cult

Nightmare in Navy and White — Experiencing the Dark Side of ATI: Selena’s Story, Part Three

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Nightmare in Navy and White — Experiencing the Dark Side of ATI: Selena’s Story

HA notes: The author’s name has been changed to ensure anonymity. “Selena” is a pseudonym.

< Part Two

Part Three: The Hard Road Ahead

For the first few months, I was a recluse, constantly in my room obsessively praying for God to cleanse me, to forgive me, to surround me with protection from this terrifying world I was thrown into. I was surrounded by a world I had had nothing to do with for these years. I suddenly had freedoms I didn’t know how to handle. I had spent all this time with my every move planned, with every trip to the bathroom a privilege, every little thing a potential reason for shame and punishment. Now the shock was too great.

Eventually, I became suicidal.

I felt I was a failure, I would never be pure. I attempted suicide and my mother sent me to a mental hospital as a last resort. As she had drifted away from ATI’s teachings somewhat, she regained trust in getting medical and psychological help when necessary. Unfortunately, still feeling like the inferior, patriarch-less mother, she leaned on these figures to solve all of our problems and refused to just be a mother to us, unable to handle the responsibility.

At times she would instruct me on what to say when she dropped me off at the mental hospital so that they would admit me as a “danger to myself”, and she didn’t have to deal with me while I recovered from the abuse I had suffered. It was the same problem that had her handing me off to counselors and then Eagle Springs instead of taking time to love and care for me as her child; now the pattern continued to repeat itself time and time again.

My days in the mental hospital were traumatizing as well (the shock of being locked in a facility with people screaming, banging their heads, cursing, being wrestled to the ground and injected with sedatives, and so on is bad enough in and of itself – but here I was with full blown, undiagnosed PTSD, coming from the most sheltered life imaginable straight into this!). But there was one good thing that came out of it. For the first time, when I mentioned very cautiously a small hint of what I had been through, I was told that I had been abused. The counselor worked with me to get me out of my shell, and seemed truly disturbed at my level of trauma.

And for the first time in my life, I got a glimpse of understanding that what had been done to me was wrong.

I went home and began to change. I was an emotional wreck – but for the first time, I was angry, and I was tired of being hurt. Then one day my mother tried to get me to go back to church – the tiny little church we went to full of ATI families. I knew by the way she had been acting that I was likely to be subjected to another series of humiliation, prayers, exorcisms, and so on. And for the first time, something inside me just broke.

Now, all these years I had never truly known the police or CPS could help me; all these years I was told to fear these people, never speak to them, because they might come and get us for being godly homeschoolers. They were our enemy; to us, they were the Romans and we were the suffering righteous church hiding carefully in our own homes. We sent letters of thanks according to Gothard’s teachings – but we were always in this state of fear about the war we thought everyone was waging on believers like us. Now, in the hospital, I had been told the truth: that they could help those who had been harmed. I was told that I had options, if there was abuse in my home.

It really shook my whole view of the world. And I wanted more of this merciful world that I had glimpsed.

Presently, the situation began to escalate. I told my mother I did not want to attend church. She started to grow angry, weeping and yelling, and I knew what it could mean for me. Suddenly, I just looked my mother in the eye, and quietly but confidently threatened to call the police if I had to.

My mother’s eyes filled with shock. She took my sister to church, fearfully avoiding me, and never invited me to church again. I saw through her now, and she could never return me to my naive state again. She knew she had lost me. I was kicked out and sent to live with a relative – who was told a lengthy tale about how rebellious and out of control I had become. I was punished further, but since they worked daily, I was left more or less to myself most days.

And so, at 16 years old, I left ATI.

I was never my mother’s daughter again. They left the cult shortly thereafter, reluctant and angry that I had ruined their happiness again. I would never outlive the title of black sheep. I was able to tell my mother some of what happened before she passed away recently, but it will never truly be resolved.

The rest is history. Raised by a family who was wealthy, my rejection of the cult meant I was instantly plunged into desperate poverty. I spent the next 8 years clawing my way from the brink of homelessness, through a relationship that turned physically abusive (even in retrospect I don’t think I, nor anyone else, could have ever guessed that this guy was abusive, by the way – lest I be lumped in with those stories you hear all the time of abused people jumping from one abusive relationship to the next), past a few brushes with death and finally onto a shred of solid ground. My mother passed away this year; the last of her years were spent spiraling into severe mental illness, paranoia, alcoholism and addiction, and she died suddenly while in rehab.

My siblings have gone on to live the high class life, carefully hiding our family’s dark secrets behind flashy cars, million dollar homes and grand parties. They have long since learned to mimic the abusive behavior of my parents toward me, never really knowing or caring where it began. I have tried to build a life on my own, far away from my family and among kinder people. Circumstances brought me back into contact with a dear friend of mine from when I was young, and today we are engaged and living together in a happy relationship.

Through these years I searched for my own spirituality, and through many twists and turns, I landed somewhere outside the box. I spent years of study simply saying that I was an agnostic; I suppose in a sense that remains true, because I feel that faith is, after all, lacking a certain amount of evidence. Today my faith rests in the wisdom that seems present in most religions and belief systems, and in staying stubbornly aloof from religious control of any kind. I will never believe simply because I’m supposed to again. I will always ask, research, study, seek, and never be too comfortable that I know all the answers. I have settled on a more natural spirituality, and found that in many corners of spirituality I once considered damned to Hell, there are in fact some of the greatest truths I could ever know.

Through the years, I began to listen to secular music, dress normally, and slowly grow accustomed to modern living. Now I can’t see for the life of me what they were so afraid of! I am happier now than I ever was under Bill Gothard’s regime. They promised me freedom, but all I got was enslavement. My life now is true freedom: Responsibility for myself, not for my authorities. To find my own answers, not be forced to believe another’s.

I still suffer from very severe PTSD; I think it’s only to be expected. I’m not sure what healing looks like for this kind of repeated trauma, or if it’s even fully possible; but I try to take it day by day. It’s not the best of endings, but a firm and resolute one.

After all, I’m an “apostate” now – and we never give up!

My Mind Wasn’t Lost, I Had PTSD: By Susannah

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My Mind Wasn’t Lost, I Had PTSD: By Susannah

HA notes: The author’s name has been changed to ensure anonymity. “Susannah” is a pseudonym.

Writing about mental illness frightens me.

It’s a topic I don’t like to think or talk about, especially at times when it takes a lot of energy to maintain my emotional equilibrium.

My grandmother used to go through phases when she would sign our birthday cards “Snowflake” instead of “Gramma”, which always unsettled me. Other times she just took her “happy pills”, to my mother’s chagrin. My parents were opposed to “mind-altering drugs” and “worldly philosophies” of psychology. They were also followers of Bill Gothard, whose singular ideas about the root causes of mental illness are legendary. We were taught to smile to create good feelings, to force enthusiasm, to “submit” to authority even when we disagreed, and not to express “bad” feelings.

It was a recipe for disaster.

Though we knew numerous Christian people who suffered from depression, anxiety, mood disorders, and even psychosis at times, prayer–and maybe fasting–was considered the [only] acceptable course of treatment. One did not consult physicians (ours was a Catholic man who prayed with his patients and recommended homeopathic remedies) for problems with spiritual causes. One might consult a trusted pastor, but they never seemed able to offer anything but more prayer and Bible reading, which we certainly did enough of, anyway.

My sisters and I learned that it was better to keep our private internal conflicts inside our own heads.

I started having panic attacks as an adult when my other grandmother, my closest friend outside the world of religious homeschooling, died of cancer. (We used to pray daily that she wouldn’t perish in hell.) I went to the E.R. only to be told that my symptoms were a classic presentation of anxiety. Panic attacks? Me? As the eldest of eleven siblings, I had prided myself on being strong and resilient.

I was not happy to learn that my body had ways of bypassing instruction from my brain!

Like the society in Shyamalan’s “The Village”, the world I was raised in had been hemmed in by fears: fear of God, fear of  Satan, fear of persecution, fear of government control, fear of strangers or nosy neighbors, fear of vaccines and unhealthy foods, fear of ourselves. Though I had left that world years earlier, the patterns of anxiety were worn deep in my psyche. For the next eight months, I struggled with fear, insomnia, and depression. I did seek out a therapist who helped me process the fears of my past.

The fog eventually lifted, and life moved on.

Later on, the panic attacks returned with a vengeance–this time triggered by a college professor whose rude and controlling manner in the classroom dredged up numerous uncalled-for memories of misogynistic “spiritual leaders” from my past. Physically and emotionally overwhelmed, I returned to my therapist, who recognized PTSD. I was a child again, being spanked across my dad’s lap for asking one too many questions. I was a teenager trapped in his office being told my character flaws, or in his car while he asked about my sexual thoughts. I was a young woman in a fundamentalist cult organization where women had to be led, protected, and prevented from “causing” men to lust. I was walking on eggshells in my mom’s kitchen, afraid of accidentally saying, doing, or not doing something that would send her upstairs to her room in tears.

I started reading about C-PTSD, especially as it relates to adults whose childhood was abusive or neglectful. It made so much sense, and I was relieved to know my mind wasn’t “lost”, only responding normally to being bruised again and again. Medication didn’t help my situation a bit (made it worse, actually), but I found that writing and exercise would counteract insomnia and stress-induced pain, while yoga and coloring pictures calmed my hypervigilant and anxious mind. Meanwhile, supportive, healthy friendships gave me a new standard of how respectful adults interact.

Knowing people outside my family whom I can trust and talk to about my struggles means the world to me.

For so many years, I knew no one who would not defend my parents. I was socially isolated and there was no one I could turn to for objective counsel. Every major influence in our lives reinforced the fear and the pressure to conform our everyday emotions to an ideal level of contentment. But my friends and neighbors have never been judgmental; they never assume that depression or anxiety are my fault. More often than not, we end up sharing stories of feeling weak and of overcoming hard things. And when they ask me how I’m doing, I don’t feel I need to make something up.

The realization that all emotions are valid aspects of human experience was a huge relief to me. I am learning to first acknowledge my feelings without judging them, and then to choose how I want to act on them.

Pray For All The Children Of The Twelve Tribes — Part Two

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Pray For All The Children Of The Twelve Tribes — Part Two, By Jennifer Stahl

HA note: The following is reprinted with permission from Jennifer Stahl’s blog Yeshua, Hineni. It was originally published on September 14, 2013 with the title, “The Twelve Tribes group in Germany Part Two.”

< Part One

*****

Before beginning with this article, please see:

As far as I know, not much of this has made it out into American news as of yet.

It is the so often maligned and often-criticized private broadcaster RTL, which has significantly contributed to the liberation of… children from the …Twelve Tribes sect.
…At the beginning of the week, the television report documented “The sect ’12 tribes’: They preach peace, torturing their own children” …this was the first time the beating allegations against the controversial faith community were brought to light.
W&V: Sekten-Film deckt auf: Wie RTL dem Jugendamt Beine macht [Sect film uncovered: How RTL hurried up the Child Protective Services]

The sect was founded in the 70s by a small group in the U.S.. It is named after the twelve tribes of Israel, according to the Hebrew Bible or the “Tanakh” YHWH  (the proper name of God in the Tanakh) called the chosen people of Israel. Worldwide, there are probably 2,000 members.
Mittlebayerische: Zwölf Stämme: Noch keine Entscheidung [Twelve Tribes: Still no decision]

..A large proportion of children have been placed in foster families, the elder children in youth welfare institutions. Four infants were brought to the police together with their mothers from the sect. They are now living in mother-child facilities…
Focus: Nach völliger Isolation – Sekte Zwölf Stämme: Wie geht es den Kindern jetzt? [After full isolation – 12 Tribes Sect – How are the children now?]

The court heard about the loss of custody of ten children. … Starting next week, the proceedings for the remaining children will be heard at the district court in Nördlingen.Süddeutsche Zeitung: Gericht hört Eltern An (Court hears parent’s testimony)

 The court has removed the children from parental custody, largely due to previous findings, “the specific danger that there would be a considerable damage to the children if they would remain in care with their parents.”
The “Twelve Tribes” are represented particularly in the U.S.. Therefore, the courts are also examining the English-language parenting manual of the sect.
Der Spiegel:  “Zwölf Stämme”: Verfahren gegen Christen-Sekte beginnen

 Lehnberger stated that at the hearing also drafted the 146 page comprehensive education manual of the Twelve Tribes in English, as it plays a instrumental role in the case. A witness for ideological matters [Biblical matters], a representative of the Catholic Church was interviewed on Friday afternoon as well.
… The meetings of the District Court Ansbach are not public.
Augsburger Allgemeine: Zwölf Stämme-Aussteiger”Kriegen sie die Kinder wieder, setzen sie sich ab“ [Ex Twelve Tribes Members: If they ever get their children again, they’ll dissappear.] – This one goes on to say that the hearing for the other parents will begin on Wednesday.

 Director Gudrun Lehnberger said on Friday night that the court of Ansbach did not want to visit the  decision on custody again. The hearings lasted for late into Friday evening for the parents. On Monday morning, more details are expected to shared with the public.

In Ansbach, six former members of the sect were also heard by video feed from a secret location. Due to issues [with the Twelve Tribes], these six individuals have remained living in secrecy…
Nordbayern: Prügelvorwürfe um “Zwölf Stämme”: Verhandlungsausgang offen

 “I think the authorities would prefer to let the issue disappear in the drawer, because otherwise their own failings would have been visible,” said the ex-members to FOCUS. “They all looked the other way.”
Focus: „Alle haben weggeschaut“ Schwere Vorwürfe von ehemaligem Zwölf-Stämme-Mitglied  [“Everyone looked the other way” – Serious Accusations from former 12 Tribes Member]

 The district court Nördlingen have seventeen preceedings ahead… Despite the urgency of this family matter, normal operating procedures of the Court must go on.

The “Twelve Tribes” have criticized the provisional court’s decision on partial withdrawal of parental custody. On the homepage of the Community in Klosterzimmern and Wörnitz the police action is referred to as “children robbed by the state”. Because of the abuse allegations, prosecution is looking at proceedings against members of the sect. An initial investigation on this issue had been set a few weeks ago.
N24:  Sorgerechtsprozesse begonnen Die “Zwölf Stämme” und der “Kinderraub”

On the Internet, the faith community expresses their educational practices… There it is clearly stated: “Yes, we beat our children.” He continued: “We love our children and they are precious and wonderful to us. Because we love them, we beat their butts.”
Focus: Erziehung bei „Zwölf Stämmen“Sekte: „Weil wir sie lieben, schlagen wir unsere Kinder“ (Child-rearing by the Twelve Tribes Sect – “We hit our children because we love them”)

“All parents demand the abolition of judicial decisions,” said District Court Director Gudrun Lehnberger. In the coming week, the case will formally begin with the other children at the district court Nördlingen.
Die Welt: Sekte verteidigt Prügel als Zeichen der Liebe (The sect defended beatings as a sign of love)

[Reporter:] What determines how much a child is changed by [beatings]?
Dietmayer: It depends on how much emotional resources a child has, so how mentally stable he or she is. For many kids, this triggers one psychologically, which in turn may later lead to a variety of psychiatric disorders. And that can happen even if the child is beaten only once.
Augsberger Allgemeine: Zwölf Stämme – Kinderpsychiaterin: Schläge schaden einem Kind massiv (Twelve Tribes: Child Psychologist says “Beating damages children greatly”)

If you would like to know more about how damaging and evil this group truly is, you can hear it from former members directly, here. Please note that this is a site that is primarily in English for former members that speak English. I’m looking around for other resources. It seems that the German site for the Zwölf Stämme has now been suspended.

If I hear any more come next week, I’ll update again.  I hope that those of you who are fasting on Yom Kippur have an easy and light fast, and are sealed for another year.  For us, it is a difficult day of prayer with these recent revelations.

*****

To be continued.

Pray For All The Children Of The Twelve Tribes — Part One

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Pray For All The Children Of The Twelve Tribes — Part One, By Jennifer Stahl

HA note: The following is reprinted with permission from Jennifer Stahl’s blog Yeshua, Hineni. It was originally published on September 12, 2013 with the title, “The Twelve Tribes group in Germany.”

Today I wanted to take time and discuss a recent breaking news story coming out of Germany about a cult that is three hours to our east.  If you haven’t heard the news, well, stay tuned as I’ll help get you caught up to speed.

Today’s post is about the Twelve Tribes, or Zwölf Stämme group that is based out of Klosterzimmern in the municipality of Deiningen, and Ansbach, Bavaria. Twelve Tribes is a very difficult group to pin down, theologically speaking. They take elements of fundamentalist beliefs (mostly Independent Fundamentalist Baptist), Messianic Judaism, Hebrew Roots, Sacred Name and World Wide Church of God beliefs.  Where they diverge, is that they believe and teach that they are the only group that has truth and will be going to the afterlife.

Twelve Tribes also is extremely patriarchal, racist, antisemitic, somewhat communist (they live in communes and everyone works), and engages in child labor. In Germany, Zwölf Stämme is known more for their push for homeschooling which ended somewhat amicably with them creating their own private school that did not have to teach any sex education or evolution theory or anything else that they believe is contrary to “biblical” beliefs.  The agreement with the government included that there would be state oversight so that the community would not be fully removing itself or the children from society at large.

Contrary to the painting by the HSLDA, Germany does not retain Nazi-era laws where it pertains to homeschoolers.

I love all of you, but Hitler was not the one who made school compulsory in Germany. I’ve discussed that before, just a little bit and about our educational system when I blogged about the homeschooling Romeike family.

With the Zwölf Stämme, there have been many concerns of child labor laws being broken before. It is not uncommon with this group that every person gives and puts in work with their fields, and also with their money-making ventures.  What hadn’t been well known until recently, was how abusive and systemically so, their child rearing practices were. There were suspicions, but people cannot be investigated solely based on suspicions here.

There have been teenagers and 20-somethings that have left the cult, but they, for the most part, had been getting psychological help and then moving on with their lives, rather than assisting others in leaving the cult. They have mentioned the abuse, but the onus was on others to go in and prove it was happening other than “he and she said”.

I find this heartbreaking for all people who have been put through abuse like this.

From what I understand from an acquaintance that had gotten in with the group in Vermont, Twelve Tribes is extremely difficult to get into, and that much harder to get out of. The abuse is not just with children, but also with those who come into the group. There are enforcers, and if you question anything, you are starved of food and sleep until you comply with the group leaders. Also, the oversight committee is only very loosely associated with each Twelve Tribe community.  This means any appeals for assistance in leaving will have to be done through loving family members and possibly the local police departments.

From what I can gather, punitive parenting books are quite the rage in the Zwölf Stämme. Interviews with the reporter who came out proving the abuse, and with some of the survivors of the group have mentioned  practices that are inconsistent with child-rearing in Germany and Biblical practice.

The abuses this cult has carried out were well hidden from the German government, because these methods are illegal.

If you’re new to the blog and don’t know much about Gentle Grace Based Discipline, what I am discussing here is the systemic belief that all children are born horrible sinners (or easily influenced by the Devil) that need to be physically and emotionally abused from birth.  What parents want to result from this is first time obedience, unquestioning obedience, and no talking back. What they receive?  Abused children that are terrified to do anything that would ever cross their parents, or the leaders involved in the community. Grace is not for children in this belief system. Grace is for adults who have found some sort of agreement with the leaders of the community that they are living “Biblically” and for them alone.

What hasn’t much been discussed in the German case is the propensity for sometimes sexual predatory action in communities such as these. When you have children that are too terrified to speak out against systemic abuse methods such as whipping for doing anything the parents or community leaders do not like, they also will not speak out when they are being sexually abused, because surely that wasn’t something they were not supposed to do, as someone in authority forced themselves onto them.

I am praying that, beyond all hopes, this is not something that was happening at this Twelve Tribes compound.

The news that has come out of the community is that children as young as six months were taken away from their parents to be punitively disciplined by select members of the community. Babies that cried or were otherwise deemed “sinful” were held very tightly so that they would cry until they could cry no more.

Forty children were removed from the compound outside of Deiningen, and placed into child protective services while being interviewed by authorities who are trying to find ways to assist them, deprogram them and get them into schools and families that can help them detox from this lifestyle.

I cannot begin to tell you how much agony I have been in since the news broke. Several methods mentioned that were employed in the compound are methods I am having PTSD-reactions about from my own childhood.

What has angered me beyond all reason is how quickly Michael Farris, head of the HSLDA was to pick up this story and stand behind the Zwölf Stämme and say that there was no abuse happening. Because we know the HSLDA is all about systemic abuses and hiding those from authorities. It bothers me how little the HSLDA respects other country’s laws and rights to live according to their belief systems and instead do not focus on the abuses that are endemic in their own back yard.

For those who think that is quite the thing for such a blogger as myself to say, I too was an HSLDA child. I didn’t trust them as far as I could throw something at them as a homeschooler, and I trust them even less now that I’ve an adult and living outside of the US. They are a terrible representation for Christians and of Christianity when it comes to how they treat others. Where’s the grace there guys? Really. Where’s the love?

So, after the news breaks as to how the information came to the police and to raid the compound, Michael Farris is notified of the abuses. All he says is “I said something in that nature, but I see now that my sources were wrong.” [He said and implied there were no abuses.]

So, all we get is a “my bad.” Not an apology.

The best news source at the moment, that has discussed what happened, comes by way of The UK’s Independent Newspaper.

The film shows how children are made to get up at 5am and stand though an hour-long prayer session. They are obliged to labour with adults in the community’s farm plots and workshops…
“It’s normal to be beaten every day,” said Christian…
The film also shows… a baby boy being forcefully gripped by the back of the head in a practice referred to by sect members as “restraining.” 
In Germany’s Twelve Tribes sect, cameras catch ‘cold and systematic’ child-beating

The remainder of the news stories I will be quoting are from German news sources. I will translate them and share them here with the original sources. I would suggest using Google Translate to read them if you do not have German language knowledge. It will not be a perfect translation, but it will help you know what is going on. Just plop the link in the translate area and set the translation from German to English (or your language of choice). It will do the rest of the work for you.

There is video here from RTL, where two former members, Christian and Jael (or Yael?) explain how children are mishandled in the sect. I have to admit that I did big giant ugly cries when I listened to them and saw the video attached.

There is also video here from RTL where a former member, Klaus F., discusses his feelings and knowledge about the revelations from the Zwölf Stämme, after having lived for many years in the sect, leaving with his four children but without his wife; who chose to stay behind.

Over and over again, in both videos, a current member of the sect says they “do not call it spanking or hitting, we just call it disciplining.” And goes into detail about how they pick rods to hit the children with.

I do not see how this can be deniable when it was recorded and the members are known.

On top of this, the reporter asked the authorities, and they knew that the children were being spanked, but they didn’t know how badly or how many. (This is cleared up in the second video at about minute seven.)

What angers me is that the members of the group say that they have frequently had doctors come in and they have proof that their children were not abused.

The exclusive 45 minute long news exclusive is now available in RTL’s iTunes app. (They move it off site after 7 days.)

The Ansbach Youth Office has maintained in regular contact since the influx of children in 2010. Their visits would present concerns and worries that could not be dissuaded, but were also “not sufficient evidence for the initiation of family law measures” to be submitted. Only now the Family Court and the Youth Office of Nördlingen districts in the  Donau-Ries region received “credible, concrete and actionable information,” showing that the “physical and emotional welfare of the children could be permanently compromised.”
Der Spiegel: “Twelve Tribes”: Police take 40 children from Christian sect in Bavaria

There are 150 German members of the international community of ’12 tribes’ faith – in their own words “Bible in the tradition of early Christianity.”  …The children are taught early on that Africans, Blacks and homosexuals are cursed; and women belong to an inferior race.
RTL: Raid on sect ’12 tribes’ – RTL reporter provides evidence of child abuse

…the children would be “cleansed” by the blows and “freed from the devil.” Strikes would constantly be administered due to varied reasons. It is enough already to be struck, if a child does not pay attention in class…
…there is “ubiquitous, mutual supervision, built on intimidation, by this spying totalitarian system” which makes it impossible to live differently at all, says Kuhnigk.
Der Spiegel: Suspected abuse at Christian Sect: “They live with their children in their own world”

 “[In Germany] Every child has the ” right to a violence-free education “. And “despite many calls and offers of help” the community members would continue to be “disciplined and mentally abusing towards” their children…
… “Mental abuse and isolation has only occurred when the authorities have taken away our children,” says a father.”
Süddeutsche Zeitung: Those who wish to play are beaten

 Kuhnigk: The children do not have close ties to their parents because they can not protect them. If the parents refuse to,the elders deemed necessary to punish pressure them to give their children over to others to mete it out. The children may not develop individuality. There are no children playing in the yard, fantasy play and free play are prohibited. The children are broken.
Augsburger Allgemeine: Hidden reporter: “I almost cried.”

 …The violence done to the children is “so quiet, so systemic, and planned,” such as torture…
…Also shown is the “Restraining” of the babies with one arm, where a tightly wrapped baby with a black head of hair that can hardly move…
Augsburger Allgemeine: Children of the Twelve Tribes: nearly 100 floggings in two days

…The RTL reporter also was able to procure the special “educational book” of the sect. Here, it refers specifically to physical pain as an integral part of education. Especially for strong-willed children, beating their tails for instruction is recommended.
Augsburger Allgemeine: Spanking as an educational system: Undercover in the Twelve Tribes

“The whole procedure is such that the adult relies on a chair. The child must present themselves to adults then. Either he or she puts their pants down, or it can be pulled down. Then the adults look for a suitable rod with appropriate length and begin to beat the children…
The children are beaten until they say what adults want to hear…   Not a single child has struggled in any form. Anyone who turns away from adults while being beaten, is returned to the ‘right position’ and additionally punished, “said Kuhnigk.
Focus: Incognito reporter in the “Twelve tribes” describes perverse whipping system of the sect

 …a lecture by the cult leader Gene Spriggs in 2000 is documented, among other things. “Our children were brought up with the rod of correction, we do not argue that,” says the gray-haired, bearded man who has tied his shoulder-length hair into a ponytail, in English. “And when we are put in jail for it, then we go to jail, because we know that we are doing right and discipline our children in love.”
Süddeutsche Zeitung: He who spares his rod, hates his son

Against asylum seekers and protesters, the authorities in place practice vigorous crackdowns. But when it comes to the children, when the most vulnerable of society are in danger, the Bavarian courts exhibit boundless patience…
Süddeutsche Zeitung: Embarrassing Failure

I cannot begin to tell you how this breaks my heart.

I know that this is systemic elsewhere, especially in parts of the US. But in a country where children are usually protected?

So many checks and balances broke down in protecting these children.

In a land where spanking and other punitive forms of discipline that include striking a child are outlawed, it’s just unbelievable. To hear in other people’s words what I lived as a child, it just completely validates how I feel about punitive parenting, and how it simply cannot, and does not have a biblical basis whatsoever.

I have sat and written this entire blog post while shaking and having flashbacks of my own childhood and all I can say is that I hope and pray that these parents are given more early childhood education and that their children are not given to them in unsupervised visits until they have proven their mentality and hearts have changed for the better towards their children.

I just cannot imagine giving my children over to someone else to do anything to them. Then again, I am a very protective mother bear, and I never allowed my spirit to be completely broken by my family or their beliefs in punitive discipline.

If there is one thing I could ask tonight, I would ask that you pray for all the children of the Twelve Tribes and do what you can to support the survivors of this awful abuse.

*****

Part Two >

Bill Gothard on Education: Jeri Lofland’s Thoughts

HA Editorial Team8 Comments

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Jeri’s post was originally published on her blog Heresy in the Heartland  on September 8, 2013. It is reprinted with her permission. Also by Jeri on HA: “Generational Observations”, “Of Isolation and Community”, “His Quiver Full of Them”, “David Noebel, Summit Ministries, and the Evil of Rock”, and “The Political Reach of Bill Gothard”.

My parents began homeschooling me in third grade, and enrolled in Gothard’s Advanced Training Institute, a curriculum exclusively for alumni of his Advanced Seminar, before I started seventh grade. Our family was part of ATI until I reached my mid-twenties.

The following statements are the main points from a session of Bill Gothard’s Advanced Seminar. They can be found on pages 88-91 of the accompanying workbook and on his website. Looking back, these “principles” explain so much of my educational experience.

Advanced Seminar Session 16: Successful Education

(Bill Gothard)

  • The ultimate goal of education is not to produce a degree, but to produce many godly generations.
  • God charges parents and grandparents, not teachers, with the responsibility to train their sons and daughters.
  • God established the home, not the school, as the primary learning center; the school and church must be recognized as extensions of it.
  • The most destructive force in school is peer dependence, and parents must constantly work to protect their children from it.
  • God wants the priorities of every family to be built around daily engrafting of Scripture, rather than accumulating man’s knowledge.
  • The ability of sons and daughters to stand alone is the result not of rules, but of principles that assure a superior way of life.
  • When knowledge is learned before godly character, it produces pride and arrogance.
  • Parents who teach sons and daughters at home must be accountable to a local church (Christian school and the government).
  • Sons and daughters thrive with appropriate responsibility, and it is God’s goal that they be mature in their youth.
  • God gave boys and girls differing aptitudes; when children are taught together, boys are programmed for failure.
  • When schools group children by ages, older examples are cut off and rebels usually rise to leadership.
  • When the Bible is separated from courses, the contents come under the control of human reasoning.
  • True socializing takes place not in the arbitrary groupings of school, but in the real world of children-to-adult relationships.
  • Valuable learning time is lost in school; two hours of home teaching is equivalent to six hours of school teaching.
  • The key to effective education is not just a trained teacher and a professional curriculum, but a concerned parent and a motivated child.

God has set a limitation on learning; thus, academic freedom is no justification for studying the details of evil.

Inge Cannon (pictured here with her husband) helped Gothard develop the ATI curriculum in the early 1980's. She later directed HSLDA's National Center for Home Education.
Inge Cannon (pictured here with her husband) helped Gothard develop the ATI curriculum in the early 1980’s. She later directed HSLDA’s National Center for Home Education.

As an ATI student, I attended numerous conferences that became pep rallies for volunteerism with the Institute or urged us to study our favorite topics from the safety of our homes. (I even spent eighteen months enrolled in IBLP’s unaccredited correspondence law school!)

Inge Cannon was one familiar conference speaker. Cannon holds a master’s degree in education and helped Gothard develop the ATI curriculum in the early 1980’s. She later directed the National Center for Home Education, a division of HSLDA.

At an opening session of the 1990 ATI training conference held at the University of Tennesee in Knoxville, Inge Cannon warned us against the dangerous “High Places” of education. As she talked, I took careful and enthusiastic notes. I was just fourteen, and excited about this chance to sit with the adults.

In the Bible, God repeatedly told the ancient Israelites to tear down the idolatrous “high places”. Cannon thus defined a high place as:

“any goal or objective so commonly accepted that it is validated and esteemed as good, even though it violates the will and word of God”.

According to Cannon, the following “high places” are educational myths for home-educating parents to avoid.

The High Places of Education

(Inge Cannon–June 23, 1990)

  • Comparison–i.e., SAT tests and bell-shaped curves, parents should not base their curriculum on these; also pluralism that pressures those with strong beliefs to “give in to those who believe nothing”
  • Grading–earning a teacher’s certificate, for example, merely means one has passed the right courses, not that one is “qualified to produce results”
  • Completion–filling in all the blanks or answering all the questions or taking the final exam does not mean the educational task is complete; the object is to “know” the material, not merely to “cover” it
  • Equivalency–“believing that a curriculum is proper and right when it matches the academic sequence and requirements of traditional, formal education”
  • Tangibility–“believing only what I can see or touch is real, thereby de-emphasizing those elements that require faith or minister to the spirit of my child”
  • Self-expression–“believing that the arts are too personal to be governed by absolute standards”; the arts can never be amoral
  • Methodology–“believing there is only one right way to teach a lesson”
  • Socialization–“Children don’t learn anything good from one another!”
  • Exposure–exposing children to all kinds of knowledge is unnecessary for a well-rounded education; children should be ignorant of evil, they shouldn’t understand dirty jokes, they shouldn’t study false religions; “There are some things God doesn’t want us to know.”
  • Statistical Verification–believing [the Bible] “needs to be verified  by scientific measurements before choosing to obey its instructions”

During my time in ATI, I was just one of thousands of young people who were told that we didn’t need college credits, that college would corrupt our minds with “vain philosophies” and threaten our faith, that there are some things “God doesn’t want us to know”, and that employers would come looking for us because of our diligence, obedience, and virtue. So, many of us dutifully eschewed degrees in favor of home-based study.

Gothard, incidentally, later changed his mind and now even touts the Ph.D. degree Lousiana Baptist University conferred on him in 2004, much to the chagrin of those of us for whom the new dispensation came too late. Hundreds of former ATI students live today with the socioeconomic consequences of what we were taught, even as we struggle to catch up to our college-educated peers.

The Political Reach of Bill Gothard: Jeri Lofland’s Thoughts

HA Editorial Team7 Comments

Bill Gothard, Mike Huckabee, and the Leiningers at a 2007 Huckabee for President fundraiser.
Bill Gothard, Mike Huckabee, and the Leiningers at a 2007 Huckabee for President fundraiser.

Jeri’s post was originally published on her blog Heresy in the Heartland  on September 5, 2013. It is reprinted with her permission. Also by Jeri on HA: “Generational Observations”, “Of Isolation and Community”, “His Quiver Full of Them”, and “David Noebel, Summit Ministries, and the Evil of Rock”.

With Bill Gothard’s ceaseless emphasis on authority, obedience, and chain-of-command, it should be no surprise that he is compulsively attracted to men (and more rarely, women) whom he perceives to be in a position of power. He believes without question that his organization has answers that can solve the problems faced by any public official, if they can only work together to promote Gothard’s vision.

This characteristic has resulted in an extensive mycelial network whereby Gothard silently influences public policy across the country.

Its reach is difficult to measure, however. While Gothard loves to privately advertise his latest affiliations, he always exaggerates their scope or significance. And he frequently drops an old project when something shinier comes along.

Below I list some of Gothard’s better-known political alliances*. Since I left the organization in 1999, there are undoubtedly more fibers of connection now than I am able to trace here. As time passes, however, we can also see more clearly whether his “new approach” has yielded “lasting solutions” for those who have advocated them.

*There is no doubt that Gothard favors conservative political causes. I once heard him describe Rush Limbaugh as “our man on the radio”.

INDIANA

During his two terms as mayor of Indianapolis, Stephen Goldsmith partnered with Gothard to create the Indianapolis Training Center, selling a city-owned building to IBLP for a token $1 around 1993. During Goldsmith’s unsuccessful bid for Governor, ITC staff (many of them minors, most from other states, some salaried by the non-profit IBLP and others paying for the educational opportunity of working there) assisted the mayor’s campaign, running a mailing center from the top floor of the hotel and handing out campaign literature at polling places on Election Day. Some even registered to vote in Marion County to support him.

George W. Bush later made Goldsmith his chief domestic policy adviser. 

Goldsmith “helped formulate the president’s ‘faith-based initiatives’, which give tax dollars to churches.” In 2010, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg chose Goldsmith to be his deputy mayor of operations, a position which included oversight of law enforcement agencies.

Goldsmith’s domestic policy came into question when he was arrested for assaulting his wife, Margaret in their home. Though Margaret later recanted her story, Goldsmith was pressured to resign. According to Mr. Bloomberg, “I think that domestic violence is a phenomenally serious scourge on our society. We work very hard to attack the problem of domestic violence and the implication — the accusation — unfortunately made it untenable for him to continue to work for the city.” Stephen Goldsmith filed for divorce earlier this year.

Back in Indianapolis, Margaret Goldsmith had worked for juvenile court judge James Payne, who used his court to send delinquent Marion County youth to the Indianapolis Training Center as an alternative juvenile detention facility. Despite investigations into allegations of child abuse at the ITC, Judge Payne was made Director of Indiana Department of Child Services, a post from which he resigned last year after charges of interference with a DCS neglect case involving his grandchildren.

FLORIDA

With support from followers Rep. Steven Wise (R-Jacksonville) and now-Congressman Dan Webster (R-Orlando), Gothard considered opening a similar youth training center in Jacksonville, Florida in 1997. Though that never materialized, Jacksonville children were sent by the court system to the correctional residential program at ITC.

Delinquent youths were designated “Leaders-In-Training” and spent their days studying the Bible, watching Bill Gothard lecture videos, doing the chores necessary to run a hotel, filling in homeschooling workbooks from Accelerated Christian Education, memorizing character qualities, and dressing up for dinner. Denim, television, and rock music were strictly forbidden. Discipline reportedly included solitary confinement in “prayer rooms” and spanking without parental notification.

According to The Cult Education Institute, former Florida governor Jeb Bush “implemented Gothard’s controversial character education program, Character First!, at his charter school in Liberty City.

The governor also publicly encouraged the Palm Beach County School Board to approve Character First!, which is also listed as a model program in state law.”  (Watch for more on the Character Training Institute in a future post.)

ARKANSAS

Gothard touts former governor of Arkansas Mike Huckabee‘s name on materials promoting his “Character Cities” initiative. The two were photographed together at a private campaign luncheon in Houston in late 2007.

For years, Gothard cultivated close ties to Huckabee, an alumnus of Gothard’s “Basic Seminar”, and to Jim Dailey, mayor of Little Rock. With encouragement from Mayor Dailey, Gothard opened his Little Rock Training Center in an empty VA hospital purchased by Hobby Lobby and donated to Gothard’s Institute.

Despite Gothard’s grandiose vision, the enormous structure was in poor repair and was never utilized as fully as the Indianapolis facility. Still, it served as a base for the Institute’s prison ministry. Gothard quotes Governor Huckabee’s support for conducting his seminars for Arkansas inmates: “I am confident that these are some of the best programs available for instilling character into the lives of people.”

Having gotten his foot in the door in Arkansas, Gothard combined forces with CCA, the nation’s largest operator of privatized correctional institutions, to promote his intense lecture-based seminars inside more prisons.

Gothard was enthusiastic about character education being made mandatory in Arkansas schools and visualized schools restructured into age-integrated “learning teams” instead of age-segregated classrooms. The Institute also operated a secretive character-building Eagle Springs program for youth in rural Altheimer, Arkansas. (The Eagle Springs program was later moved to Skiatook, Oklahoma. Many allegations of corruption and abuse have been made by girls who participated in the program involuntarily.)

Another Gothard devotee is Jim Bob Duggar, a Springdale Republican who served two terms in the State House, now best known for the reality show “Nineteen Kids & Counting“. Not only are the Duggars enrolled in Gothard’s homeschooling program, the Advanced Training Institute, their family website links to at least twenty Institute programs and calls Gothard’s organization their “#1 Recommended Resource“. Jim Bob and wife Michelle are featured speakers at ATI national conferences.

Though Duggar lost his last two election bids, he hasn’t abandoned politics. During the 2012 presidential primary, Jim Bob and his well-known family campaigned for candidate Rick Santorum. Duggar’s oldest daughter has worked closely with the current IBLP indoctrination program for girls, while his oldest son now directs political lobbying for the conservative Family Research Council.

OKLAHOMA

The Family Research Council was founded by Jerry Regier* in 1983. He was succeeded as president by Gary Bauer and eventually became a versatile member of Oklahoma Governor Frank Keating’s administration. Regier was Keating’s Cabinet Secretary of Health and Human Services as well as Acting Director of the State Department of Health, tasked with reinventing “the scandal-ridden” agency. Like Mayor Goldsmith in Indianapolis, he is a proponent of partnerships between government departments and the faith community. Under his leadership, Oklahoma became inundated with materials from the Institute’s character training program, which was largely created at Gothard’s training center campus in the heart of Oklahoma City.

According to an article in the St. Petersburg Times, “Regier brought Character First! management training to the Department of Juvenile Justice [in Oklahoma]. In this program, employees are recognized on their anniversaries and birthdays for certain character traits they exhibit. He encouraged the use of several of Gothard’s programs with juvenile offenders before a U.S. Senate subcommittee in 1996, including a “log cabin ministry” that places juvenile offenders in cabins in the wilderness with peers who are trained by Gothard’s Advanced Training Institute.”

Like the Indianapolis Training Center, the Oklahoma building was formerly a hotel. It was purchased by Kimray, Inc. and leased to IBLP for $1 a year. Kimray is run by Tom Hill, who served on Gothard’s Board of Directors for over a decade and piloted the secular adaptation of Gothard’s “character qualities” in his company.

Gothard gathered support from numerous state and local officials prior to establishing operations in Oklahoma. A 1994 news article lists several:

Several local officials wrote letters to Mayor Ron Norick supporting Gothard’s program, including state Rep. Carolyn Coleman, R-Moore, and Sen.Howard Hendrick, R-Bethany. Both joined other local officials in a visit to Gothard’s juvenile education center in a renovated Indianapolis hotel last spring.

With them were Richard DeLaughter, assistant Oklahoma City police chief, and John Foley, director of Oklahoma County’s juvenile division.

DeLaughter said… the facility emphasizes the Bible “so it obviously is not for every kid and every family. ” “I don’t think anybody thought it was the end all and be all answer for every one of our juvenile problems,” he said. “As an option, it was pretty good. “

Rep. Joan Greenwood (R-Moore) was a homeschooling mom who used Gothard’s curriculum. Howard Hendrick later served as Director of Oklahoma’s Department of Human Services. At Hendrick’s retirement, he was replaced by former Oklahoma City prosecutor Wes Lane, who has been a speaker at Gothard’s “Character Cities” conferences. On the DHS Commission, Lane was responsible for investigations into cases of child abuse and neglect.

Congresswoman Mary Fallin (now Governor of Oklahoma) joined Tom Hill and Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett in welcoming attendees at a Character First! conference. That 2009 conference was held at the refurbished hotel where I served as an ATI student volunteer in 1999. I remember the character posters on the walls in the lobby, and reciting Bible passages to one of the “adults” (I was in my twenties) before dinner–the only meal offered on Sundays–was served in the dining room.* (Governor Keating later recommended Jerry Regier for a post in Florida Governor Jeb Bush’s administration. When Bush made Regier his Secretary of Children and Families, Regier quickly implemented the CharacterFirst! program within the department. Regier now works in the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services.)

GEORGIA

Sonny Perdue, former governor of Georgia, has spoken at national IBLP conferences. The Insurance Commissioner for the State of Georgia, Ralph Hudgens, is not only an ATI homeschooling dad but also sits on the Institute’s mostly harmless Board of Directors.

TEXAS

Another “advisory board” member whose name no longer appears on the IBLP website is San Antonio billionaire Dr. James Leininger, a shrewd investor described as “one of the most powerful people in Texas politics”. Leininger and Rick Perry have had a rewarding symbiotic relationship for many years as Perry rose through Texas state politics. See a photo of Bill Gothard and Mike Huckabee with Dr. Leininger at his Houston home on Flickr.

Congressman Sam Johnson (R-TX) formerly chaired the IBLP board and has recognized Gothard’s Institute from the House floor.

Voices of Sister-Moms: Part Six, Mary’s Story

HA Editorial Team11 Comments

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HA note: This series is reprinted with permission from Heather Doney’s guest series on her blog, Becoming Worldly. “Mary” is a pseudonym. If you have a Quiverfull “sister-Mom” story you would like to share, email Heather at becomingworldly (at) gmail (dot) com.

Mary has previously shared her story in full on Homeschoolers Anonymous and is the author of the “Home Is Where The Hurt Is” series.

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Also in this series: Part One: Introduction by Heather Doney | Part Two: DoaHF’s Story | Part Three: Maia’s Story | Part Four: Electra’s Story | Part Five: Samantha Field’s Story | Part Six: Mary’s Story

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Part Six: Mary’s Story

So I’ve been reading the articles this last week about the sister-moms and they have been hitting home.

I am one of those sister-moms.

I am the 2nd oldest of eight and the oldest girl.  Most of the time I felt like the oldest because my older brother wasn’t in the picture much for various reasons.  But anyway, in the Quiverfull movement, there is a world of difference being a boy in the family versus a girl.  I don’t really feel like going into my story in this document, especially as it is already posted on HA.

This is about another frustration that arises from my position in our family.

As I was growing up, I got very used to hearing remarks and jokes about how many children we ourselves would have when we grew up.  Some people would sit down and start doing the “if all 8 of you have 8 children” equations. Then they would start joking about what family reunions would look like.

We didn’t go to a conservative church. In fact, for most of my younger years, we were the only home schooled family. As far as I know there was never another family as large as ours. Because of that, the jokes ran all the time.

My parents relished in the attention and would laugh right along with everyone. 

For me, however, I seemed to be getting some very clear messages: First, everyone expected me to have a large family (and why wouldn’t I when I was “so good with children and would make such a good mother”?). Second, I would be a failure if I didn’t have a big family — but also a joke if I did.  When anyone would ask me while I was in my teens how many kids I wanted, my answer was always what I was taught to say: “as many as God wants.”

I never let on that the jokes and even just the normal comments hurt me deeply. I never let on that I really didn’t want to have a bunch of children.

I wasn’t allowed to. 

One thing I always wanted to scream at people making rude comments was that I had no choice.  I had no choice that my parents wanted to be crazy and follow a cult.  I was just the second one to come out.

I am now a mother and I have 2 amazing children. But I only have 2 and don’t plan on changing that anytime soon — if ever.

The problem is that it seems I will never be able to shake all those jokes and insults from my past.  For example: on my Facebook page on my birthday, there is this one guy that feels the need to always say “Happy birthday” by making some joke about how many more kids I need to “catch up” with my Mom (as if I couldn’t figure that one out on my own).

When I did get pregnant with my oldest, the comments and jokes were merciless. I was working at a Christian bookstore (where I had worked for 5 years) and I knew about 80% of the customers that came in. Many others would recognize me because my family all looks alike and ask if I was a ____ (my family name), notice that I was pregnant and proceed to make a joke.

It hurt.

It hurt very deeply.

I would say the incident that hurt the most was when a lady (who I thought I respected) made a comment to my younger sister about how I was such a failure to my parents and was a rebellious child that obviously never learned a thing from my parents growing up.  Why did she say that?

Because my sister told her that I wasn’t planning on having a bunch of children and that I wasn’t planning on home schooling. 

Never mind that she didn’t have a bunch of children and that she had never home schooled herself.  But somehow because I wasn’t doing it, I was rebellious (at 26 years old at that time and married). I have so many more examples that I can’t forget that I wish I could. As a result of all of that, I fled that church as soon as I could. I fled my hometown, too. Right now am on the other side of the country.

So I guess my point is really aimed at “normal” people. Yes, those jokes hurt. No, we (as the children) didn’t have any choice in those things our parents chose.

Please be mindful of that when you speak.

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End of series.

Voices of Sister-Moms: Part Five, Samantha Field’s Story

HA Editorial Team10 Comments

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HA note: This series is reprinted with permission from Heather Doney’s guest series on her blog, Becoming Worldly. Part Five was originally published on July 11, 2013. Samantha Field blogs at Defeating the Dragons about her experiences with and life after Christian patriarchy and fundamentalism. If you have a Quiverfull “sister-Mom” story you would like to share, email Heather at becomingworldly (at) gmail (dot) com.

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Also in this series: Part One: Introduction by Heather Doney | Part Two: DoaHF’s Story | Part Three: Maia’s Story | Part Four: Electra’s Story | Part Five: Samantha Field’s Story | Part Six: Mary’s Story

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Part Five: “Barren,” Samantha Field’s Story

My mother was in labor with me for almost three days, and by the time she finally delivered, she was nearly dead.

If it hadn’t been for my father, she probably would have died. But, in 1987, no one was familiar enough with my mother’s medical condition to tell her what her safe options were. When my sister was born, my mother’s uterus prolapsed. Doctors warned her against getting pregnant again. Within a year, she ended up needing a complete hysterectomy.

My mother used to refer to herself as barren.

However, I never remember hearing her use that word to describe herself until we had been attending an Independent Fundamental Baptist Church Cult (IFB) for a few years. When we first began attending, the Quiverfull teachings weren’t readily apparent. Quiverfull ran underneath the surface of almost anything having to do with women, but not obviously. However, when I was thirteen years old, my cult-leader’s wife became pregnant with twins when she was already past 50 years old.

At that point, Quiverfull ideas jumped to the forefront.

Other members joined, many with large families, and I remember families coming through our church (usually to perform music) that the cult-leader held up and praised. These honored families usually had at least a dozen children, and one family in particular had 20. Women in our church were first encouraged, then compelled, and then ordered by the “word of God” to have as many children as possible, from whence comes their salvation.

One day, when I was fourteen years old, I remember asking my mother if she had ever wanted more children than just me and my sister. Her response was an automatic “of course.” And she cried for the rest of the afternoon.

That was the first time I heard the word barren.

When I was fifteen years old, I sat in a cold doctor’s office, shocked and trying to constrain myself from breaking down in front of my doctor. She was telling me that I had poly cystic ovary syndrome, possibly endometriosis, and it was bad enough that I would probably struggle with having children and I would likely need a hysterectomy before I was 30. She offered what I’m sure she thought were assurances– that women who have hysterectomies today have plenty of options to delay menopause and that there wasn’t anything to be concerned about.

Barren.

I might be barren.

When I was attending a fundamentalist college, I formed a friendship with another young man in my major. At the end of our sophomore year together, when my PCOS was causing me severe enough problems that even the faculty in my department was aware of it, I confessed that I might not be able to have children.

“Oh, Samantha. You’re never going to be able to get married. That’s so sad.”

The sliver of me that had always known this wilted inside. “Wait… what… what do you mean I’ll never be able to get married?”

“No Christian man will want to marry a woman who can’t have children.”

I went back to my dorm room and sobbed.

*****

Growing up in the intensely fundamentalist environment not only taught me that my value — not as a person, but as a woman — was largely based on my ability to bear children. The fact that my anatomy threatened that ability terrified me because becoming a wife and mother had been what I had been trained to do. The only thing that I was allowed to do.

Because the leaders at my church-cult knew that I would not have younger siblings, many of the women took me under their wing. While I was not permitted to baby sit for money — only the cult leader’s daughters had that privilege — I was assigned to work in the nursery during services far more often than any other “young lady” at my church-cult. I was frequently tasked with managing the children in a variety of capacities and at different functions when others were given the freedom to play and roam.

All of this was done in the name of “preparing me for motherhood.”

Everything I did around children was sharply monitored and harshly criticized. Other “young ladies” who had the experience of looking after younger siblings at home were not watched as closely, and were trusted to perform basic tasks like bottle feeding and diaper changing while I was not allowed to do any of those things on my own for months. It was humiliating that I couldn’t be trusted to change a diaper on my own, that I had to do every single task with the utmost perfection or risk a lecture.

I was mocked because I didn’t know how to operate a diaper genie the first time I tried to use one. The first time I burped a baby, the older nursery worked literally held my hand and patted the baby’s back with it. Every experience was degrading because I wasn’t lucky enough to have had younger siblings to look after. I was given the most onerous, tedious tasks. Even when I grew older and other “young ladies” were coming up underneath me, I was still considered their inferior because these young teenage girls were considered more “domestic” than I was. I was not lady like enough. I was not as interested in the feminine arts like everyone else was. I was considered an unfortunate aberration.

The barren daughter of a barren woman.

******

Sometime after I started dating my now-husband, I was kneeling in the middle of my hallway at home, talking with him over the phone. Because of my medical conditions, my periods had steadily grown worse over the years– to the point where now they are almost unendurable.

In the environment I’d been raised in, the very idea of considering a hysterectomy (the only real long-term ‘cure’ for me, although it has its own set of problems that may or may not be better) was anathema, blasphemy.

Heresy.

It was not to be considered.

I would do everything humanly possible to preserve my fertility, and that was it. No other option was available.

It was fertility or ruination.

But, that day, on the phone, talking with the man who I was already becoming certain I would marry, I asked him the question. What would he think if I decided to have a hysterectomy. If we never had children together. If I gave all of that up, all these years of “protecting my fertility” because I couldn’t stand the pain anymore? If I wasn’t willing to do whatever it took?

“You need to do whatever is best for you, beautiful. If we never have kids, we never have kids. I love you and I want to be with you. You matter more to me than anything else. And this is your decision, not mine. It’s your body, and you get to decide what happens.”

My decision. Mine.

He’d made it clear over the course of our relationship that he was open to all the options– childlessness, adoption, fostering, or pursuing fertility treatments if that was what I wanted.

What I wanted.

Not what I was expected to do. Not what I’d been trained to do. Not what I’d been taught was my ultimate and best purpose.

What I wanted. For the first time, that mattered to me. And, for the first time, when I again decided not to pursue a hysterectomy, I made that choice not because it was what I believed was the “only right thing,” but what I decided I wanted. I looked at my husband’s twinkling eyes and mischievous grin, his mop of red hair, his cleverness, motivation, loyalty, and empathy, and decided I wanted to have children with that man. Someday.

After I’ve written a book or two, after we can buy a house . . . when I’m ready.

*****

To be continued.

Growing Kids the Abusive Way: Auriel’s Story, Part Two — Isolation and Ideology

HA Editorial Team12 Comments
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Trigger warnings: references (sometimes graphic) to emotional, physical, religious, and sexual abuse.

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HA note: The author’s name has been changed to ensure anonymity. “Auriel” is a pseudonym. Auriel blogs at Drying My Wings.

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Also in this series: Part One: Growing Kids the Abusive Way | Part Two: Isolation and Ideology | Part Three: Mini-Parents | Part Four: The Sound of a Sewing Machine | Part Five: The Aftermath of Childhood Abuse

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Part 2: Isolation and Ideology

 At 16 years old, I was not allowed to cross our property line without another human being with me.

Like a caged dog, I paced back and forth, crying at the injustice of it all. The bonds that held me weren’t physical. I was chained by my sheltered life. The isolation came from homeschooling.

Until high school, I only had three close friends outside of my siblings, and I only saw them once a month. Although I was involved with many extra-curricular activities, I was not allowed to be friends with boys, non-homeschoolers, nor kids whose families my parents did not know.

So, no friends.

Pop and rock ave evil beats, movies with kissing or language — let alone violence — will make you copy them, gyms make you compare people’s bodies, TV shows are so sexualized they’re evil, iPods hurt your spiritual life, and so on. At least, that’s why I was not allowed. My siblings and I snuck around, listening to Christian music here, pop music there, watching TV when our parents were gone.

I’m still trying to get caught up on movies, pop culture, and music references.

Courtship was introduced as the only method of finding a spouse. We read books like the Courtship of Sarah McLean, I Kissed Dating Goodbye, Boy Meets Girl, The Princess and the Kiss, and so many more. It was like my dad was supposed to own me, and any potential mate would have to ask for my father’s permission both to be near me and to eventually own me.

It’s so damaging to think of oneself as property.

Now, I want to date to find someone to marry, but my father does not own me. I do not need to be under his “vision” for my family. I have my own vision, which does not include abuse.

"Girls were to have babies, homeschool their kids, and be dominated by men."
“Girls were to have babies, homeschool their kids, and be dominated by men.”

Mom held a sexist view of girls: they should not work outside the home. Girls were to have babies, homeschool their kids, and be dominated by men. Many Vision Forum books cemented this view in her mind like So Much More, What’s a Girl to Do, the Beautiful Girlhood books, Mother, and Joyfully at Home. Mom taught me needlework like a good Victorian girl, but I hated these activities! Just because I’m a girl does not mean I have to knit and drink tea!

I’m a person! I’m not a gender stereotype.

I was taught to be afraid of gays, Islam, and black men. It’s tough to grow up in a homophobic, Islamophobic, racist, sexist environment and come out unscathed. While it’s a struggle, I have learned to love everyone as made in the image and likeness of God.

The modesty teachings were awful. Modesty was focused more on covering skin than on ensuring the dignity of each person. I learned to watch my back for guys who would lust after me.

I heard that what I wore made me a rape target.

At first, Mom dressed me in denim jumpers or Easter and Christmas dresses from the local stores. Eventually, she forced me to sew my own dresses and skirts. When I was 9 years old, she told me that having my hair down made me look like a “lady of the night.” Even though I was a shy, modest girl, Mom constantly told me that something I did or wore was sinful, displeasing to God, and might turn on my dad or my brothers.

I was so scared that I was going to lead my brothers or dad into sin for lusting after me.

If that’s not twisted thinking, I really don’t know what is. Bleh.

I cried so many tears over how ugly I thought my body was, thanks to the baggy clothes I wore. Looking back, I was a healthy weight and my body was great. But shirts had to have sleeves and couldn’t come below the collarbone. Pants were forbidden after age 6. Swimwear was culottes that puffed full of water. The lifeguards even chided me for not wearing appropriate swim attire. I wanted to scream, “It’s not me!” My skirts had to be several inches below the knee, or else I was “showing some leg,” and that would “give guys a little jolt.”

When I finally turned 18, I had to beg a friend to help me pick out my first real pair of pants since Kindergarten. Of course, Mom called me a “slut” and a “whore,” declaring she could see intimate parts through my pants that would have been impossible for her to see. It was just to shame me.

Oh boy, here comes the scary part.

Sex.

No one in my homeschooling community talked about sex. I got the talk at 12, earlier than any of my homeschooled friends. However, I only knew about one type of intercourse. I didn’t even know people did it lying down, lol. Because puberty, sex, and all related words were so hush hush, I stopped asking my mother questions.

The first time I heard another girl even mention her period, I was 16.

I stared at her in shock! “Did she just speak of her period?” I wondered. When I turned 18, I succumbed to searching dictionaries to learn the rest of the words and meanings.

I was also incredibly afraid of CPS. Through HSLDA and my parents, I learned that foster homes are terrible places that abuse children by burning their hands on stoves, and more. Well, it worked. I didn’t call hotlines, tell the speech moms who cared about me, or beg my few friends for help.

When CPS showed up at our doorstep, my siblings and I lied for fear of being separated from each other forever.

The community that attended our very conservative Catholic church supported the sheltered, so-modest-its-frumpy, sexist views of my parents. I even was bullied at church for failing to meet up to the standards of the kids my age. In the midst of all this, I got comments asking if I was part of a cult, Amish, or Mormon. It hurt deeply that people thought I was a freak. “IT’S NOT BY CHOICE!” I wanted to scream. But I couldn’t.

When people think you’re part of a cult, they tend to ignore you or avoid you.

The few people I told about the abuse after I escaped looked at me with shock and said, “I had no idea.” The isolation of homeschooling added with the isolation of a cultic appearance equals an ideal environment for abuse to continue.

*****

To be continued.

Life With A Gay Husband: Rachel’s Story

HA Editorial Team7 Comments

Life With A Gay Husband: Rachel’s Story

"I realized there was no way to fix this. He couldn't be who he was with me, and it wasn't fair to either of us to stay together."
“I realized there was no way to fix this. He couldn’t be who he was with me, and it wasn’t fair to either of us to stay together.”

I grew up as the oldest of ten children. My parents were a part of ATI and the Quiverfull movement. My father was very controlling and my mother was neglectful and withdrew herself. We had to ask my father to go anywhere. He would say to clean something or weed the garden first and then he would say no many times.

I was the “second mom” the one who listened to what my dad said and took care of the house, the other kids, stayed home as a highschooler to cook dinner while the younger kids got to play sports. I had a really good guy friend who was the oldest of ten children himself and also played the violin. We used to write to each other all the time until the letters just stopped. This guy, Jacob, would give me butterflies and make my hands sweaty and I would dream of being with him. My mom came to me and said that we were the oldest kids, so a relationship would just not work. I was confused what she meant. But, I continued to “wait” for him.

Then, at the age of 19, I went to EXCEL, which I paid for by babysitting. There, I sought God each day and somehow ended up with the exact opposite beliefs as I was taught. There, I cut my long hair, stopped wearing skirts all the time, stopped arguing with everyone, decided I needed to go to college to become a nurse and I decided I was done with waiting for Jacob. I came home and signed up to start classes. I also looked for a job, which I got in a deli.

My parents were supportive until I actually started classes and then it was, “Rachel, come home and watch the kids,” and, “Rachel, come and take the kids to their games.”  I, being a girl who did give everything to god and believing I had to obey my dad, would, but this jeopardized my grades. Here I am, a girl who has no understanding of any of my classes (all I knew how to do was read really well and basic math; I didn’t even know how to write a paper), looks very strange in mostly skirts, and thinking about sex all the time.

Then Ben entered my life.

A friend of mine told me of a homeschool debate site. I decided to join and decided to have a “gender neutral” name of “His child.” There was a guy there who wanted someone to do a bible study with him. I knew instantly that he was suicidal and I had to do it. So, I led a bible study and he eventually started asking me questions about myself.

We talked for an entire year before he decided to come to WA state to work at a camp and meet me. His parents tried to prevent him, since they ran a camp themselves, but then they found out the reason was there was a girl there and they excitedly let him go. He got me a job there as a store manager. I worked it out with my deli manager so that I could do it for the summer, but my father put his foot down and refused to let me do it. I had told him about Ben several months before which made him pretty upset. He unplugged the internet many times so I couldn’t talk to him.

I obeyed my father and did not go to camp. I picked him up at the airport with my parents and a very talkative me. But he was lost for words. The poor guy was so nervous and just grunted all the time. My father and I dropped him off at camp and my dad said, “Oh, you should exchange numbers.”  We hadn’t even talked to each other on the phone at this point. We started to have phone calls during which I talked a lot and he said nothing.

I saw him again during that summer when he had a weekend break. He played with my siblings and this is when I knew that I would marry him. He had already told me I was the girl for him before I met him. I thought he was smoking hot and very excited that a guy this attractive would be interested in me. I was sad to see him go home on the final meeting when we dropped him off at the airport.

My father, realizing that I liked this guy, put a lot of pressure on me to get him to ask permission to court me. So, I did and Ben called up my dad and asked his permission to court. I got in front of our church and announced with my father that I was courting, which in my group of people meant we were getting married. We continued talking on the phone (which was awkward for us cause he barely talked) and mostly talking online.

Six months later, he flew to see me again. We were ready to hold hands and cuddle which freaked out my parents. My father gave him 50 questions to answer by hand and said we could not talk until it was finished. I was supposed to go and work at his family’s camp as a cook for that summer. This was his reaction to that. Instead, I threw myself into working 80 hours a week. Eventually, he finished the questions over that summer. I decided I should do nursing down in Mississippi because I could take a test and get into the program. (I struggled a lot with school because my father was constantly trying to get me to come home and babysit my siblings or take them to practice and I was balancing working full time and taking classes for which I had zero knowledge, so my grades weren’t that good). Extra bonus was that I was two hours away from him.

Our plan was that I would stay there six months and we would get married and I would go to nursing school on the same campus as his seminary. We spent a few hours together in person every other weekend or so.

Finally, it came to the wedding.

Our first kiss was at the wedding alter. Bad idea… I had no idea how awkward that would be and how it just felt…wrong, like it was meant to be shared in private. Then of course, to go further, my husband was incredibly scared and nervous. I thought the bride was supposed to be the nervous one!

It puzzled me why he seemed never to want to have sex. I thought this would be a phase, but it wasn’t. This went on for years — in fact, our entire marriage.

I had always heard that men liked a woman’s body, that it turned them on. I tried that.

It didn’t work.

We talked about this and both came to the conclusion that it was cause he was a lifeguard for years and was just used to seeing almost naked bodies. He always seemed depressed about everything. He would withdraw and not talk to me or even seem to want to be around me. This would frustrate me but I was busy with work and school. I just gave him space and hoped he would show interest in me. I worked hard to try to please him and to try to motivate him. But, he always seemed unhappy, no matter what we tried.

I put my energy in trying to become pregnant. (Believe me, that took a lot of work!). We had our child and I — doing what every other mother I knew did — stayed home with him. Our problems became stronger since now I had nothing to distract me, no school or work. We were trying to become missionaries. He got ordained and we were in the application process. I was highly involved at our church.

He seemed to withdraw yet again, like he didn’t want to do it.

I had been talking to my best friend who had just come out to me. She described how she felt — in a marriage with a man — being gay herself. I asked a lot of questions and realized she sounded exactly like my husband! I approached him and asked him if he was attracted to men. He said he was but tried not to think about it.

Everything made sense!

He was repressing who he was, which was causing the depression and the withdrawing. This is why nothing seemed to work or motivate him. We continued on, wondering what we should do next. He had already been having issues with god for years but also tried to ignore that as well. I began to question the bible as well. If it is wrong about homosexuality, what else is wrong with it?

I realized it was incredibly cruel to expect a homosexual person to either be single or to be in a relationship with someone of the opposite sex. I know what that is like. This led to a spiraling amount of questions which I could not find answers to. I guess this was important to me being able to leave the marriage — and then divorce.

A couple months later, I realized there was no way to fix this. He couldn’t be who he was with me, and it wasn’t fair to either of us to stay together. So, the next six months, we made plans to separate and help each other be financially stable.

We are still friends, share custody of our son and live about a mile and a half apart.