Raised on Shame

What if healing is not about finally arriving at happily ever after, but learning how to live happily as we go?

In this episode of Raised on Shame, Kimberly talks with Paul Schulte about religious trauma, shame, identity, grief, EMDR, and the importance of doing our own work. Paul reflects on growing up gay in a deeply religious family, coming of age during the AIDS crisis, and the ways unprocessed trauma can shape how we see ourselves, our relationships, and even the work we do to help others.

They also explore therapist burnout, the danger of avoiding our own pain, the role of grief in healing, and what Paul has learned through decades of trauma work, including his recent work training military psychologists in Ukraine.

At the heart of the conversation is a hopeful reminder: we are designed to heal. Sometimes the key is already on the floor. We just have to be willing to look in the mirror, put down the shield, and pick it up.

Maybe the goal was never happily ever after.

Maybe it is happily as we go.

Guest's Website & Google App & Apple App & Books

Host's Website

What if shame itself isn’t actually the problem?

In this episode of Raised on Shame, Kimberly sits down with psychotherapist, writer, and researcher Dr. Judith Pilla, author of How Shame Runs the World, for a conversation that challenges some of our most common assumptions about shame.

Dr. Pilla argues that shame, in and of itself, is simply an emotion. The real question is how humans use it. Together, Kimberly and Dr. Pilla explore the difference between prosocial shame, which can communicate boundaries and help us learn, and corrosive shame, which is used to control, diminish, or harm.

The conversation also examines how our values determine which messages of shame we accept, what happens when inherited beliefs no longer fit, and why deconstructing religion, perfectionism, relationships, and cultural expectations can change the power shame has over us.

And in a conversation especially fitting for a podcast called Raised on Shame, Kimberly allows some of her own assumptions about shame to be challenged in real time.

What if healing from shame isn’t about eliminating the emotion entirely, but learning which messages deserve our attention and which ones we are allowed to refuse?

As Dr. Pilla puts it:

"Prosocial shame: use it, then lose it.
Corrosive shame: refuse it, then lose it."

Shout Your Shame

What were you taught to be ashamed of? What are you unlearning? What’s the thing you’ve always wanted to say out loud?

Call 448-488-7046 and leave an anonymous voicemail. Your message may be featured in a future episode of Raised on Shame. Please do not include identifying information about anyone else.

Resources

Judith Pilla, Ph.D.

Book: How Shame Runs the World

Guest's Website

Blog

Research

Host's Website

Season 2 of Raised on Shame begins with a question: Who told us what happily ever after was supposed to look like?

This season, we’re deconstructing happily ever after and the stories we inherit about love, marriage, divorce, family, faith, identity, and what a “good life” is supposed to be.

And to start that conversation, Kimberly sits down with two returning guests: her daughters.

Together, they talk about what makes an ending happy, whether a story can still be good when it doesn’t end the way you expected, what makes a family, how we know we are loved, and whether it’s possible to have more than one happily ever after.

Their answers are funny, thoughtful, unexpected, and sometimes surprisingly profound.

Because maybe the story not ending the way you expected doesn’t mean it was a bad story.

Maybe happily ever after can change.

And maybe the most important thing we can learn is that we’re allowed to write our own ending.

Welcome to Season 2 of Raised on Shame: Deconstructing Happily Ever After.

Season Two of Raised on Shame is here.

This season, we're Deconstructing Happily Ever After and questioning the stories we inherited about love, marriage, family, faith, identity, and what a good life is supposed to look like.

What happens when the life you were taught to want no longer fits? What becomes possible when you realize you're allowed to write your own story?

And this season, I want to hear from you. Shout Your Shame is our new anonymous call-in voicemail. Call 448-488-7046 to tell us what you were taught to be ashamed of, what you're unlearning, or the thing you've always wanted to say out loud. Your message may be featured in a future episode.

Join us for Season Two of Raised on Shame, starting September 1.

There Are No Wrong Answers

Consent, God, and ASMR: Raised on Shame, Kids Edition

Season One Finale

In this special Mother’s Day season finale of Raised on Shame, Kimberly sits down with her daughters for tea, questions, giggles, and an unscripted conversation about God, love, shame, consent, death, boundaries, curiosity, and the questions adults are sometimes afraid to answer.

Together, they explore:

• what love feels like

• whether grownups know everything

• what consent means

• what shame feels like

• what happens after people die

• why asking questions matters

• and what it sounds like when children are allowed to think out loud without fear

This episode is messy, funny, thoughtful, philosophical, tender, distracting, sincere, and deeply human.

Topics discussed include:

• emotional safety

• shame-free parenting

• spirituality and faith

• bodily autonomy

• consent and boundaries

• grief and death

• childhood curiosity

• raising children without fear-based conversations

Books & Resources Mentioned

• Let’s Talk About Body Boundaries, Consent and Respect
  A children’s book focused on body ownership, consent, respectful relationships, boundaries, and emotional safety.
  Midtown Reader

• Amazing You!: Getting Smart About Your Private Parts
  A body-awareness book for young children focused on anatomy, privacy, boundaries, and age-appropriate conversations about bodies.
  Midtown Reader

Listener Reflection

Take a quiet moment sometime this week and ask yourself:

“What questions was I afraid to ask as a child?”

Or:

“What parts of myself learned that curiosity was unsafe?”

You do not have to solve those questions.
Just notice them.

And if you have children in your life, maybe ask them a real question and let their answer exist without correcting it.

If this episode resonated with you:

• follow the podcast

• leave a rating or review

• share the episode with someone you trust

• or send a message about what stood out to you

Disclaimer

Raised on Shame is a storytelling and conversational podcast and is not a substitute for therapy, mental health treatment, medical advice, or crisis services. The views shared in this episode are personal reflections and lived experiences intended for educational and reflective purposes only.

Connect with Kimberly and find additonal resources at wildertally.com

If this episode resonated with you:

• follow the podcast
• leave a rating or review
• share the episode with someone you trust
• or send a message about what stood out to you

Thank you for listening to season one of Raised on Shame.

In this episode, Kimberly Wilder, LMHC sits down with filmmaker and storyteller Candace Young for a deeply personal conversation about faith, identity, and the stories that shape us.

What happens when two people grow up with completely different experiences of Christianity and still choose to sit at the same table and talk about it?

Kimberly Wilder, LMHC shares her experience of growing up in a highly rule-based, shame-driven religious environment in the South. Candace offers a contrasting perspective, describing a childhood where faith was modeled through love, connection, and lived example rather than control.

Together, they explore what it means to question what you were taught, to define your own beliefs, and to navigate spirituality on your own terms.

This conversation moves through:

• religious trauma versus relational spirituality
• how shame forms across different life experiences
• racism, identity, and feeling like an outsider
• adoption, belonging, and internalized narratives of feeling unwanted
• the pressure placed on women to carry and care for everything
• learning to trust your own voice and intuition
• interdependence and asking for help without guilt
• purity culture, silence around sex, and generational patterns
• grief, death, and evolving beliefs about what comes after

At its core, this episode is about connection. Not agreement. Not conversion. Just the willingness to listen, to hold space, and to let different truths exist side by side.

Resources & Media Mentioned

• The Motorcycle Diaries (film)
• American Pie (film)
• The Pitt (TV show)
• Claws (TV series)
• Let Us Prey (Documentary)
• Mickee Faust Club (Tallahassee theater collective)
• Five Wishes (end-of-life planning resource)

In this episode of Raised on Shame, we explore the role of community in healing.

This conversation centers on a truth that often gets overlooked in trauma work: healing does not happen in isolation. While many of us have learned to cope, survive, and even function on our own, those adaptations often come at the cost of connection.

We talk about what happens when shame is carried alone, how trauma can disrupt our sense of belonging, and why safe, attuned relationships are not optional in the healing process, they are essential.

This episode invites you to consider:

• How isolation may have been an adaptive response, not a personal failure
• What it means to experience being seen and understood without judgment
• How community can begin to shift long-held patterns of shame
• What safe connection actually looks like, beyond surface-level interaction

There is also space in this conversation for the complexity of community. For many, connection has not always been safe. Rebuilding trust in relationships can be slow, layered, and deeply personal.

If you have ever felt like you were carrying too much on your own, this episode is for you.

Resources & Support

This podcast is not a substitute for therapy.If this episode brought anything up for you, support matters.

You can find additional resources www.wildertally.com/resources

Guest Information

Deborah Jean Nielsen, LMFT, ATR-BC, EMDR Certified Therapist, EMDRIA Approved Consultant

You can find her:

• website www.deborahnielsen.com
• book Breaking Whole

Stay Connected

Season one of Raised on Shame is coming to a close soon.

If you want to stay connected for the final episodes and what’s coming next, follow the podcast so you don’t miss future releases.

About the Podcast

Raised on Shame explores trauma, shame, and healing through honest conversations that bridge clinical understanding and lived experience.

I wasn’t raised by television.

But I learned how to live from it.

In this episode, I introduce myself through the shows that shaped me, because for a long time, they were my only access to the world outside the one I grew up in.

Raised in a controlled environment, I wasn’t just watching TV. I was studying it. Learning relationships, desire, identity, and belonging from fragments.

And trying to build a self from that.

This episode is about exposure, what happens when you grow up without a shared cultural language, and what it takes to unlearn the stories that were never fully yours.

If you’ve ever felt behind, out of sync, or like everyone else knew something you didn’t, start here.

Religious Trauma, Spiritual Abuse, and Rebuilding Self-Trust

@wilder_tally | [email protected] | www.wildertally.com

Raised on Shame is a podcast about religious trauma, deconstruction, shame based faith systems, and learning to trust yourself again after leaving high control religion.

Gaslighting is often used as a buzzword, but clinically it has a specific meaning. Gaslighting is a form of psychological manipulation where someone repeatedly distorts or dismisses your reality, causing you to doubt your thoughts, memories, and perceptions.

In religious trauma and high control environments, gaslighting can be especially difficult to recognize. Language framed as “truth,” “growth,” or “spiritual authority” can override your internal experience. Over time, this can disconnect you from your intuition, your body, and your sense of self.

In this episode of Raised on Shame, Kimberly Wilder, licensed trauma therapist, explores gaslighting in religious contexts, including how spiritual abuse, power dynamics, and shame based systems contribute to self-doubt and loss of self-trust.

This episode integrates trauma-informed clinical insight, psychological research, and lived experience to help you identify gaslighting, understand its impact, and begin rebuilding trust in yourself after religious harm.

Later in the episode, Kimberly is joined by a guest who brings both clinical and lived experience to explore how gaslighting operates in spiritual environments and how it differs from genuine care and support.

• What gaslighting is (clinical definition vs common misuse)
• Gaslighting in religious trauma and high control faith systems
• Spiritual abuse and the role of power and authority
• The difference between gaslighting and disagreement
• Spiritual bypassing vs trauma-informed care
• How gaslighting impacts memory, identity, and self-trust
• Why survivors of religious trauma often doubt themselves

If it feels supportive, you might reflect on:

• Where have I been taught to question my own reality?
• What happens in my body when I trust my perception?
• What messages have shaped how I interpret my experiences?
• What do I know to be true about my experience, without external validation?

You might also try a grounding practice:

• Name three things you know to be true about your experience
• Notice what shifts in your body as you say them
• Pay attention to any sense of clarity, resistance, or relief

Explore trauma-informed resources, therapist directories, and support for religious trauma recovery:
• https://www.wildertally.com/resources

Research referenced in this episode:
• Gaslighting as a social and psychological control mechanism (American Sociological Review)
• Scientific American: How gaslighting manipulates reality
• National Library of Medicine (PMC): Psychological impact of gaslighting
• APA PsycNet: Gaslighting and self-concept disruption
• Trauma Resolution and Recovery Institute

Books on religious trauma, gaslighting, and healing:
• The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk
• What My Bones Know by Stephanie Foo
• When Religion Hurts You by Laura Anderson
• Leaving the Fold by Marlene Winell

If this episode on gaslighting and religious trauma resonated with you, you are welcome to share your questions or reflections.
Your questions may be included in a future Q and A episode.

Interested in sharing your story or expertise? Apply to be a guest:
• https://www.wildertally.com

Follow, rate, and review Raised on Shame to support the podcast and help others navigating religious trauma and deconstruction find this content.

This episode discusses religious trauma, gaslighting, spiritual abuse, and psychological harm in a trauma-informed and non-graphic way.

This podcast is not a substitute for therapy or mental health care. If you are seeking support for religious trauma or emotional distress, visit:
• https://www.wildertally.com/resources

Episode 5: Healthy Relationships After Deconstruction

@wilder_tally | [email protected] | www.wildertally.com

Raised on Shame is a podcast about religious trauma, shame based faith systems, and learning to trust yourself again after deconstruction. Relationships can feel complicated for many reasons. After religious trauma or leaving high control faith communities, connection can feel especially confusing. Many people navigating religious trauma recovery find that intimacy and attachment feel different than expected. You may want closeness deeply while your body reacts to intimacy as if it is unsafe. That tension can feel disorienting, especially if you were taught that love should feel peaceful, certain, or instantly right. In this episode of Raised on Shame, Kimberly Wilder explores what happens to attachment after shame based environments, leaving high control religion, and navigating religious deconstruction. We talk about why relationships can feel activating after leaving high control systems, why emotional intensity is often mistaken for connection, and why rebuilding trust in your internal signals takes time. Later in the episode, Kimberly speaks with N’Deye Delgado, who shares her experience growing up in a highly sheltered environment shaped by modesty culture, silence around sexuality, and strong expectations about womanhood. Together they explore what it means to enter adulthood without foundational information about bodies, boundaries, and consent, and how those gaps can affect early relationships. This conversation is not about judging the past or finding a perfect way to relate. It is about understanding how environments shape attachment and learning to approach connection with more awareness and compassion.

In this episode we discuss:

• Why relationships can feel activating after leaving high control systems

• Wanting connection while also fearing intimacy

• How shame based environments shape attachment patterns

• Why emotional intensity can be mistaken for connection

• Green flags in healthier relationships such as pacing, curiosity, and repair

• Growing up in environments shaped by modesty culture and silence around sexuality

• The risks of withholding information about bodies and consent

• Why education and open conversations help protect young people

Reflection questions

If it feels supportive this week, try noticing your nervous system in relationships:

• Does this relationship allow space for pacing?
• Can I express uncertainty, boundaries, or questions?
• What happens when I listen to my internal signals?

Safety in relationships is not about never feeling activated. It is about how connection responds when activation occurs.

You might also reflect on:

• When does connection feel grounding rather than overwhelming?
• Where might intensity be mistaken for closeness?
• What would it look like to move at a pace your nervous system can tolerate?

Resources

• Leaving the Fold by Marlene Winell

• When Religion Hurts You by Laura Anderson

• Attached by Amir Levine and Rachel Heller

• Polywise by Jessica Fern

• What My Bones Know by Stephanie Foo

• The Myth of Normal by Gabor Maté and Daniel Maté

• Religious Trauma Institute

• OMGYes

• Planned Parenthood

Pop culture

• Shiny Happy People
• Keep Sweet: Pray and Obey
• Wild Wild Country
• Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief
• Holy Hell
• First Reformed
• Silence
• Calvary
• Twisted Yoga

This episode discusses spiritual trauma, shame based environments, and relational harm in a trauma informed and non graphic way. This podcast is not a substitute for therapy or mental health care. If you are looking for support, you can find a therapist here:

• https://www.emdria.org/find-an-emdr-therapist/

• https://www.psychologytoday.com