Charles Billingsley is Not Top Christ Following Man (and other SBC alumni testimonies)

But he'd fit right in on The Righteous Gemstones

*The following post doesn’t have any Gemstones spoilers.

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Sometimes, when I take a step back for some quiet days away from social media, I wait for the merge lane to return to the highway and can’t find it. I’m stopped on the grassy bank, watching the traffic, and I can’t find a way back in.

“Tomorrow,” I think. “I’ll post the essay I’m working on tomorrow.”

But then the next day takes off before my feet hit the floor, or I rise from my morning reading and notice a trigger from the far field, and the pace zooms by again. I stand still and watch.

“Is now the time to say something?” Maybe not. I’m overwhelmed. I text my therapist, set something up, and check email compulsively for news. “Tomorrow,” I think. “Tomorrow I’ll post the essay I’m working on.”

That’s what happened last week. I have a post on secondary trauma that’s waiting to go, and a Trumpian troll I want to write about. A whole series on the emotional journey of deconstruction (this post is part of it). But last week was a Waiting Week—I was impatient for three big news drops related to my work—and also the lead up to one of the most trying weekends of a religious trauma survivor’s life—Easter—and I couldn’t find where to speak up and merge back into active conversation.

Sometimes it’s easy for even me to forget that before I’m an author, speaker, or thought-provoker, I’m Tia, a sensitive, neuro-spicy trauma survivor living among activators and deregulating stimuli just like everyone else. Most of the time, I’m steady and calm, and work hard to remain that way despite the storms that blow around us. But lately…well, I’m off my game. I’m struggling, and waiting makes it worse.

Right now is a pretty hard time to be a patriarchy cult survivor. It feels like every day there’s some reminder of the life I came from. No, ran from. Last week was no exception.

If you’re new here, I’m Tia Levings, and I wrote A Well-Trained Wife: My Escape from Christian Patriarchy. The book came out last August, and I haven’t taken my foot off the gas to promote it since the pre-order season this time last year. Some high points so far include recording my own audio, debuting on the New York Times Bestseller list, being chosen as an Audible Canada Best of Year Memoir, an Apple Books staff pick, a Goodreads Reader’s Choice finalist, and a two-part interview on We Can Do Hard Things. Reader feedback has made so much of the hard work worth it—you’ve helped heal me with your notes of support and stories of how relatable you found my book. Writing and releasing my memoir has been the positive pivot I dreamed it would be, and the publishing experience is far from over—we still have foreign rights, TV/film rights, and paperback announcements to make, and a second book, The Soul of Healing: A Survivor’s Guide to Recovery from Religious Trauma coming out in 2026.

If you think my story is extreme or fringe, well… Once you read it, you’ll see the life I’m from all over our current headlines. Here’s a case in point: