Wow this is so relatable, and something I VERY much picked up on in the book. “The performance doesn’t need an audience to continue. It has internalized the audience completely.”
Tremendous talent — brava. You so brilliantly captured what I recognized about Natalie’s internal world but could not put into words. I actually understand much better now why even though I didn’t like her I was still rooting for her. It was the parts in me I recognized in her. It only just occurred to me as a result of this essay that not everyone has those 2 am moments of running through the evidence to verify my level of failure. Or who those trials are even for. Guess I need a reread!
So maybe it's time to move out of the magazine style a little bit. Since I came to this link via one that said "AI" I was predisposed. On the other hand, the content of the essay is interesting ("scrupulosity" — I often use "compunction" but now I have another word).
Admittedly, my own writing (developed in academic and business settings) could benefit by some practice in this magazine style .
Meanwhile, I appreciate the perspective here of an insider: I myself often critique from this perspective. But is it fair to expect people to delve more into a culture and a history than they have? For me, the "you have no idea!!" reaction is easy, probably too easy. (In my case it's when the second-wave feminism of the 60s and 70s is incompletely understood by subsequent generations.)
As for the real-insider critique here, I'll have to read the book. One question I have is whether the universalism about fundamentalist women proposed by Caro Claire Burke could also apply to Muslim women. In many countries, their fundamentalism is not a choice; it is perhaps more a survival mechanism.
Yeah, I’ve been running bits of my writing through that AI detector she used and looking at all the things that are flagging. It’s frustrating to have your writing style dictated by the requirement of not sounding like a robot but that’s reality right now. I’m working on it.
Interesting thoughts on fundamentalism. It’s a good point. The biggest factor though seems to be the level to which each person internalizes the messaging. Which varies wildly.
We internalize a lot of messaging and create our frameworks of meaning and life stories from what’s out there in our culture, family history, reading, watching, etc. It kind of bugs me that religion gets singled out by some as “not rational” or “silly belief”. Our minds are full of irrational silly beliefs.
The key is to uncover the underlying fears and hopes that we’re trying to manage in life: these turn out to be pretty universal whether we’re fundamentalists or not. Next, it’s interesting to find the challenges that lead to personal growth in whatever framework is currently adopted. In fundamentalism this can be self-discipline (which comes up in the first page of “Yesteryear” ) and self-awareness (confession and prayer.) I’ll be looking for these themes when I read the book: it’s on my audiobook wishlist.
“The point was the standard. And the standard was never going to say I was enough, because a standard that said you were enough would have no power over you.” - hit me like a ton of bricks. I really enjoyed Yesteryear and appreciate this piece. I was raised Catholic which is a whole different can of worms, but the effect of the gap between reality and standard is still incredibly relatable (unfortunately!).
I loved this piece, thank you so much for sharing your thoughts on this book!
I recently finished it and thought: If you take away the labels –Christian, tradwife, influencer– there's something profoundly human that Burke has touched upon;
What are the emotional costs of the performed life outweighing the lived life?
The internal monologue fueled by internal systems demands insistent and continuous unlearning. Allowing oneself to grieve that version, is probably one of the most difficult and liberating things someone can do. Undo the persona to reclaim the person.
"What this does, over years, is move the surveillance inside. You stop needing a bishop or a parent or a community watching you because you’ve learned to watch yourself with more precision than any of them could manage. " -- I'm a fan of Erich Fromm, who calls this internalized belief system, the "authoritarian personality," which he argues "debilitates" the "humanistic" conscience.
Fromm writes a lot about fascism and authoritarianism, so it's fascinating to me to see the overlap in ideas between scholars of authoritarianism and scholars / experts of religious extremism.
Thank you for pointing out that Natalie is experiencing scrupulosity! For those of us that experienced scrupulosity or other flavors of religious-tinged OCD (and still to some extent will always experience it, as you point out), it is hard to remember that not everyone has that same voice in their head. I was thinking of her “snap” as a manifestation of other various mental health disorders but OMG how an OCD-induced snap would make even more sense. (What it did to my brain, for sure.) Anyway, I was just describing my scrupulosity as “gone” to a friend the other day, but thanks for reminding me how it’s actually just showing up in other ways, post leaving the church. Ugh now I need to schedule with my therapist! (lol, in a good way!! Thank you!)
My big a-ha moment in therapy was when we were talking about my OCD and I said "I think the church really makes it worse" and my therapist went "Oh no...it caused it." Mind you I was STILL in church and continued to go for years.
It does help when I get frustrated at others who still belong and I remember that that don't have OCD and therefore their scrupulosity has on on/off switch that I never had access to without fully leaving.
Yes, thank you for identifying so well what I had felt reading this. I didn’t even question how realistic her internal monologue was because it seemed so obvious to me that this is a typical way of being when the system is deeply ingrained. I believed it thoroughly and sincerely and wow did I feel duped when I exited and realized just how many “leaders” didn’t.
“She becomes a shell not through a single breaking point but through accumulation. Every moment spent managing the internal auditor is a moment not spent on anything else. Every resource that goes toward performing acceptability is a resource taken from something real. The system doesn’t announce that it’s consuming her. It just keeps asking for more, and she keeps giving it, because she learned a long time ago that the cost of not feeding it is worse.”
Thank you, Brittney. I had an intense reaction to Yesteryear-it spoke to me on a level that I couldn’t explain. And then I read this, and I cried more tears for my sweet inner soul than I’ve cried for her in a long time. You have given language to something I have been trying to grasp, answers I have been seeking that I didn’t even know I needed. And the fact that Caro Claire Burke valued your words above all others speaks to what both of you have captured.
Oh my word, I identified myself so much in what you had to say! I’m still a member-ish, but it’s complicated to say the least. It took a mental breakdown in my early 20s and then ten more years of not fitting the script and being forced to question everything around me because I didn’t fit (and had scrupulousity to boot) to even start thinking about this. I don’t have a clean ending either, it’s just a LOT of actively trying to stop running that script in the background.
What a thoughtful take. As someone who identifies with Reena I’m sitting with your words. What Burke also highlights is that similar systems were built for all women. I don’t think someone like Reena has dissimilar thought system built. Or maybe I’m projecting!? So much to chew on.
This isn’t being talked about enough. You are right! I had the same thought about Reena. It’s so pervasive and I’m so glad it’s finally being identified and discussed!
Wow this is so relatable, and something I VERY much picked up on in the book. “The performance doesn’t need an audience to continue. It has internalized the audience completely.”
Tremendous talent — brava. You so brilliantly captured what I recognized about Natalie’s internal world but could not put into words. I actually understand much better now why even though I didn’t like her I was still rooting for her. It was the parts in me I recognized in her. It only just occurred to me as a result of this essay that not everyone has those 2 am moments of running through the evidence to verify my level of failure. Or who those trials are even for. Guess I need a reread!
What a suspiciously AI-generated writing style you have
Ha ha… This is actually how magazine writing used to sound. I wrote in that world for over a decade. Before AI existed!
And that’s what AI was trained on. So that it would sound like “us” — people who use a lot of em-dashes.
That’s what I usually say. I trained AI to write. And that’s why it uses em dashes 🤣
So maybe it's time to move out of the magazine style a little bit. Since I came to this link via one that said "AI" I was predisposed. On the other hand, the content of the essay is interesting ("scrupulosity" — I often use "compunction" but now I have another word).
Admittedly, my own writing (developed in academic and business settings) could benefit by some practice in this magazine style .
Meanwhile, I appreciate the perspective here of an insider: I myself often critique from this perspective. But is it fair to expect people to delve more into a culture and a history than they have? For me, the "you have no idea!!" reaction is easy, probably too easy. (In my case it's when the second-wave feminism of the 60s and 70s is incompletely understood by subsequent generations.)
As for the real-insider critique here, I'll have to read the book. One question I have is whether the universalism about fundamentalist women proposed by Caro Claire Burke could also apply to Muslim women. In many countries, their fundamentalism is not a choice; it is perhaps more a survival mechanism.
Yeah, I’ve been running bits of my writing through that AI detector she used and looking at all the things that are flagging. It’s frustrating to have your writing style dictated by the requirement of not sounding like a robot but that’s reality right now. I’m working on it.
Interesting thoughts on fundamentalism. It’s a good point. The biggest factor though seems to be the level to which each person internalizes the messaging. Which varies wildly.
Thanks for your comment!
We internalize a lot of messaging and create our frameworks of meaning and life stories from what’s out there in our culture, family history, reading, watching, etc. It kind of bugs me that religion gets singled out by some as “not rational” or “silly belief”. Our minds are full of irrational silly beliefs.
The key is to uncover the underlying fears and hopes that we’re trying to manage in life: these turn out to be pretty universal whether we’re fundamentalists or not. Next, it’s interesting to find the challenges that lead to personal growth in whatever framework is currently adopted. In fundamentalism this can be self-discipline (which comes up in the first page of “Yesteryear” ) and self-awareness (confession and prayer.) I’ll be looking for these themes when I read the book: it’s on my audiobook wishlist.
there’s something deeply ironic about you saying an essay that discusses scrupulosity and its effects sounds like AI.
I can see why you would think that.
“The point was the standard. And the standard was never going to say I was enough, because a standard that said you were enough would have no power over you.” - hit me like a ton of bricks. I really enjoyed Yesteryear and appreciate this piece. I was raised Catholic which is a whole different can of worms, but the effect of the gap between reality and standard is still incredibly relatable (unfortunately!).
I loved this piece, thank you so much for sharing your thoughts on this book!
I recently finished it and thought: If you take away the labels –Christian, tradwife, influencer– there's something profoundly human that Burke has touched upon;
What are the emotional costs of the performed life outweighing the lived life?
The internal monologue fueled by internal systems demands insistent and continuous unlearning. Allowing oneself to grieve that version, is probably one of the most difficult and liberating things someone can do. Undo the persona to reclaim the person.
Great post!
"What this does, over years, is move the surveillance inside. You stop needing a bishop or a parent or a community watching you because you’ve learned to watch yourself with more precision than any of them could manage. " -- I'm a fan of Erich Fromm, who calls this internalized belief system, the "authoritarian personality," which he argues "debilitates" the "humanistic" conscience.
Fromm writes a lot about fascism and authoritarianism, so it's fascinating to me to see the overlap in ideas between scholars of authoritarianism and scholars / experts of religious extremism.
It's free online if anyone is interested!
https://openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu/english-101-1221_fall-2021/wp-content/uploads/sites/1907/2021/10/disobedience-as-a-psychological-and-moral-problem-fromm.pdf
Thank you for pointing out that Natalie is experiencing scrupulosity! For those of us that experienced scrupulosity or other flavors of religious-tinged OCD (and still to some extent will always experience it, as you point out), it is hard to remember that not everyone has that same voice in their head. I was thinking of her “snap” as a manifestation of other various mental health disorders but OMG how an OCD-induced snap would make even more sense. (What it did to my brain, for sure.) Anyway, I was just describing my scrupulosity as “gone” to a friend the other day, but thanks for reminding me how it’s actually just showing up in other ways, post leaving the church. Ugh now I need to schedule with my therapist! (lol, in a good way!! Thank you!)
My big a-ha moment in therapy was when we were talking about my OCD and I said "I think the church really makes it worse" and my therapist went "Oh no...it caused it." Mind you I was STILL in church and continued to go for years.
It does help when I get frustrated at others who still belong and I remember that that don't have OCD and therefore their scrupulosity has on on/off switch that I never had access to without fully leaving.
Yes, thank you for identifying so well what I had felt reading this. I didn’t even question how realistic her internal monologue was because it seemed so obvious to me that this is a typical way of being when the system is deeply ingrained. I believed it thoroughly and sincerely and wow did I feel duped when I exited and realized just how many “leaders” didn’t.
Right? You mean not everyone thinks this way?!?
Thank you for writing this and for putting the experience of reading Yesteryear into words for us.
Excellent post! This part I felt in my bones.
“She becomes a shell not through a single breaking point but through accumulation. Every moment spent managing the internal auditor is a moment not spent on anything else. Every resource that goes toward performing acceptability is a resource taken from something real. The system doesn’t announce that it’s consuming her. It just keeps asking for more, and she keeps giving it, because she learned a long time ago that the cost of not feeding it is worse.”
I didn’t catch this because I still have the voice. This was very very helpful. Thank you so much.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts! As a fellow exmo, this was so relatable. It’s always heartening to know you aren’t alone in something 🩷
Ok now I want to read this book!
Thank you, Brittney. I had an intense reaction to Yesteryear-it spoke to me on a level that I couldn’t explain. And then I read this, and I cried more tears for my sweet inner soul than I’ve cried for her in a long time. You have given language to something I have been trying to grasp, answers I have been seeking that I didn’t even know I needed. And the fact that Caro Claire Burke valued your words above all others speaks to what both of you have captured.
Oh my word, I identified myself so much in what you had to say! I’m still a member-ish, but it’s complicated to say the least. It took a mental breakdown in my early 20s and then ten more years of not fitting the script and being forced to question everything around me because I didn’t fit (and had scrupulousity to boot) to even start thinking about this. I don’t have a clean ending either, it’s just a LOT of actively trying to stop running that script in the background.
Oh wow! I would love to hear more about your story.
What a thoughtful take. As someone who identifies with Reena I’m sitting with your words. What Burke also highlights is that similar systems were built for all women. I don’t think someone like Reena has dissimilar thought system built. Or maybe I’m projecting!? So much to chew on.
This isn’t being talked about enough. You are right! I had the same thought about Reena. It’s so pervasive and I’m so glad it’s finally being identified and discussed!