Joakim is a Trauma Therapist and Compassionate Inquiry® practitioner who believes “Trauma created in a relationship can be healed in another relational space when safety, curiosity, and compassion are present.” He works in substance and behavioral addiction with his partner, Georgina, maintains a private practice in Stockholm, and serves clients in Swedish, English, Spanish, Brazilian and Portuguese.
This post references a short excerpt of Joakim’s story of transformation and healing through Compassionate Inquiry.® Listen to his full interview on The Gifts of Trauma Podcast.
Photo Credit: Stockcake
For children in highly controlled religious environments, religious trauma may create depression, grief, anxiety, underdeveloped critical thinking, difficulty making decisions, underdeveloped social skills, black and white thinking, substance abuse, sexual difficulties, feelings of not belonging, difficulty relating to people, lack of knowledge about current social issues, loss of community, sense of loss of identity, or low self esteem.
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Growing up in the Jehovah’s Witness (JW) community, believing that all but JW members will die when Armageddon comes, generated a vast fear and terror in young Joakim. He recalls sitting in the Kingdom hall, at 5-years of age, believing that God could read his mind. If he thought something naughty, God would know. Contemplating stealing a candy bar was a sin.
Fearing both God and His word, believing every emotion he experienced could lead him to eternal damnation, Joakim began repressing his emotions and responding with his mind. Since he couldn’t control what God saw, he controlled what he said and did. So when somebody told him something like, ‘my dog died’, he’d have to think, “in this situation, what is the normal response?” He knew they were upset, but was no longer able to feel their feelings.
In high school, Joakim met and kissed a girl. Any sexual contact before marriage is forbidden within JW. He feared his sin was so serious, he might perish in Armageddon. So he went to the elders and confessed. Without compassion, they subjected him to restrictions, including not being allowed to speak up in meetings or go to people’s doors in service.
The stress of his action caused Joakim such anxiety that quit high school and took to his bed. He spent his days repenting, crying, praying and waiting for something to happen; seeking a sense of forgiveness, a sense that he’d repented or regretted enough. But it never came. As time passed he felt progressively worse. After 6 months, he realized his approach was not working, and wondered, “How long am I supposed to be in this state?”
He told himself that he’d only done what every other 15 year old boy wants to do. He’d met a girl he liked and kissed her. “It’s not unnatural.” He told himself. “It’s normal.” And as he realized what he’d done was not so bad, his view instantly began to shift.
Joakim set up a meeting with the JW elders and three months later, he left the JW community. He also left all of his friends, his senses of purpose and belonging. Except for his Mom, he was alone. And in that movement away from JW, he tried class A drugs* for the first time.
Joakim reflected later. “My father was an intravenous drug user until he overdosed. My stepfather was an alcoholic, and my Mom was in a sect, so there weren’t many adult role models around to help me figure out what I was supposed to do.”
One day, at the social service office, they asked, “Why are you taking drugs?” He told them about leaving the JW sect, and asked, “Can you help me with that? Can I have a psychologist or some kind of help with this?” Their answer was, “No, we don’t provide that.”
He saw the options he had at 16 as either to get a job and save for therapy, or enjoy himself. Joakim still believed that the world might end at any given moment, so when he asked himself. “Do you want to have a whiskey at 9 am on a Monday morning?” It was easy to answer, “Yeah, why not?”
In November 2019, having used drugs and alcohol, almost non stop, for 24 years, Joakim went into a 12 step therapy/rehab facility. He was a heavy ‘party consumer,’ and the party was always 7 days a week.
“Those first thirty days were very heavy, like a detox,” Joakim recalls. “In the first 2 weeks, we didn’t do much. But then we had to start listing all the bad stuff, all the negative consequences… How much money we had spent. Who we had hurt. Lists of nasty things. And then they brought in God, which freaked me out.”
Every time they mentioned God, Joakim experienced a violent internal resistance that made him want to leave rehab. But then, somebody gave him Gabor Mate’s book, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, Close Encounters with Addiction, and he stayed. After opening the book, he couldn’t stop reading, digesting all 536 pages in two days. He considered the questions it posed: “What do you get from your addiction? What’s good about it? What’s the point of it? Why do you do it? What actually happened? How did you get here? How does it serve you? What do the drugs do for you?” It didn’t take long for his answers to emerge.
“The drugs give me vitality, a feeling of being alive and more present. They also give me possibility, the ability to see I can do whatever I want. I can study. I can travel. Anything!”
As he sat in rehab and looked back across his life, Joakim saw what he needed to forgive himself for, and where to bring compassion to himself. This was the most incredible aspect of reading that book. After being deep in shame and guilt, simply asking himself Gabor’s questions, “What do I get from it? What does it do for me?” he realized he’d spent his entire life chasing that freedom, that vitality, that possibility. And he saw there was nothing wrong with that. His guilt shifted gears and he understood he could live differently.
Joakim awoke on Christmas Eve, 2019, and before he opened his eyes, felt his tears flowing. He suddenly realized that the day he was expelled from JW, the day that they read it out to the congregation, the day it was official that he was no longer a JW (at his own request) was also 24 December, in 1996. All the grief from having lost his friends came, and brought with it clarity and peace. He’d been running, and running and running. But he didn’t need to run anymore.
*Note: Class A drugs include cocaine, amphetamine, heroin, methamphetamine, ecstasy, MDMA, LSD, psilocybin, ketamine… everything but cannabis.
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The Gifts of Trauma is a weekly podcast that features personal stories of trauma, healing, transformation, and the gifts revealed on the path to authenticity. Listen to the interview, and if you like it, please subscribe and share.
