Hi, and welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio. No monologue today, but coming up an interview with Carrie Sheffield.
Join us after the break.
Welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio. My guest today is Carrie Sheffield. Carrie is author of Motor Home Prophecies, A Journey of Healing and Forgiveness. So nice to have you on, Carrie.
Hey, Carol, thank you so much for having me. Good to be here.
So your book has been compared to Vice President jd Vance's book, He'll Billy Elogy. He credits his grandmother for helping him overcome a difficult childhood not dissimilar from the one you describe in your book.
To get to where he is today. Did you have someone similar help you? You know, Carol? Megan Kelly asked me that same question. And did I have a mamma?
Because said at the convention that was a big theme for JB where he talked about the mamma with the gun and every drawer.
I need to read his book.
I didn't read it because I didn't want to be accused of plagiarism. But now that the book's long out and the cover of folks want to check it out let her prophecies. I need to read it. But from what I've gleaned and what I told Megan was sometimes there.
Is no mamma, and.
So in that respect, I've had to be my own mamma, and it's I have not done a good job at it at times since Donorry.
Neither did Mema. Mema also did not do a good job at it at times, and he described that.
Yeah, but I think to have a figure in your life that is defending you and looking out for you, I just didn't have that. And so for people who are listening, you know, viewers in your show, but maybe you know a child in your life who maybe it's a distant niece or nephew or someone you know, just know that you could be that person for someone and
maybe that's where God placed you. I think partially why it was a lot harder for us was because we were always moving and I ended up going to seventeen public.
Schools and home school.
So the name of the book is called Motor Home Prophecies because with my seven biological siblings, our mom all ten of us, our dad made us live in the motor home partially so that he could he could run away from authorities. One of the earliest memories I talked about in the book was child custody when I was about four years old or so, trying to take.
Us away and taking us down to.
Child Protection Services office and interviewing us. And we packed up and we high teled it. This that happened in Massachusetts, and we packed up and went to Utah to avoid, you know, scrutiny. And so the difference with is I understand it again, I need to read it. But with Dad, it seemed like he had more, at least a little bit to some degree. Different circumstances obviously, but but he at least was able to have a home, and in my case, we had sheds and tents and motor homes.
And so I told Megan, I was like, he's a US at the time, he was a US senator, happily married with no kids, and like I'm forty one, not married, no kids, and I spent three days in a psych unit at age thirty six, and I don't think he did. So he's he's had much better life outcomes as an adult than I have.
Right, what you know only so far, well, I mean.
He's the second highest office in the land, so I think he's done pretty well for himself.
So but again I'm not.
And the thing is, I've learned all so since even the books come out, the more I was living in my victim story, the more I was keeping myself down, you know, And so clearly j D was able to get out of that victim story.
And I think that's having a me MO can help with that.
And if you don't have that, then you've got to be able to do that yourself. And again, this isn't about me wanting to wallow in that victim story so much as with the book and even talking about childhood trauma is to realize that for a lot of people struggling with things like addiction, I mean, we have the highest usaide rate ever and that's ever been recorded in the US history.
Why why is that?
And not something that I've wrestled with a lot since the books come out. And I think a big part of it is that myself and a lot of us, we don't realize the impact of childhood trauma. Again, not as Abigail Schier would say, it's not about getting trapped in bad therapy it's not a hou getting trapped.
In what I say.
It's the question is do when I'm going to therapy, do I want redemption or do I want rumination? And I think the way that our mental health industry has been taken over by the left, it's become a rumination.
Industry where it's just.
A hamster will. And that's what addiction is. That's what alcoholism is, drug addiction. In my case, you know, repeated traumas, I just get stuck in that hamster will.
And so therapy can do that if it's bad therapy.
And so I like to say, if there was a title for my book, I wanted to be good therapy because I support therapy. But I think that so much like for example, more than two thirds of therapists self identify as atheists or agnostic of course, right, and yet eighty percent of Americans say they believe in God. So there's this huge gap. And there's a researcher who is about Jewish. He's fantastic. He's at Harvard Medical School. I pray to God, they don't try to, can't. But his
name's David Rossmartin. And he's found, for example, that seventy three percent of mental health care patients say I want mental health care integrated into my mental health care, and yet seventy one percent of therapists say, I have little to no training and how to do that when.
I integrate what into their mental health care?
Faith? Like faith?
Yeah, and because there's a lot of evidence to show, even just like with an MRI, that people who believe in faith and believe in God and engage in regular faith practice, prayer, religious community, they do better. They do so much better, and yet our mental health industry does not promote this at all.
So just all I have to say is the book is about.
Good therapy and how I eventually, despite our mental health care system, learned that I needed to integrate faith into my mental health care. And that's really helped me to stabilize, and it's really helped me to overcome a lot of my inner self sabotage.
What made you have to write motor home prophecies? Why do you need to tell your story?
Yeah? So I wrote this story. Well, it's interesting. I call this version.
My Paul book.
For those who are Christian, they'll know the story of Paul the Apostle versus Saul. So he had the given name Saul. So my first edition of the book before it came out, my first iteration was I called that my soul book, pre conversion book, and that I started.
That way back in twenty eleven.
Goal for that book was going to be my secular conservative manifesto and it was going to be my call for conservatism to be more embracing of atheists and agnostics.
Interesting to because things have changed, yeah they have.
And so that's the book.
So just to take a step back, the book is about my father.
The reason he had.
Us live this way is because he claimed to be a Mormon prophet, hence the name Motor Home Prophecies, and he claimed that he would be president someday, and he made us travel around the country playing music on street corners and passing out brochures and try to convert them to be more people to be Mormon. And it wasn't so far fetched that he could run for office because his father had been the Republican whip in the Utah legislature.
So it's in my grandfather's obituary that if you turn right at a red light, that's legal because the law of.
My grandpa wrote.
I like that.
One of my favorites.
Yeah, And so if you're in Utah and you turn right a red light, you can thank grab a Sheffield. And so he was a successful lawmaker, my grandfather, and chairman of the Zoning and Planning Commission of Salt Lake City for a long time. So he helped to find those design those beautiful streets. And the idea of having my father be running for office is not too far fetched.
I try to be as fared my dad as possible.
But unfortunately, my father was sexually molested by a Mormon babysitter when he was young. And as I looked into the research, children who suffer sexual assault are multiple times more likely to commit suicide as an adult. And he said that that attack made him feel suicidal as an adult, and it's pushed him over the edge. You know, childhood trauma affects you much more. The effects of trauma as
a child are much more profound than on adults. And then and unfortunately, if that's not treated, then it gets passed down through generations. And that's what he did to my siblings and I to the point where four of my siblings have attempted suicide and I was suicidal, and so it's it's very unfortunate that these intergenerational curses continue.
And so.
I and he put a curse on me in the name of Jesus if I left the cult, if I left the motor home. I have two Schitzophanic brothers now, who were healthy boys, and the older one tried to rape me. He groped me when I was seventeen, and when I was eighteen, I finally said I wanted to leave.
I wanted to go to college.
And so my father raised his right hand like he was making an oath, and he said, I prophesy in the name of Jesus.
You'll be raped and murdered if you leave.
And to have someone put a curse on you in the name of Jesus can understand why I didn't like Jesus for a long time.
And so that was the place where I started to write the book. Was this place of anger toward organized religion, toward God.
The idea of a loving father seemed so ridiculous, and you know, I figured if there was a God because I was agnostic, I was never apeist, which is you know, I call it a fence sitter that you shoulder your shoulder shrugging, You're like, I don't know, right.
But if there is one.
He seemed like he was a jerk and I so, and that he hated me and I hated him back.
So that's where I was when I started to write the book.
And then around that time I also had that I had a different book agent. I have Jonathan Brendanski. Now I know you know Jonathan, but uh so my previous agent. He and I decided, because they had also had an idea to start at a media company, a TV a digital TV network, and we both decided, let's do the media company first, and then we can use that as a launch pad to get more attention and support for the book after. And so I figuratively put that book
on the shelf. And in that period I became a Christian and.
The thesis a little bit whle premise.
Yeah. Then the working title of that soul book was The Heathen next Door How I left religion and found Joy.
Wow, and yeah, totally different.
And so so now it's that convert it's the conversion story of my journey out of agnosticism. I first had to just in general believe in God. That was a journey. And then and then specifically going to Christianity was another part of the journey. So so now I wrote the book with the goal of speaking to people who both have maybe people have gone through abuse or trauma, and then also for people who are thinking about religious faith
or faith or exploration. I get into some of the metaphysics and lay lay person.
But metaphysics was a.
Big reason why I started believing God the more I researched it. It's just the probabilities of creation and the earth being the way it is to be random.
It actually takes more faith to be an atheist.
So I wrote that book to really share my my my reasons for believing in God. And it's a totally different book, but ultimately the goal is freedom, freedom from pain, form from trauma, freedom from depression, freedom from doubt, freedom from living in darkness, because ultimately that's what I think the truth, you know, like the Bible says, you should know the truth.
The truth will set you free. I believe there's I do believe there is a God.
Now, the fact that he allows evil and darkness to occur does not mean that he endorses it, and I do believe that he will make all things right. Wow.
Yeah, that's a real twist in your story. We're going to take a quick break and be right back on the Carol Marcowitch Show. So you've been through so much in your life. What advice would you give your sixteen year old self? What would you want her to know?
There's so much run away from my brother, to not go near him that way, you can't attack me. But when I was seventeen, but now, I think the biggest one would be don't walk away from God. Don't give up on God. Because I was agnostic for about twelve years and I call that my walk in darkness. And I think a lot of young people are going through that right now. And what's been interesting, disease gen Z
is actually swinging back. I saw a piece that said that actually gen Z is more likely to believe in God than their parents, which is fascinating, and so that gives me hope. But I think because our culture, you know, Hollywood media, academia, has been taken over by this radical ideology, Marxist atheism that wants.
To destroy Judeo Christian values.
I understood that for a while because I was so abused by a man who claimed Judeo Christian values and so that was part of why I had a hard time disaggregating the abuse from the philosophy or the sense.
Yeah, so I.
Would say, don't don't, don't be confused, Like, don't be confused that this one person, what he did to you, is not illustraed of the broader values, because he would he would go and preach pro America values on the street corners while passing out the brossures.
And so in my head I have this sort of like deep hostility that.
Was kind of latently trapped in there because I had been abused by him. And so I think for a lot of these students that we see on campuses, a lot of them see, and I say this over and over in the book, that God is not religion. And so if they're seeing, you know, pedophilia and the Catholic Church, or a priest or, a pastor stealing money or abusing women.
That's not God.
And it's sometimes it's easy to be confusing that. So that's what I would tell sixteen year old Carrie, don't confuse God with religion.
They're not the same thing.
Religion is at best an institution that will point you to God.
Yeah, it's exactly. Yeah, it's a tool.
But yeah, don't confuse God with religion, I would tell her, And don't walk away from God.
You went to Harvard on a full scholarship, you worked on Wall Street, you have this amazing book. Do you feel like you've made it? And are you surprised? If you think yes, are you surprised that you have?
Well, you know, it's interesting.
Well, like I said, it's like the last long term boyfriend I had was cheating on me with multiple women. And it's like, to me, success is not just the resume, it's the personal as well. And so in that respect, no, I'm a failure, Like I want to have kids in the personal life, you know. But what I realized recently since figuring out why do I keep? And I have a chapter in the book called the Queen of Lonely Hearts? So just it was the same man but with different names,
over and over and over and over again. You know, a man who was a drug addict behind my back, a man who was an alcoholic behind my back, a man who verbally abused me, a man who emotionally abused me. It's like, while I'm successful in my career, you know, I'm doing all these things.
Externally that are really successful.
Then I come home and then I just get you know, emotionally abused and cheated on.
So it's just like, why do I keep doing this? You know you've had some trauma.
I feel like you're right that it does seep into other parts of your life and it's hard to get over. It's not like you just walk away from that. You know, the things you went through as a child and grow into a completely functional adult.
It's hard for.
Anyone, really, and I think you've been through a.
Lot, go a little easier on yourself.
Well, what I've realized recently, even actually since the book's gone out, I went through this amazing program and I've posted on social about it a few times.
It's called the Atlas Project.
They're based in Las Vegas and Austin, So I did it in Austin, and I realized why I kept dating these types of men. And I would say men would have the same traumatized men would do the same, similar things. So it's not I'm not picking on one gender. It's about the childhood trauma effect. So I realized going through this program that because I had fundamentally not accepted my own worthiness. That I was encouraging and attracting and staying with men who felt the same way.
That makes sense, Yeah, because they.
Themselves felt the same way about themselves too, Because that's ultimately what addiction is, you know, drug. Because I've never had substance to these addiction problems, thank God, Like I've never so I never understood, like, what's.
Wrong with me? Why do I keep like attracting these addicts? Like what am I addicted to?
And it's but it's the same brain patterns of.
A trauma victim, the similar behaviors.
It comes down to self loathing or self hatred, and so that's what addiction is. And so working through all that, I realized the book really is more about the father wound, as they say, and I realized I had not really worked through the mother wound. And the mother wound was that my mother chose to see with my father, and who is a lot like these men. They're different but
in the same outcome, you know. And so she's been with him for almost fifty years, and so that pattern it gets imprinted, that done, Yeah, it gets imprinted on the child. And so subconsciously that's what I was attracted to. And so to just be aware of it is half the battle. So I'm like, thank God for this program because I'm like, I will, I will not allow this anymore.
I'm much more sensitive to the red flags because before it was just you know, begging this person to love me when they didn't deserve it at all.
Well, I love that you've like discovered all these things about yourself and I believe in you. I think you're going to be okay. And this is, you know, a difficult road you've been on, but you have always seemed to be someone looking for the right path and it does seem like you're on it.
Thank you.
Well, if you know a great guy, I will definitely get you a husband.
What do you worry about?
So, I mean there's a lot, there's.
If anything, I was diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder, which is like worrying too much. But working through that, you know, it's I and my faith also has helped to really temper that.
My faith gives me the belief that.
Whatever are going through on this planet, God, God is sovereign at the end of the day, and so in that respect, I don't worry about anything.
But that's very abstract. Okay, we accept abstract here.
So I think though, like on a day to day though, you know, I'm worried about China overtaking us in the AI race.
I'm worried about.
Marxist ideology overtaking our major institutions. And as Ronald Reagan said, freedom is never one uh you know, just one generation away from perishing, and it's up to us to claim it. And so I worry about that. But at the same time, I do feel excited about what's happening in our country
right now. I feel like truth is having a fabulous showing and that people are are being red pilled, and the fact that we're having I think it's a cultural watershed moment to me is wonderful and so that gives me a lot of hope.
I love it, a lot of optimism there. So this has been an amazing conversation. You're you're so vulnerable and honest. It's really like it's almost surprising. I don't I don't feel like people open up like this, And I think everyone should go get your book, Motor Home Prophecies. It's it's a really wonderful book, and us here with your best tip for my listeners. On how they can improve their lives.
Thank you. Yeah, I would say, go to God. That's that's the you know God.
The Bible says God is love, and.
I think as our society turns away from God, we turn away from love. That's really when I was agnostic that I always thought that was a little sneaky of like the Bible says God is love.
I believe in love.
So by the transit of property, you're saying I believe in God, I think that's sneaky.
But like, yeah, got us. The fact that our.
Countries, you know, our motto is in God we trust, is so unique within the human experience because before it's like in a king, we trust in weaponry, we trust in science, we trust whatever. It's like whatever these things they will all fail except God. God never fails. And so whatever you're dealing with, go to God. And for me, as a Christian, I have my specific practices of how I think about God.
And we're pluralistic society.
I know we have a lot of Jewish people in the Conservative movement, but any faith, I you know, I believe that Christ is the way, the truth in the life.
But to experience God is first and foremost I think through prayer.
And what's interesting, I can't believe that this is not better expressed by marriage therapists. But if couples pray together daily, they only have a one percent divorce rate.
So it's individual prayer, community prayer, family prayer.
I just think that is the best place to start, and there are lots of things you can go from there.
I love it. She is Carrie Sheffield. Her book is motor Home Prophecies and Journey of Healing and Forgiveness. Thank you so much for coming.
On, Carrie.
Thank you, Carol, thanks so much for joining us on the Carol Markood Show. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.