Therapist Reacts to Girl Defined (part 1)

this is how people end up in colts [Music] all right hi everybody this is a little different we're doing something that's kind of a little spicy we're talking about girl defined we're watching a video in an interview that they did and this video is called you're not enough and that's okay an interview with alibeth stuckey so if you know anything about me or you've watched this channel for any length of time you know that that probably grinds my gears i wanted to issue like a quick disclaimer though before we watch this video this channel like this whole thing girl defined as like a unit they are not just regular religious people though i want to be clear this is not me being angry at people who are religious or taking issue with people choosing a spirituality or a faith that works for them these people use their religion as an excuse to oppress people and as an excuse to invalidate and dehumanize people there there's a lot of receipts for this stuff i will link some of them in the description but they are on record as saying really really awful things about trans people about women about people of color their family has ties to nazi germany and they are unashamed and very proud of that they're big proponents of purity culture which again if you know anything about me or anything about this channel you know that that also grinds my gears and so that's where the context of this all lies so i feel like it's important for you guys to know that again i don't take any issue with people who are like christian or regularly religious but this is like religious fundamentalism which is not the same this is impressive this is cult-like this is manipulative and not okay and so that's why we're talking about it so let's just get into it let's talk about it i have not watched this video before so i'm very interested to see how we're going to justify saying you're not enough and that's okay i have a feeling it has to do with god let's see all right hey everybody sisterhood we are super pumped for you to join this conversation today i'm so excited oh yeah with someone that we love and have been following for a very long time ali vestaki we're so excited to have this conversation with you i am so excited to be here so you just had a book come out you you're not enough and that's okay and i just have to say that title in and of itself is going to have some people going whoa hello what is she talking about that is not okay to say that so because it's not we're going to unpack a little bit about what that's about and how you came to write this book but before that we want to get to know you a little bit so kind of tell our sisterhood a little bit about who you are yes so my name is ali stuckey as you guys know since you just said i host a podcast called relatable we analyze culture news politics from a biblical perspective thank god because there's not enough of that you know we really needed her to fill that void for us i have been in this kind of media realm for almost five years now i started speaking actually to sorority girls on college campuses about why they should vote and they kind of evolved into political cultural commentary and of course i've been a christian all that time and so i try my best to uh look at all of the issues that are going on right now from a biblical perspective and a couple years ago i was approached by my publisher sentinel which is an imprint of penguin random house asking me if i was interested in writing a book and i was and through a lot of brainstorming and processing and looking at the things that are not only most important to me and my audience but some of the biggest i would say cultural threats to young christian women we kind of decided we just kind of fell upon this one topic that i'm really passionate about and it is the mythology surrounding the love of self and self-fulfillment self-empowerment that is not only popular in uh worldly circles and secular circles but also unfortunately within the so-called christian church and so did you catch the part about the the many threats to christian culture white fundamentalist people want to be oppressed so bad and it's embarrassing but also the rhetoric that they use they try to set themselves apart as part of this like elite christian like we're christian plus we're better than all the other christian people because we follow like a biblical worldview which doesn't make any sense the idea that they are living their life from a biblical perspective is a farce because these people who are running their own female-led ministries which in the bible is condemned and not allowed so no like you're not actually living from a biblical perspective and so like how then can we justify allowing these people who from their own religious background shouldn't be allowed to have a platform or have a voice and yet they're speaking down to and speaking hatefully towards an entire group of people that's so good i know brainstorming for books and landing on a topic can be hard i remember if you don't have a topic that you feel strongly about to write a book then like just don't write a book with our first book girl defined it was like ah but then it's so exciting when you land on it and you just see you know everything come together and you're like yes this is what it's supposed to be but your book you're not enough so when someone hears the name of that book they might think okay i'm really struggling maybe i'm struggling with anxiety or i just you know have low self-esteem or whatever it is that they're saying to themselves and they someone says here read this book you're not enough it can almost seem offensive like wow how is this supposed to help or someone wanting to give someone this book like won't this be more hurtful than helpful but from your perspective it's actually more helpful to tell someone you're not enough so can you kind of unpack that to help us kind of clear the fog like wait this seems backwards yes so the full title of the book is you're not enough and that's okay escaping the toxic culture of self-love and the title is supposed to be like that self-love is not toxic i've spoken about this on the channel before it's incredibly rare for a person to show up in therapy and for their clinical issue to be that they love themselves too much feeling uh strongly about self-love is something that ideally most of us should be striving towards because when we feel at peace with ourselves statistically speaking from the research we know that we're much more likely to form healthy long-lasting symbiotic relationships with other people and so to say that self-love is toxic makes no sense like from a mental health and research perspective that makes zero sense supposed to have that a little bit oh i'm kind of offended reaction because that people will read that and they're like okay i've been hearing for so long that i am enough now someone's telling me i'm i'm not enough okay well maybe i'm interested in that because i've been told that i'm enough my entire life or at least for the past 10 years and i still don't feel good about myself like i'm still insecure i'm still paranoid i still struggle with anxiety i still struggle with self-loathing so maybe the answer is in the other direction now no it's not that makes no [ __ ] sense we know that self-love this is so corny but it comes from within and so it's not uncommon for people who are struggling with low self-esteem to feel like other people saying yes you are enough yes you are enough that rings hollow that doesn't feel true that's because the work lies in working on yourself and going to therapy with a licensed professional not just watching youtube videos from people with zero credentials and absolutely zero relevant life experience for the people who they're speaking to i do want to clarify and i make this clear in the book that when we talk about these things the the danger of the culture of self-love what i actually call the cult of self-affirmation my antidote to those things is not self-hatred it's not self-deprecation it is not self-loathing it is um seeing ourselves as god sees us replacing very superficial and unsatisfying self-love with unconditional and satisfying god's love so that's it's not uncommon for people to lean on the idea that i am imperfect i am inherently flawed god loves me anyways and for that to be comforting right and again this is something that people who are part of i don't say like normal christians but like normal christians that's a very normal thing for a person to say and to feel and to take comfort in that that's totally cool if that helps you then like have added i'm all for whatever helps a person to feel loved and valued and comfortable in their own skin but this idea that we should be rejecting ourselves this like religious fundamentalist um sect they say this a lot that we have to die to ourselves in order to fully live for god which is neither here nor there i'm not trying to tell anybody how they should approach religion but when you're on a platform and you're speaking to primarily young women and you're trying to teach them to reject themselves and to not explore their individuality that's problematic because regardless of what you believe from a religious point of view the facts are clear that in order for us to feel comfortable and okay in our lifetime we have to develop some kind of sense of self this is inherently human we can't operate under the pretense that we are only a number in an army for god that's not fulfilling for human beings we thrive on the idea of our sense of self and our own identity so this whole rhetoric of like just reject yourself and i'm not saying that it's self-loathing but just that we should be dying to ourselves for god basically is super toxic what this book is about because the reality is is that self-loathing and uh this constant uh focus on our flaw self-deprecation is really just the other side of the self-obsessed coin which is also a sin for the christian we are called to okay this is the other thing they talk should she just said it self-loathing is a sin these people talk about depression anxiety and mental illness from the point of view that it's sinful and that what you're doing is wrong which is the [ __ ] opposite of everything that we should be telling people with mental illness this is why if you are not an educated mental health professional and you don't have the degrees and the credentials and the experience to back up the [ __ ] that's coming out of your mouth don't [ __ ] talk about it on the internet because this is not okay mental illness is not a thing that we make up it's not a sign that you're obsessed with yourself or that you as a human being just suck that you're weak or less than mental illness is a physiological characteristic these people aren't telling people with epilepsy well maybe you should just try harder you're sinful they're not doing that why is that maybe it has something to do with stigma around mental health so to insinuate that somebody who is depressed or has low self-esteem is being sinful makes them feel [ __ ] worse about themselves people don't do better when they feel worse and that's what this is they're spreading this culture of shame around the idea of mental illness because they're presenting it in a way as if well if you just loved god more if you just tried harder if you weren't such a sinful little [ __ ] then you would be okay and like no that's not how it works that's not it self-denial not self-hatred not self-obsession and self-fulfillment but self-denial seeing our identity not in what the world tells us and not in what we tell ourselves but in what god tells us and as of that's [ __ ] made up though this is the other thing that i don't understand like truly i just don't get it they talk about how they should form their identity based on what god tells them but then like the bible regularly contradicts itself and so much of the like biblical teachings in the bible we don't abide by anymore my dad didn't sell me to the highest bidder when i got married i don't know if your parents did that to you but that wasn't my experience that's considered biblical marriage was in the bible considered a transfer of ownership these people don't consider their husbands their owners so they're not living biblically so how then do we justify this idea that self-denial is the right way and that that's god's way except that you're not living by all of the other things that god technically says in the bible as you guys know of course when you are in christ you are a child of god you are an heir with christ you have a new identity and a new self so this book is combating the five cultural myths that are centered on this idea that if you love yourself you'll finally be successful and happy and replacing them with god's truth to be clear that's not the point the point of addressing low self-esteem from a mental health and therapeutic perspective is to allow a person to feel at peace with themselves and to allow them the space to think about other things because when we are struggling with low self-esteem or anxiety or depression or mental illness so much of our mental capacity is taken up fighting with that inner critic because we you know as human beings inherently want to believe that we matter but when our inner critic is really active we're sort of having this conversation all the time which is exhausting and overwhelming so the point of rectifying that is not so that a person can be wealthy and famous and successful but just so that they can be at peace so that they can focus their energy doing things that matter to them they can be a present partner they can be helpful to their family they can be connected with friends they can be you know like fulfilled in their job or their day-to-day pursuits that that's not the point of modern mental health just not that you should hate yourself but that you should have an identity that is so much more fulfilling so much more purposeful and satisfying and eternal in christ yeah and that's so opposite when you first hear it but i love how you unpacked that so let's talk about some of those myths though um before we get into those i would just love to hear and i know our audience would too just a snippet of your personal life in what ways maybe were you believing the lie that like yes i am enough and how did god change that in your own heart in your own life so these messages so for example some of the myths that i address in the book obviously you're not enough um you determine your own truth you're entitled to all the dreams that you have you have to love yourself before you can love other people these are lies that are specifically targeted to young women because they sound good to us because we do deal with very real feelings of insecurity very real feelings and self-deprecation like we can't ever measure up we are constantly comparing ourselves either to advertisements or what we see on tv or what our ex-boyfriend said that we should be in all of these things these are very real feelings that we have and so the culture of self-love and this very vapid phrase that you are enough is probably a well-meaning uh antidote to those things or an attempt at an antidote to those things um by the secular world the problem with that is is that it's not true um this is funny you can see the smugness with which they're talking about this topic as if they've cracked the code on this thing like haha mental health professionals [ __ ] gotcha like i figured it out you guys are wrong as if mental health professionals are just out here in therapy being like you're enough you're enough you're enough you're enough like that's not what therapy is that's not what we do here our work is defined by research and evidence-based practice and so we use actual factual information to inform the way that we address low self-esteem this is what i'm saying where it's like this straw man argument that they present as if worldly culture thinks the answer to low self-esteem is just gassing each other up all the time like finger gun in each other like that's not what it is the point of addressing low self-esteem again is so that a person can feel at peace but is also based in this evidence-based practice and so she's refuting something that nobody ever said is that we are not enough because if we were enough we wouldn't need jesus christ to die for us and to save us we would be able to save ourselves we wouldn't need any reliance on god's providence or provision but god made us not enough to depend on him i realized that for myself and i realized that i was it's starting to make sense why so many people in religious fundamentalist contexts end up in abusive relationships and why so many fundamentalist cult leaders are inherently abusive men because this is the culture in which abusers thrive you know this idea that you suck you need me you are only good because you have me and so you're welcome for even gracing you with my presence that's very abusive believing a lot of those lies when i was in college so i was a good girl in college i was i was chaplain i was the bible study leader i mean i was part of what i called like well i kind of called it this cynically like the god squad when i was i was dating someone and he was super godly too and how we met just seemed so providential like we were just this great godly christian couple and i thought that okay well we're gonna get married and everything is going to be happily ever after the whole time i was dating this person and really a lot of the time that i was in college i was actually still really dealing with a lot of insecurity and a lot of identity issues kind of secretly struggling with doubts and self-doubt but not wanting to reveal that because my identity wasn't actually in christ it was wrapped up in this reputation that i had of being a godly girl and so this is what i'm saying where these people tattle on themselves all the time she had doubts about her religious views and the word of god in the bible and whatever and so instead of going to therapy and unpacking and addressing how it is that she felt about things she used that as an opportunity to double down on being religious and started to point the finger at other people this is a very common thing that people with low self-esteem and unresolved identity issues do instead of looking within and identifying like yikes i have some stuff that i need to work on we point the finger at other people and you suck you're the problem you're toxic you're not healthy you aren't a good friend you blah blah blah which is like very normal and very human but when we use that defense mechanism to oppress people and to tell people that they're wrong that they're sinful that they're shameful and that they as a human being fundamentally suck that's problematic go to therapy ally this boyfriend that i had was really a part of that even though i knew that i shouldn't be with him because i just honestly we weren't compatible so that relationship ended when i was a senior in college and because that was a part of this identity and this persona that i had been perpetuating for three years of being this perfect godly girl who has it all together and leads all the bible studies when i didn't have that relationship anymore that i thought was going to end very or that i thought was going to conclude very quickly in you know engagement in marriage part of that identity and that persona fell away and i was left questioning not just myself and my you know self-worth as it's called but also my faith and who i was in christ and i decided um very unfortunately and very tragically that i was going to go the way of the world that all my friends who had been partying for about four years and had told me you know it's just college let's just have fun like you just need to go on different dates you need to hang out with different guys you need to get drunk and do all of these things i thought you know what i've been a good girl for three and a half years maybe my last semester of college now that i'm single for the first time in college maybe i should just uh you know just do these things that everyone says um is going to make me happy and these probably well-meaning friends told me all the things that you hear self-love uh people say that you know the reason why you're sad or the reason why you're feeling rejected is because you don't love yourself enough you're not doing enough of what makes you happy you're not doing enough of what this again is like that straw man argument that self-worth and self-love is based in just following whatever whim you find and just throwing caution to the wind not making any logical decisions and just following one impulse to the next they equate the idea of self-worth to this like wild animal impulse following and that's not what it is either we can love ourselves we can feel at peace with who we are and also make logical and healthy decisions also make safe decisions but this journey that she went through again sounds like it's based in shame and in the idea that because she tried to be this good girl and didn't feel like she was fully immersed in the word of god like she still didn't feel good about herself that that meant that she wasn't trying hard enough she wasn't godly enough so she it sounds like went on a bender for a semester and then i'm gonna assume that the turnaround of the story is that she found god and in all of her shame and self-loathing feels good to you you just need to tell yourself that you're enough you need to work on yourself work out more uh have fun go out be hungover who cares it's just college just have fun um and so i did those things and i told myself those things and i i did the whole drinking and party scene i started working on myself i worked out twice a day and basically stopped eating to the point where i had an eating disorder uh that i could not maintain anymore so i'm going out multiple nights a week getting drunk getting hung over hanging out with different guys i have an eating disorder that i couldn't maintain that eventually developed into bulimia all this time telling myself that this is what it means to love myself like yeah see this is what i'm saying she equates the idea of worldly self-love to self-obsession and unhealthy coping this is a shame spiral what she's talking about is a shame spiral her world view came crashing down after this relationship ended and she felt doubtful about the bible and god and her faith and so she shame spiraled and she's equating that shame spiral to what the modern and worldly world thinks about self-worth those are not the same self-worth and working on yourself doesn't have anything to do with shame spiraling although shame spiraling can be a part of that journey self-worth is based in the idea that there is not a perfect person and it is okay for us to be flawed but that that's also very human and okay and normal and part of the human experience so this is what i'm saying where we like get so close and then just like like off to the side because there is truth in the idea that none of us will ever be perfect that's impossible there is no perfect person we will all be flawed and [ __ ] up and make wrong decisions and accidentally hurt people but the difference is that that from my perspective is part of the human condition and part of what makes us worthy and part of what makes us able to connect with other people because when we own that with other people and we're like hi i also [ __ ] that up that there's humanity in that and we can form connection in that and we can celebrate the fact that we are imperfect but still good still trying still making an effort and still coming back to the table with some humility and a desire to learn and to grow and to work on ourselves individually but part of a community and to continue to lift each other up but what she's talking about is saying you are not enough that means that you fundamentally suck and you need god and if you don't lean far enough into god if you don't devote your entire life and every waking moment that you have on this earth to being fully bought in to the gospel of jesus christ you suck you're a failure you're not good enough you're doing it wrong and that's not okay that is again very black and white very one or the other and it traps people into this cult-like mentality that if you feel bad like god more if you have a failed relationship it's because you don't believe in god enough if you have mental illness you should just believe more if you're poor if you're part of a marginalized group you should have just believed in jesus more we can write off any bad thing that any person has to a personal failing in your faith to jesus and that's not cool that's not appropriate this is how people end up in colts okay so this has gone on for long enough i think what i'm gonna do is split this into two parts we're gonna end this section here and i will upload the second half of this interview in another video if you guys like this like the video and let me know and then leave a comment i would love to chat with you guys about this let me know if there's something that i missed or if something that i was like off the mark or said that was wrong or whatever i'm deeply curious to hear what you guys think and feel about this issue and subscribe to the channel because we have stuff like this other stuff and then share the video to help the channel grow and help each other grow and i will see you guys later okay bye you

Channel: Mickey Atkins

Views: 119,471

Rating: 4.8895807 out of 5

Keywords: therapist tik tok, tik tok therapy, psychology, therapist reacts, reaction video, tik toks to show my therapist, girl defined kody ko, kristen clark, youre not enough and thats ok, youre not enough, girl defined cringe reaction, girl defined self esteem, fundiesnark girl defined, fundie snark kristen clark, fundie snark, duggar snark, self love toxic, toxic self love, toxic self love culture, quiverfull, purity culture, purity culture toxic, dr. grande, psychology in seattle

Id: 1OnZBBLqIZE

Length: 24min 19sec (1459 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 06 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/ribbetbunny]

I love how she calls them out for not being religious, but being hateful who dehumanize people. This is great way to call them out!

“They want to be oppressed so badly, it makes no sense.”

Then using the Bible to explain that women ministry is condemned, so they’re already not following the Bible they preach.

Allie B Fucky: “Self-love is toxic” 🙄🙄🙄

She picked them apart!!! She did NOT hold back! God, I loved this video! Thank you for sharing!!

ETA: Birthy was technically married off to the “highest bidder”. She couldn’t get any other guy to be interested in her.

[u/thetruth8789]

Omg I died at the 10:47 mark of the video.

“If you just tried hard and weren’t such a sinful little bitch, then you would be ok” 💀💀

[u/Kitchen_Witch13]

I had never heard any of their voices before

And I never need to again.

[u/Pabloster]

I had no idea that Allie B Sucky based her book all on her downward spiral from a breakup. Her story of how the "world" sees self love is ridiculous.

If only there was a way from keeping these people from publishing crap.

[u/481126]

So wait this woman wrote a whole book about how God is so codependent he creates unwhole people so they can depend on him?

[u/StefBerlin]

I really like her videos, this one was very interesting.

[u/forensicfox_]

I really want this woman to be my therapist.

[u/lucidcheesedream]

Okay but where can I get a therapist or religion that is just people finger-guns-ing at me all the time

[u/Lydia--charming]

I like this lady! I love her reactions! Thanks for sharing!