The Death Sentence of Shame and Isolation [S2.E4]
The Misfit Preachers delve into the heavy and often stigmatized topic of shame and its profound effects on individuals, using the tragic story of Carolyn Glick as a poignant backdrop. Glick, who was arrested for a lewd act on a public beach, became a viral sensation for all the wrong reasons, leading to a devastating spiral of shame and isolation that culminated in her tragic death by suicide months later. The hosts reflect on the societal tendency to shame individuals publicly, highlighting how this often results in feelings of worthlessness and despair. This discussion opens up a broader conversation about human dignity, the importance of community support, and the critical role of compassion in moments of vulnerability. The hosts emphasize that behind every sensational headline is a human being who deserves love and understanding, urging listeners to recognize the weight of their judgments and the power of empathy in healing.
Takeaways:
- The story of Carolyn Glick highlights the devastating impact of public shaming and isolation.
- Shame can create a feeling of worthlessness, leading individuals to contemplate drastic actions.
- The power of human connection and simple acts of love can profoundly impact someone's life.
- God's mission is to set us free from false definitions of who we are.
- It's crucial to remind those struggling that their past does not define their worth.
- Everyone deserves compassion and understanding, regardless of their mistakes or circumstances.
Transcript
You're listening to the misfit preachers, talian Chavigian, Jean LaRue and Byron Yan from ProdigalPodcast.com we're plagiarizing Jesus one podcast at a time.
Host:Now here are the misfits.
Byron:There's.
Byron:I'll share my perspective and as I share it, if I put the latitude longitudinal lines in my life right now, like where I am in the experience as is we're prone to do as human beings.
Byron:I'm thinking of people that are where I just was.
Byron:There's a story of a woman on the coast of North Carolina.
Byron:And you can look this up.
Byron:It made headlines, as will be clear in a moment.
Byron:But I think her last name was Glick.
Byron:Carolyn Glick, something like that.
Byron:And she was on the beach there, and she was performing a lewd act by herself.
Byron:She had ducked down behind some bushes in a chair and obviously a bad idea.
Jean:She go into the bathroom?
Byron:No.
Talian:No.
Jean:Oh.
Byron:Oh, no.
Talian:Do you want us to explain further?
Byron:She was performing a lewd act on herself.
Talian:Go ahead, keep going.
Talian:Go those.
Jean:Roger that.
Talian:Go.
Byron:That was the most diplomatic sanitizer.
Jean:I'm sorry.
Talian:Well said.
Byron:I'm not criticizing you.
Jean:Somebody else would not know what you're talking about.
Byron:I appreciate you with the clarification.
Jean:Okay.
Jean:It would blow me, this group about acceptance.
Jean:I feel like.
Byron:I'm not criticizing you.
Jean:Keep going.
Byron:I appreciate.
Jean:Behind the dumpster.
Byron:A mom saw her, spotted her.
Byron:She thought she was out of the space and wasn't going to be seen.
Byron:And the mom, the family who were with their kids, but their kids didn't really see this happening.
Byron:They called the police.
Byron:And the lady, Carolyn, I think is her name, gets up and goes back inside the restaurant, is having lunch with her friends whom she's gathered with family, moves on down the beach.
Byron:She's unaware of what's gone on.
Byron:And then 30 minutes later, the police show up, walk into the restaurant and remove her from the table of her friends take her outside.
Byron:She has no idea what's going on.
Byron:Completely unaware.
Byron:They walk her out to the beach and they say, you're being placed under arrest for performing a lewd act in public.
Byron:And then it occurs to her, somebody saw.
Talian:Yes.
Byron:And there's a body cam running on the police officer filming her, filming her the entire time.
Talian:Her reaction to this.
Byron:It's out there.
Byron:Yeah.
Byron:You can go watch.
Talian:Filming her reaction to this.
Byron:She's trying to justify it.
Byron:She's trying to explain why she did what she was trying to get out of it with Every ounce of energy in her body, completely shamed, completely embarrassed, panicking.
Byron:And she's saying over and over, please don't do this, please don't.
Talian:I saw it.
Byron:Please don't do this to me, she's saying.
Byron:And she's caught in this conundrum between I actually did it, but please don't bring the consequences down on me.
Byron:And they read her her rights and they arrested her, walked her back through the restaurant, put her in the police car, took her to jail.
Byron:She got out the next day or whatever it was.
Byron:But in the interim, the video was released to social media, went out to the world like 3 million views in 24 hours.
Jean:Public records request.
Talian:Yeah.
Byron:3 million views in 24 hours.
Jean:Oh, gosh.
Byron:And I think six months later, she put a gun to her head in her apartment.
Byron:What, to kill herself?
Byron:Wasn't.
Byron:It wasn't immediately successful.
Byron:She stumbled out of the bedroom, put her hand.
Byron:Bloody hand print on the wall and died between her bedroom and the front door.
Byron:And her friend, circle of friends said she, they hadn't heard from her or seen her in 30 days.
Byron:So 30 days in that six month period, she was completely alone and isolated.
Byron:And it finally come to the point of everybody else's conclusion that saw that video that she was worthless and might as well better off rid, you know, herself.
Talian:Sure.
Byron:Everyone else of herself.
Byron:Somebody actually reported it was death by shaming.
Jean:And I agree with that.
Byron:Yeah.
Byron:And that not to that degree, obviously, but I went through that.
Byron:And shame is a grinder, whether it's public or not in that way.
Byron:And with every person that you describe with listening ears that we're talking to a particular person that I have in mind is somewhere between the video being released and.
Byron:And that final decision.
Byron:What I want to communicate to those people out there who think there is no way forward.
Byron:I have lost everything, including my human dignity.
Talian:Right.
Jean:Yeah.
Byron:There's no one that would love this.
Byron:With what's out there.
Byron:And in my own mind, when I go back and think about this, I think about how powerful the simplest act of just knocking on the door and saying I love you, period, no matter what, hugging and the human touch in that moment and to varying degrees, I just know that there are lots of people out there that are in that circumstance may not be that extreme, but I have such a sensitivity for it because I was so isolated.
Talian:Yeah.
Byron:Forgot what it meant to be human.
Byron:And I can tell you what her thought process from that moment over the six months to make that decision.
Talian:And we've been there.
Byron:Yeah.
Byron:We all have been there.
Byron:I know we have.
Talian:Yeah.
Jean:What.
Jean:Can I say something right here?
Jean:What I love about this?
Jean:I mean, we say.
Jean:It sounds, you know, catchy to say we plagiarize Jesus in what we're doing.
Jean:Listen, you, You.
Jean:You find a moment to get in the New Testament, you find Jesus.
Jean:There's this moment where he meets this woman who is the town whore, and she only goes to the well to get water, which is how they got, you know.
Jean:No, there was no city water line, so they have to go out and dip the water.
Jean:And in that culture, the women would go early in the morning before it got hot.
Jean:Right.
Jean:Before it got hot.
Jean:So she's out there getting this bucket.
Talian:Of water mid noon, avoid the other women.
Jean:Correct.
Jean:And Jesus shows up there that time to meet her.
Jean:Because her shame, the shame killed Christine and drove that woman to gather water at noon.
Jean:And he shows up.
Jean:Yeah, all this, we're just stealing the idea.
Jean:Like, here's the water.
Jean:Like, you got nowhere to go.
Talian:Yeah, we.
Jean:You say, no preacher would ever talk to me.
Jean:Love me.
Jean:We got three right here.
Byron:Yeah, Yeah.
Byron:I know that in her mind, because we've all experienced, there was a moment where she said, I can't face the visual of that shame any longer.
Byron:I can't.
Byron:What I want to tell her and everybody else.
Byron:There is a moment that actually comes through the process that we're describing where you can look back on what you did.
Byron:Thank God that you went through it.
Byron:As it transforms your life, it will not always own you.
Byron:It does not have to own you.
Talian:I know the story.
Talian:I did not know that she had killed herself.
Talian:That is heart wrenching and enraging at the same time.
Byron:Right?
Byron:Because the people who did that, releasing the video.
Byron:Right, are spiritual sociopaths, you know, or psychopaths.
Byron:And the celebration of that shaming, right, and then turning away.
Talian:And she's.
Talian:I'm.
Talian:I mean, she had parents, siblings.
Talian:I mean, there is a whole crop.
Byron:She was a human being worth loving.
Talian:Right.
Byron:Regardless.
Byron:Regardless of what she.
Byron:She did, regardless.
Talian:Paul's all.
Talian:When I was at my lowest, at my worst, I sent him a text.
Talian:Living in Texas, been married for about two months.
Talian:Stacy was getting up every morning and going to her job at the title company.
Talian:I was home alone most of the day.
Talian:And there was one particularly low moment for me.
Talian:I hated living where I was living.
Talian:Everything was unfamiliar.
Talian:I.
Talian:I hated my life.
Talian:And at that time, the, you know, people were still saying some really mean, vitriolic things about me on social media and other places.
Talian:And I sent Paul's all a text.
Talian:And I simply said, paul, give me one good reason to keep living.
Talian:And normally Paul would respond very quickly.
Talian:I mean, he was my primary counselor during those days.
Talian:And, and he didn't respond.
Talian:Hour went by, two hours, three hours, four hours.
Talian:And in my mind I'm thinking Paul left to.
Talian:This got too messy for him.
Talian:It got too loud.
Talian:Everybody else walked away.
Talian:He's now walked away.
Talian:And I finally got a response from him around hour five.
Talian:And he said, the reason it's taken me so long to respond is because your question was so weighty that I knew I had to think and pray through my response because it could very well be a matter of life and death.
Talian:And his response was this, Tullian, the suffering you are going through is God's way of kicking you into a new freedom from false definitions of who you are, period.
Talian:And I'm telling you guys, I had to read that two or three times.
Talian:The suffering you are going through is God pushing you, kicking you into a new freedom from false definitions of who you are.
Talian:He knew that the suffering I was going through, the angst that I was living with, had less to do with what was going on outside of me and much more to do with what was going on inside of me.
Talian:And that God is on a singular mission in all of our lives.
Talian:And, and that is to set us free.
Talian:And oftentimes it's to set us free from things we don't even know we are enslaved to.
Talian:To set us free.
Talian:So for a girl like this, my God, I wish I would have had freaking 10 minutes to look at her and go, like you said, this seems like you're dying, but I promise you, you're being made alive.
Talian:Just keep going, you know, and to have someone there, I had a Paul's all in my ear all the time, reminding me of that in those moments when I needed to believe it.
Talian:And I think for the people that we are not only surrounding ourselves with the people that we are, the people that we hope this reaches, what we want to say is, God is not who they told you he was.
Talian:He's much bigger, he's much better.
Talian:He's outrageously merciful, amazingly gracious, unconditionally loving.
Talian:There's no ceiling on his forgiveness whatsoever.
Talian:And that he is on a mission to set you free.
Talian:Your freedom is his goal, period.
Byron:Definitely plagiarizing Jesus.
Byron:You are definitely plagiarizing Jesus.
Byron:You guys mind coming back and have a little bit more of a discussion about this?
Jean:I can do that.
Jean:Yeah, it's worth talking about.
Talian:Sure.
Byron:Thank you.
Byron:Yeah, thank you.
Talian:Love to.
Host:You've been listening to the Misfit preachers.
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