Ep.7: Disownment & Rejection

# Satanists Nextdoor
# Ep.7: Disownment & Rejection

[Lilin Lavin]
Welcome, dear listeners, to Satanist Next Door. We're your hosts, Lilin Lavin and Tommy Lavin. Whether you're an open-minded curious onlooker or a fellow Satanist seeking camaraderie, our goal is to share our personal experiences and delve into the intricate tapestry of Satanism in our daily lives, occasionally inviting other guests to share their unique perspectives, leaving no pentagram unturned.

We'll explore how our beliefs shape our views on society, dive into struggles and triumphs we've encountered, and reveal the humanity that unites us all. So grab your favorite chalice and join us on this captivating journey. Satanist Next Door is ready to peel back the curtain and offer you a glimpse into our world, one captivating episode at a time.

[Tommy Lavin]
Hello and welcome to another episode of Satanist Next Door. So today we are winging it a little bit, um, in a sense, but we're going to be talking about, um, you know, disownment, um, rejection that a lot of Satanists, um, and other communities experience, um, from people that they love, you know, their own family, people that are supposed to be supporting them unconditionally, loving them unconditionally. Um, uh, yet when they, uh, become public, uh, you know, how much public that is, is, is really, you know, each person's choice.

They, um, they often receive or met with a negative, um, negative effects from their family or reactions, I should say.

[Lilin Lavin]
Yeah. Varying degrees of negative reactions, definitely. And I know for you, this is a very personal subject because it's something that you've experienced quite a bit recently.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. I mean, we'll go, we'll dive into a bit of, I'll get a little personal and kind of dive into my experience. So yeah, when we're talking about this, this isn't just things that like, we've kind of heard that the grapevine or anything like this, this is, you know, some of this stuff is, is real tangible, actually experienced it myself.

Um, and no other people who have experienced it as well. Um, and I guess I would say that, you know, we see, we see rejection of, of people from their families for a multitude of reasons. You know, we, we have the religious factor that, that, you know, if somebody comes out and they're of a different religion, then their family, you know, does reject them.

That doesn't always happen. You know, sometimes you have a very supportive family, but unfortunately quite often, um, we see people that are rejected from their family. And to me, I've, I've argued this for years or not really even an argument.

It's, it's just, I boil it down to the simple fact of what it is. You believe something different happens to you when you die. So because of that, I'm not going to associate with you in this life, which is bizarre, right?

[Lilin Lavin]
Because at the end of the day, you can't tangibly express afterlife as a real thing. You can't, there is no way to prove it is, or isn't something that we're going to experience or not. Um, even me from a perspective of a very non-theistic atheistic point of view, I can't definitively say nothing happens when you die.

There's no way for me to say that on the same note, no one who comes from a faith perspective can definitively say what happens when you die. So it's so strange to me to give up an actual tangible relationship, a valuable relationship with people you love or are supposed to love unconditionally for a potential thing that might could happen.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. And I, you know, we, we could talk a little bit about my situation. Um, you know, I grew up, my parents raised us, uh, atheists.

You know, if you talk to my parents now, you, you would never know that. And, you know, they, you know, sometimes when they talk about our childhood, my brother and I all look at each other and be like, are we talking about the same childhood here? Because, uh, you guys weren't religious nutbags when we were kids, but they certainly are now.

Um, you know, and so it's, it's odd that, you know, when you see such a massive shift in the way that people are, you know, even within our marriage, you, you, you've seen, when you first met my parents, they were, they were pretty much still basically atheist or agnostic or whatever you want to say. You know, they, they, they, every moment of their life was not about God.

[Lilin Lavin]
And, you know, I'll even to put a little bit more perspective around it. When I met your parents, they were not, not theistic, maybe a little agnostic. They definitely lean towards different types of beliefs.

They always had a curiosity around it, but your dad used to do things like search for the SETI project to look for extraterrestrial signals. And, um, your mom went through an experience where their parent, um, became very religious and they expressed a lot of remorse over the fact that they couldn't have a relationship because everything began to focus around, um, their beliefs and contrast that with today, where unfortunately, uh, you know, they're kind of doing the same thing to their loved ones by becoming so fervent in their beliefs that they're almost ostracizing, are ostracizing other people.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. You know, so, um, for me, you know, I've, I've been a Satanist for about 30 years and I've been pretty out about it. I mean, this isn't like a surprise, you know, to anybody that knows me, um, at a, either friendship level, um, or has known me for the last few decades, nobody's should be like, Oh my God, Tommy's a Satanist.

I never knew, you know, I wear hail Satan shirts. I've got tattoos that are satanic. You know, I mean, I've, I've always argued against the Christian church.

Um, you know, I remember even when my parents started down their journey, I actually kind of told my dad what would happen. I like forecasted the next 10 years and it happened almost exactly as I, I said, because I understand the way that the churches indoctrinate people and bring them in and then separate them from, I wouldn't even say that you've traditionally argued against the Christian church.

[Lilin Lavin]
I think that you've argued passionately against extremism, especially that, um, you see in the more evangelical branches of Christianity.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. Yeah. I, I, I would agree with that.

I don't argue against the Christian church itself. Um, if you read the Bible and, and, um, you read the types of things that Jesus did, Jesus was actually pretty woke.

[Lilin Lavin]
Yeah. Especially for, for their time, because in reality you would find, according to the stories, Jesus with prostitutes, Jesus with criminals, Jesus with, you know, um, eunuchs, people that were typically cast off by society because they were not considered to be of society. They were rejected by society.

And according to these stories, which I mean, I think have some pretty decent things in them metaphorically. Um, you know, it was, it was something that Jesus decided was to try and reach out to these individuals, to give them a sense of belonging, to help them to feel loved and accepted, regardless of how society might see them sound familiar. Um, so, you know, to sit there and say the things that I've heard people say and utilize the Bible as a way to defend that is very strange and concerning.

[Tommy Lavin]
Well, yeah. And so when I speak out a lot of times against, uh, Christianity, I am speaking against, um, evangelicalism, you know, fundamentalist evangelicalism, um, because they're the ones that at least from my experience have taken the Bible and have weaponized it.

[Lilin Lavin]
Right. And part of that experience has been what you personally lived through where, um, your parents began to become more extreme in their beliefs and then began to expect certain things or reject certain things. And I think from my perspective, what I saw was we ended up having a very heated discussion after we had noticed, um, our oldest daughter really struggling with, um, some things that your mom and dad had kind of passive aggressively done.

Um, a big one was when, you know, there was, I think it was a Property Brothers or something. They watched that, um, that network a lot that had all the home buying and selling and whatever the crap. And, um, a gay couple was looking to buy a home, like, okay, gay couples do.

And then your mom like jumps up to grab the remote to change the channel and says something like, I don't understand why these people have to push these, um, kind of things in other people's face. It's like what buying a home as a couple. I mean, not what people do, you know, but our oldest daughter was there and witnessed it and it was upsetting.

It was painful. It felt like a rejection. And how could it not?

Because she and her girlfriend at the time now fiance, you know, they are gay. Yeah. And open about it.

[Tommy Lavin]
It's not a secret.

[Lilin Lavin]
They are aware that they are a couple. And to do that in front of them was obviously, you know, they didn't think about the ramifications of that. And then they would often make statements like, you know, we don't accept, you know, gay lifestyle, but we love you.

Okay. But that's, that's not, you're not accepting and you're not showing love by directly saying something that rejects who a person is. It's not like she chose to be gay.

It's who she is.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. And I, I do think we need to, you know, make some clarifications here. So, you know, we see people get, um, disowned, kicked out, rejected by, by their family, you know, a number of things, um, for a few reasons, there's religion, which religion is a choice.

So it is my choice to be a Satanist. I've, I've made that choice in my mind. It fits best with who I am.

Um, I've explored other belief systems. They do not fit with who I am. So I would be lying to myself and, and just playing a role of somebody that I'm not.

There's political again, a choice, you know, what ideology you line up with, and then there's sexual identity and, and gender. And that is not a choice. That is who that person is.

And yet so often, so, so very often we see the LGBTQ plus community completely rejected by their family members for who they are. And it's because, well, there's a multitude of reasons. Some of them are religious and some of them are just ignorant.

[Lilin Lavin]
You know, they think that they can change and some of them are personal. I truly believe that there are parents out there that do come to, um, understand that this is who their child is. But I think some people have built up an idea of who they wanted their child to be, who they saw them becoming.

And when something massively deviates from that notion, it causes a fear, which causes anger and, you know, cause anger is a secondary emotion. And a lot of these parents lash out because they are hurt by something that they had imagined.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. Well, I mean, they want to, a lot of parents try and live vicariously through their children. Um, you know, let's, let's just be honest.

That's, that's what we see a lot of parents do. Um, and that's wrong. You know, one, you already had your life.

Um, you know, this is your child's life. Um, if you had dreams and aspirations for your child that don't line up with who your child is, that is your issue. That is not your child's issue.

That's not something for you to put on your child. That is your issue to work through. And I think you're right.

And we saw, we saw something very similar to that with our, with our daughter's fiance. I mean, they were together for a very, very long time. And I'm talking like they've been together almost 10 years now, I think from since Hoffman year in high school.

Yeah. And so it was about seven years in before her, our daughter's fiance, um, opened up to her parents, but to not know this was just willful ignorance because they did everything together. They went to the prom together.

They went to home coming together. She never had a boyfriend. They were always, I mean, they, they were obviously dating, you know, and to pretend like you didn't know this is, is just blatant, willful ignorance.

And it came from, because we've heard direct statements that her mother wanted a different life. You know, she envisioned the quintessential wedding with a man and having children. Guess what?

You can still have children, even as a gay couple, you know, there's in vitro, there's adoption, there's all sorts of options for that. So those dreams don't have to go away.

[Lilin Lavin]
According to some very official Twitter sources, gay people can in fact not have children. Apparently, I don't know. That's a joke.

[Tommy Lavin]
There are no, there are no official Twitter sources, I guess.

[Lilin Lavin]
X X. I don't know what the fuck ever.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. Well, all I know is since I got my vaccinations, my 5g is like blaring and I have awesome internet connection.

[Lilin Lavin]
Mine isn't mine. Isn't better.

[Tommy Lavin]
You need to get the security patch upgrade. They did a, they did a patch. And I know we've had the same amount of vaccinations.

So maybe the last batch that you got, maybe it didn't have the security upgrade in it.

[Lilin Lavin]
So you should, I need to find a way to do my update.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. You should see if you can update your 5g.

[Lilin Lavin]
Yeah.

[Tommy Lavin]
It's really important because that's where the Antifa meetings are broadcast.

[Lilin Lavin]
Shoot. So that's why I didn't get my like reminder updates for my meetings. You're not getting them because you don't have the security patch.

Oh my gosh. Okay.

[Tommy Lavin]
And the security patch was to block the, the, the, the cue listening devices out there.

[Lilin Lavin]
You're now dismissed, sir. We're not going into this Alex Jones type shit.

[Tommy Lavin]
Thank you very much. No, we'll do another episode on Alex Jones. Fuck you, Alex Jones.

You know, and, and we'll do another episode on that shit. You know, and, and so these were things that we, we heard directly, you know, so I know that's, that's part of the reason why. And, and I just, as a father, I cannot wrap my head around, um, disowning my children or for anything, you know?

[Lilin Lavin]
And I think we've had some really great discussions where you've said, you know, I don't think I fully understood just how negative and how awful of a situation it was that my parents, you know, had done this, that, or the other, because I didn't know from a parental perspective what that meant. And now as a parent, I'm just that much more confused and frustrated and aggravated by choices that they made.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. I mean, so for people that don't know me and all of that, I mean, I was kicked out of my house when I was like 15, you know, um, at 15, you don't have a car, you likely don't have a job, you can't sign any legal contracts. So you can't get an apartment.

You can't, you can't do anything, you know, at, at that age. Um, and that is just pure abandonment, you know? I mean, there's no other way to, to put that.

Um, now if you talk to my family or my parents, they'll try and make it sound like, you know, I was this awful human being. I was smoking some dope. Whoa, you know, holy shit.

[Lilin Lavin]
Awful. I can't imagine.

[Tommy Lavin]
Um, but again, you know, like I said, I didn't quite understand the gravity of that until I became a parent. And until I saw my children grow into their teenage years and be like, wait a minute, this was the age that I was booted out of my house. What in the fuck, who the hell would do that to their child?

And then still claim that they, you know, love and care for them. You know, they called it tough love back in the eighties with Reagan and all that shit. It was tough love, you know, tough love is bullshit.

You know, I'm, I'm sorry. You are not loving your child by disowning your child. You are, you are not helping your child by disowning them or rejecting who they are.

And that counts whether they're, you know, whether they have a different religious belief, whether they have a different sexual identity or gender than what you believe they do. Um, you know, or even if they have a different political ideology, you, you, you do not love your children by rejecting them. And we see it so often it is, you know, my, my story isn't quite as dramatic as other people's, because I never had this great relationship with my parents.

So there wasn't this big, you know, it, it wasn't like an emotional shock or an emotional rift for me. Um, you know, especially now that I'm older, when they, you know, found out, oh, you're a Satanist. I never knew that.

I knew you kind of dabbled, but I, oh, nobody's comfortable around the Satanists. It's like, they've been comfortable around me for, you know, 30 years or so, you know, what changed overnight? You, you found out some knowledge, um, you know, so that, that didn't really bother me, but I do see where it does bother some people who are younger.

Well, rightfully. Yeah. They've had a good relationship with their family or they thought they've had a good relationship with their family.

They thought that they could be open and honest with their family about who they really are. And again, this can be religion. This could be, um, sexual identity or gender.

You know, they don't feel comfortable with who their parents believe they are. This is who they really are, you know, and they think they can be open. Then all of a sudden they get completely rejected and they get disowned.

[Lilin Lavin]
That's the kind of trauma that I don't think you can, you can't really just recover from that because your belief in the world is this is my safe place. This is where I can always come back to. These are the people that will love me unconditionally, all the things that you're taught about family.

Right. And then to just be unceremoniously, just rejected outright cut off and just disowned in some cases is probably one of the most traumatic things that a person is going to experience in their life.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. You know, and then we hear Christians say, I got asked directly from my parents when they found out that I was a Satanist, um, you know, again, willful ignorance that, you know, they don't know up until that case, but you know, we also see it on social media all the time. People will ask, you know, Oh, well you, will you let your children be Christian?

And my answer to my parents was the same as we generally ask anybody else. My, my children are allowed to be whatever they want and I will love them and I will, you know, I will respect their decision. It is their choice as far as, you know, what belief system they decide to follow.

That's their journey. It's my job as a parent to offer some guidance, answer questions, be a sounding board, be a sounding board, um, offer some education. Did you know this?

[Lilin Lavin]
Did you know that, you know, share skills, you know, cooking, just different tips about living your general life.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yep. Um, it is not my job as a parent to say we are Christians in this house and you will be a Christian or else, you know, that's indoctrination.

[Lilin Lavin]
And you see this in so many different forms, like you've mentioned, whether it's because, you know, people believe that homosexuality is a bad thing, whether it's religious or not, or people that, um, have political ideologies that they align with and that goes for all political ideologies. People have been rejected because of, you know, all the things from conservative all the way to liberal because there's very strong feelings on one side of the other. And, um, when you do that, you do a couple of things.

You reinforce the fact that, well, I obviously picked the right thing because look at how I'm being treated. Um, you know, and the other thing is you have just created a rift that may be unrepairable between yourself and someone that you supposedly love. So you have to think about the long-term ramifications about what you're doing in every interaction, you know, when you're dealing with heavy subjects like this.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. And, and there is this, um, false belief that as a, as a parent, my kids will just love me no matter what, you know, or, uh, you know, that I can do no harm and that they will, they will always, you know, be there. And there are some scars that cut deep enough that, you know, it, I tell people that it doesn't matter if it's their parents or a stranger, if somebody harms you and if somebody is actively harming you, you remove that person from your life.

Blood is not thicker than water. Your family doesn't get a free pass just because they birthed you or whatever. They don't get to abuse you, you know, and cause harm.

[Lilin Lavin]
And I know as a parent, I haven't always been perfect. I know I've made plenty of mistakes. And the thing that I always try to do is recognize the areas, especially when my kids come to me or my loved ones come to me and say, you know, Hey, this happened and it made me feel this way, or, you know, that something you did was just outright wrong.

Your job is then to rectify them. And we've talked about the concept between one another, radical forgiveness, that you're just supposed to forgive someone regardless of whether or not they deserve it. And that really is one of the things that rubbed your pants the wrong way.

Cause that I think was the impetus to the satanic comment. And I felt really bad because I think I was the one that bluttered out, well, I'm a satanist and I don't believe in just forgiving people to forgive people. And, and then it turned into like a whole, it devolved into a non conversation, honestly.

But it was just this idea that, you know, because we've done something and we all disagreed from one vantage point or another, we just need to move on and pretend it didn't happen. And that to me is not functional. You know, we can disagree as people, but I accept you for who you are.

And if you choose not to accept me and continue to do things that are harmful to me emotionally, psychologically, then I'm not going to choose to involve myself with you. And if you'd like to move forward, you're going to have to change that behavior.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. And the biggest one was, was with my children, you know, or I should say our children, they're only mine, you know, was with our children, either some of the ways that they were being treated, the, the, you know, bigoted type remarks, and they took great offense to, you know, the word bigot being used, but I'm sorry, if you're saying bigoted things, you're a bigot. I don't care who you are.

And I will call you out. And so if I'm going to call out my own family, don't try and say bigoted remarks around me and think that you're going to get a free pass. Because, you know, if I'll call out my own family, I'm going to call out anybody, you know, but it was it was that sort of stuff that sort of was the, the, the straw that broke the camel's back for, for me, because again, I was used to being rejected in a sense by my family, that that was just the way it had always been, you know, I mean, you had pushed really hard when we got together for me to try and repair that because of you wanted the children to have, you know, grandparents, because you had a very strong relationship with your grandmother.

And that was really all the family you had. And so you didn't have the family sort of dynamic that it looked like I had from the outside, right? Come to realize, you know, it was a lot different once you kind of got into that.

But we did try, you know, and, and again, when, when, when we were first together, and for many years, I would say decades, my family was non religious. And then somewhere about 10 years ago, they went off the religious deep end. And you know, they've become completely radicalized, extreme Christians that, you know, it's the we're not religious, we know the truth sort of thing.

[Lilin Lavin]
Now we're getting into indoctrination talk.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah.

[Lilin Lavin]
But the thing is, I don't truly in my heart, believe your parents wanted to be hurtful. Just to be clear, I know that they said and did things that were hurtful, regardless of what they may have meant. But I do believe that they truly love you and the kids.

I just don't think they were able to see past what their personal beliefs were and how the things they said or the ways they acted were harmful to people. And that's not a free pass. But I do truly know having having known them that they love their grandkids.

I do know that. I just don't think they understand how certain things affect people.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. And again, we're using this as a as an example, because it's something that's tangible, we can speak to firsthand and say, you know, this is what happened. And yeah, we see this happen all the time.

Oh, yeah, we see this with tons of, you know, people either from the satanic community, other alternate religions, you know, whether they be pagan, Wiccan, whatever. And we see it a lot with the LGBTQ plus community as well.

[Lilin Lavin]
And I think I've seen this a lot throughout my life, because one, I didn't have a relationship with parents, it just wasn't ever a healthy thing. It just wasn't a thing at all. And so I spent a long time idealizing this, this idea of what a family was and what parents were.

And so one of the things you pointed out when we met, you had a mom and dad, they lived in a nice, you know, home, it seemed very much what I thought normal families were come to find out, even within normal families, there's varying degrees of dysfunction, like you experienced. But you know, it's like when you've seen, I grew up partially in a really dysfunctional home. And then I went to foster care, I spent some time in some different places throughout that journey.

And I saw it time and time again, kids rejected for being, you know, perhaps they were gay, or another one that was really big was a very religious family would have a kid that just didn't connect with their beliefs, not that they were of a different They just rejected or didn't agree with those beliefs, they didn't understand it didn't make sense, they chose not to engage with it and said, you know, I just don't get it, it just doesn't make sense to me, the parents would actually go so far.

And this is something I actually personally saw, heard the discussions, saw the parents come visit with this kid, you know, the parents were convinced that this kid was a demonic presence that was infiltrating their home and destroying it. And again, this is an indoctrination thing. This is not like a normal critical thinking human being has these thoughts.

But this kid was removed from the home for nothing other than not understanding, you know, how any of it made sense.

[Tommy Lavin]
They were like, what 1212. Yeah, yeah. And so that's why I harp on evangelicals a lot is because they do literally walk around with this spiritual warfare type belief, they've taken the Bible and they've weaponized it.

And so they think like somebody like me walks into their house, I've got a horde of demons with me that I'm bringing into their house. And you know, people either have demons or angels around them. And it helps influence the the objective world that we all live in.

And, and my hordes of demons, when I come into their house, they're going to kind of hang around the house that they don't clean it out. And the whisper things into their kids ears. And so the reason why Jimmy's being bad is not because Jimmy's rebelling or anything.

It's because Oh, Tommy brought his hordes of demons into the house. And these demons are whispering into Jimmy's ears. And it's that sort of fucked up shit that literally, I mean, this isn't make believe you go to some of these evangelical churches, this is the sort of stuff they believe they believe wholeheartedly in spiritual warfare, and that this is the stuff that's happening.

And I can't begin to explain just how damaging that can that that is and the level of indoctrination that that takes.

[Lilin Lavin]
It's crazy, confusing to me. And this is coming from I didn't grow up in a religious house whatsoever. I was not exposed to religion in that way.

The only expose the only place I was exposed to religion and started out with like my mother attended in a in a and in those programs, they have programs for kids, they give you Bibles, you know, they talk a lot about different strengths that you can get from being religious. And so there were periods of time when things were really bad as a small child, that hearing this, it sounded like if I just believed hard enough that maybe the bad things happening in my life would stop. And I quickly realized that didn't make sense.

So that was my first experience with religion. It's just you can't rely on something that doesn't exist to change, you know, things that are out of your control. There's nothing that you're going to do with that.

And so you know, I didn't understand it. And then as an adult, I said, Hey, let's experience it. I would like to try church, we tried a few churches for quite a long time, I wanted to understand what it was about, why, why was it so appealing?

Does it actually do anything? And again, I did wholeheartedly dive into it. And again, I found myself just I love the camaraderie, there was a lot of really, truly beautiful people that did have very good intentions.

And then there was, you know, people that are shitty, no matter what, it doesn't matter what they believe or don't believe. But you know, it was interesting. And again, I just I didn't find the idea of the higher powers neat, the idea that you could like achieve all these things.

That's cool. But it wasn't real. It was metaphorical.

And it was something that you could use to lean on to give you strength to do things and get through things. But that's true of anything, you know. But it was it was interesting.

And there were again, good people. It just wasn't something that made sense to me. So I understand why people go the community, the camaraderie, the family environment, a lot of people don't have family as a way that they've they've built a family.

So I get it. But that's not a reason to reject people that are living in your life. It doesn't make sense to me.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, and like you touched on, I didn't quite understand this until I was a parent. You know, I mean, when when I was when I was kicked out at 15, it sucked. As 15 year old, you have a couple choices, you know, you either hopefully the goodwill of, you know, somebody else will take you in.

That's what happened to me. One of my friend's parents was kind enough to to take me in and call my parents up and cuss them out and tell them, you don't throw your child out of your house. It's not how you fix your problems.

And that's not showing love. I had a couple teachers do the same thing to, you know, they were just like flabbery acid. According to my parents, that's the way it was done back then.

But yet I had plenty of friends that smoked dope and none of them were kicked out at 15. But I didn't quite understand that until I became a parent until my kids reached that age. And then I was like, holy shit, how would I expect a 14, 15, 16 hell, even a 17 year old child to be able to survive out in the world with no money, you know, just, you know, tossed onto the street, here's a suitcase, pack your shit and get out, you know, I mean, they you're, you're basically rejecting them for you're, you're putting them out there to die, you know, almost, in a sense.

[Lilin Lavin]
Yeah, that's definitely a possible result. I don't know that they were like, Oh, hey, you know, we can rid ourselves of this kid by just throwing him on the street. I really think in some twisted way, they thought if you had experienced this traumatic thing, that maybe it would just shake you into whatever they thought you should have been.

I don't know. But it's it's bizarre.

[Tommy Lavin]
Anybody that knows me knows that it doesn't matter what you do to me. You are not changing who I am. I think my brother told me a couple of weeks ago, you know, and I made my late 40s.

My brother's in his mid 40s. He was like, you're like the most same person I have ever met that is like, just who they are, you know, no, nobody's changing you no matter what experience they give you or anything like that. And he meant it in a complimentary way.

In other words, I am who I am. And either you like that, or you don't like that you deal with it, or you don't deal with it.

[Lilin Lavin]
See, and that's a good example. You guys do have a good relationship. And he has certain beliefs.

And the great thing is you guys can see from each other's perspectives and appreciate one another for who you are. And that's fine. And that's healthy.

And he's always been a really supportive person that way. And that's a great thing to have. And that's how it should work.

Yeah, I feel certain things you feel certain things. I believe certain things. You know, where are commonalities?

Where are differences? Cool, let's move on. Yeah, let's move on.

[Tommy Lavin]
And but the fact that you see, you see parents, and other family members, also, not just parents, but other family members, you know, whether it's brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, grandparents, whatever, rejecting family members, because of who they are, is quite disturbing. And it is quite destructive. And I want all of those other people out there, because to me, it wasn't all that traumatic again.

And it's partially because of, you know, a lot of things from my childhood and stuff like that. So it wasn't traumatic to me, especially, you know, a couple years ago at this point in time, but even when I was 15, I look back at it and it really wasn't all that traumatic to me. Everybody thought it should be.

You know, I got a lot of people that told me, this should really bother you. And this should be traumatic, and you should be breaking it. But but it wasn't.

Now, I never understood why. But it just wasn't built that way. But there's a lot of people that are there's a lot of people that are very emotional.

And and so to have something like this happen to them is is very tragic. And sometimes they, you know, they either self harm, you know, or unalive themselves, you know, or, or, you know, there's, there's other paths that go down that are very destructive. And I want those people to know that there is a community out there.

There are other people that are experiencing what they're experiencing. And they can find that community. And it doesn't have to be family.

Family is this notion that because somebody birthed you, or shares the same parent or parent or shares the same DNA or something like that, that they get to treat you or abuse you in a certain way is bullshit. Family is the people that love you, that you surround yourself with that are there for you day to day and will listen to you and will honor who you are, no matter who you are.

[Lilin Lavin]
And that's, that's the community that you build. And it doesn't, you know, I'm not saying go out and join, you know, a satanic temple congregation near you, what I'm saying is, look to the people who support you see you love you challenge you, you know, who help you lead the best life you can, even when it's it's by disagreeing with you and pointing out things that are harmful.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah, I mean, people make mistakes. And it's okay for people to point out when they make mistakes. That was one of the hardest things as a parent to do is when do I step in as a parent, especially if I don't want to indoctrinate my children, I want my children to learn life, live life, feel safe and protected.

I mean, all my daughters know that dad is there as their protector, you know, they think one of them at some point, the teacher did something or said something or did something. And she was like, Oh, just wait until I tell my dad. Yeah, you're gonna have to do you're in so much.

So much trouble when I tell my dad. I love that, though. I really do.

You know, and but that's that is a parent's job is to be there as a protector for your children. It is not your job to tell your children how they have to believe how they have to live, you know, any of that sort of shit. You're there to guide you to answer questions, and you're there to love them.

[Lilin Lavin]
Regardless, my children can become anything. I want to be very clear. indoctrination doesn't mean that you lead by example, and you share certain values with your kids, or you bring them to experience different things in life so they can grow as individuals or ask you questions.

It means quite literally, by definition, to teach a person or a group to accept a set of beliefs uncritically. And that is the most important aspect of indoctrination, the lack of challenge, the lack of critical thinking, the inability to express confusion, concern. And, you know, just the that something doesn't make sense.

And to have a conversation with someone, whether or not it ends up changing their mind, you know, that's what it is not to indoctrinate indoctrination is telling someone, you're going to do this, or else, you know, you're kicked out, you're going to do this, regardless of how you feel about it. I don't want to talk about it. It's not something that's open for the conversation.

I hate that.

[Tommy Lavin]
It's just the way we are.

[Lilin Lavin]
This is this is who we are.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah.

[Lilin Lavin]
As a family, this is what we believe. Well, what if it isn't?

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah, yeah. And you do see that a lot. You know, I mean, when I challenge Christians, and I challenge Christians quite often, I'll ask them, why are you a Christian?

And a lot of times I get the same answer. I was raised that way. Okay, did you ever challenge it?

Did you ever think about it? Did you ever, you know, have the possibility of thought to say, is there something else out there? And most of the time, the answer is no.

[Lilin Lavin]
Right? Why would I? That's just who we are.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah, they have been taught from an early age, not to challenge and not to critical thing. Critical thinking is a bad thing.

[Lilin Lavin]
I mean, you'll actually see them discussed the fact that it's it's promoted by evil to create, you know, critical thinking itself. It's, it's not to say that if you are a Christian, because your family has been Christian forever. I said my first experience with religion, as I know it today was, you know, through those programs that my mom went to.

But really, my grandmother was Catholic forever. She's always been Catholic. But the interesting thing is she didn't push it.

Did I go to a couple of services with her? Yeah, but I didn't really understand. And to me, it was kind of pretty, you know, you go to this really ornate building, they've got these pretty like red little candles, and you can go light them.

And then there's this like, you know, stand up, sit down thing that you do. You know, if you're not doing it every weekend, it's like, Oh, this is this is interesting. This is different, you know, but never did she say you're going to hell or you're bad for this or you're and that was why, you know, that unconditional love that she actually showed me helped me to formulate a lot of the things that I personally understand about family and love and why it's so important to surround yourself with people who regardless of how they personally feel, can still see you respect you as you are.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. And so, I guess as we kind of wrap this up, you know, again, we've gotten kind of into a little bit of my personal life, but it was for the reason to show this stuff really does happen. You know, these aren't just rumors.

These aren't just stories from, you know, people on social media or whatnot. It is we see this in our congregation. We see it all the time.

[Lilin Lavin]
As parents, we've seen it from friends of our kids. As you know, as people in the community, we've seen it and it's not just built around religion.

[Tommy Lavin]
Nope.

[Lilin Lavin]
It's definitely something that causes it to a greater degree from what I've seen, but it's built around any challenge to what a person believes they hold true and it causes a lot of rifts, a lot of pain and a lot of unnecessary loss in people's lives.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. And so if you are, if you are going through something like that, do find a community, you know, if, if, if you're a Satanist, cool, reach out and see if you can, you know, find a congregation in your area. Send me a direct message, you know, or send me a message or something like that.

You know, if you're part of the LGBTQ plus community, you know, find other members in your community that, and I'm sure you will find people that understand what you're going through, because I'm sure many of them have gone through it before. I know plenty who have, um, you know, and just know that if, even if your family that your supposed family, because that's what I'm, I call them. If they, if they reject their own children, just because your supposed family, um, disowned you or rejected, you doesn't mean there's anything wrong with you.

It means there's something wrong with them. You know, this, this is a them issue. It's not a you issue.

And you can find other people who will be more family to you than the people that birthed you or, or are supposed to be your family. And, and that's what, what matters. And so take the time, find the people that will care for you, will, will give you unconditional love.

Well, as unconditional as love gets.

[Lilin Lavin]
Right. Lots of love to, you know, but it should be unconditional. And I will say, if you are part of the LGBTQ community, there are places like GSA, like PFLAG, um, places like the Montrose Center.

If you're in the Houston area, there are places where you can find community or begin to find community. Um, if you're struggling and you know, you're, you're having a very hard time with your loss, there are places like the Trevor Project that are there ready to listen and ready to help you through the, the things that you're struggling with and help you find resources. So, you know, it doesn't matter where you're coming from, you know, reach out and understand people care that you matter, that you are a person that other people can love.

You're lovable just because some people can see that is not necessarily anything. It actually has nothing to do with you.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. Like I said, I, and I'll repeat this till the day I die is this is, this is not a you issue. It's a them issue.

You know, the issue that, um, my parents showed that that's their issue. That's their emotional baggage. That's their shit to work out.

That is their issue. And that is their choice as well. You know, these people are making a choice to treat their family that way, not you.

It is on them. So, um, yeah, I mean, I think with that, we can, we can probably wrap this one up.

[Lilin Lavin]
Absolutely. All we can tell you, love yourself, respect yourself. Don't allow people to shit on you because you think it's what, you know, society expects of you and understand that, you know, regardless of what other people who are supposed to love you feel that there is a community out there and yeah, you do, you do have a place in it.

Yeah. And Hail Satan. Hail Satan guys.