homeschooler actually struggling with bullying in the household with their academic provider.

41:44

And so I did online school, the Christian online system, which, if it weren't for them, I would not be graduated today. So no longer was I under the hand of my mom doing classes with me. I was under this high school, but my parents this online high school, but my parents were still paying for it. So that means, if they're not willing to pay for the next two classes, well then, you're just waiting on them. And so whenever I had a class, I would reward myself, and after like a 12 hour school day, I would reward myself and I would sit down with my highlighter and my pens and my erasers and I would come up with a new system to get a year long algebra class done within 35 days days, and to me that was a reward. It wasn't punishment, it was a reward. I was like you can't come up with this system until you're done getting 13 assignments done today.

42:40

And then every day I would sit down and come up with a new plan to get like 53 weeks of work done in four weeks, and a lot of times it was impossible. And then I would beat myself up and I would come up and I'd go, okay, if I can't get it done in four weeks, let's try to get it done in six weeks. And it was insane. And then I would reward myself with a power walk. And my mentor was like Katrina you do not reward yourself with a power walk at the end of the day because you got all of your classwork done.

43:16

You take a walk at the end of the day because you're a human who needs a break, who should take a walk, whether you deserve it or not. That's a basic human need. And so it's interesting because we're going to go into not only academic sabotage but the religious shunning, and what is similar with both of these situations is torture and sabotage. And when a human learns to live in torture and in sabotage, then it's like Katrina, living in this world, finds other ways to torture herself. Because we've learned that that's the way a human lives.

43:56 - Sam (Host)

We've normalized it and that is what is motivating. Yes, yeah, I mean like like if you, even if you just like strip it back to like the bare bones of like why people use torture, like torture is motivating, it gets a result. And yeah, if you are so used to having other people inflict that on yourself, that is the only information in your system that tells you that's how we get motivation is that it has to come through torture because there's no other information programmed in the system get out.

44:34 - Katrina (Guest)

Get out, freaking love psychology. So that was the programming in my brain. And so, oh people, audience, are you ready for this? Four years of biblical education, of biblical high school, that landed you 18 and in ninth grade, three years, getting four years of work done. So that is seven years. Now hold that in your back pocket, because I forgot to add one more thing I would do maybe 60 to 65 hours of high school work a week, fall into bed for three days, not being able to function.

45:20

If I was sleeping, there were tears still falling out of my eyelids and when I would wake up, there were still tears falling out. I had zero control over my tears and then, if I was up, I had to be watching a movie because I could not function. So I had to be sleeping or watching a movie. And one day my dad comes in because Katrina is not making dinner, katrina is not serving, like a good girl, and he goes Katrina, why aren't you making dinner? And I couldn't even form words, I was stuttering. I said Dad, I, I, I can't get out of bed, something is wrong. I said Dad, could we please go and get therapy? Something is wrong. Could you, me and mom go get therapy. And his words were how dare you say that we need therapy? If anyone needs help, it is you, you, you. We have been on the mission field for 20 years. How dare you?

46:16

And I remember it was as if bricks just fell onto my being and just suffocated me, and my dad watched that I was hyperventilating in bed and he just stood there. So he was watching his daughter struggle with severe depression and he would serve my mom on bended knee with her depression and we weren't getting answers and nothing was getting better. But when his African daughter was struggling with depression, these were the words that were spoken. He went to. He called my American white brother, who is very important in the story, and he said we don't think that Katrina is in right relationship with God and we don't think that we spanked her enough. So your understanding yeah, your understanding of your I think it was at 19 years old now of not being able to get out of bed was we just didn't spank her enough. I heard that phone call.

47:08 - Sam (Host)

I heard that phone call I heard that phone call.

47:10 - Katrina (Guest)

I heard that phone call.

47:11 - Sam (Host)

Yeah, like I mean. So how I'm now sort of like thinking how did you get out of this environment?

47:21 - Katrina (Guest)

Wow, good question, sam. I was addicted to the idea that I could not leave home until I graduated. Now you have to understand this. It is so normal in the culture of American missionaries. You are in Africa, we know thousands of American missionaries, but when their high school student is done, graduating, you always go back to America and put your child into college, and that was my plan.

47:51

49:01 - Sam (Host)

Thanks so much for listening to part one of this conversation with Katrina. Honestly, we just couldn't stop chatting, if you didn't get the vibe already. We had so much fun recording this episode. There was just so much to talk about and I loved every minute of it, so I just kept talking. So we've split it into two episodes. Make sure you come back next week for part two, where we dive even deeper into the conversation. Trust me, you won't want to miss it. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of beyond the surface. I hope you found today's conversation as insightful and inspiring as I did. If you enjoyed the episode, be sure to subscribe, leave a review and share it with others who might benefit from these stories. Stay connected with us on social media for updates and more content. I love connecting with all of you. Remember, no matter where you are in your journey, you're not alone. Until next time, keep exploring, keep questioning and keep moving forward. Take care.