educational neglect

Bird Set Free: Avia’s Story

HA Editorial Team8 Comments

Content warning: Victim blaming, child abuse, body shaming, and religious shaming of mental illness

Editorial note: The author’s name has been changed to ensure anonymity. “Avia” is a pseudonym. 

There are a few incidents in my life that pushed me to leave home.

Clipped wings, I was a broken thing…

When I was nineteen years old, I fell into a deep depression. Every day was hell. I struggled to get out of bed in the morning, and I lost interest in my hobbies. I was always an avid reader and writer, and I dropped those hobbies for hours of trying to convince myself that I needed to stay alive. I might not get into heaven if I killed myself, and anyway, there must be some sin I didn’t know of keeping me in the depression.

I wrote down dozens of Bible verses and posted them all over my bedroom walls. I slept with a Bible under my pillow. I kept scraps of paper with Bible verses on them in my pocket. I would whisper scripture to myself when the depression was so bad that I wasn’t sure if I could keep myself from walking into oncoming traffic.

My parents were convinced it was an attack from satan. When I had anxiety attacks, my parents prayed over me. When that didn’t work, I threw out books, CD’s, and clothes that I thought might be upsetting god. When I would lie in bed and cry, my mom told me I was “letting satan win”, and that I just needed to stop thinking about it, and it would go away.

I begged god, every night, to take the depression away from me. Nothing helped. I didn’t know what I was doing wrong. How was I displeasing god when I was trying to straighten up my life and do what he wanted? I had repented of every sin I could possibly remember.

I suffered through that depressive episode for nearly a year.

I finally stopped asking god to help me, and I started helping myself. I cleared my thoughts and “spoke life” (we all remember that song by Tobymac, right?) into myself, something I’d never done before, and it was powerful. I gathered all my strength and pulled myself out of that hole. The depression lessened and I was able to function again.

Had a voice, had a voice but I could not sing
You would wind me down
I struggled on the ground

When I told my therapist about this time in my life, she was horrified. I now know depression is not an “attack from satan”, but an imbalance of chemicals in the brain. I can also see that year as the onset of my bipolar disorder.
Because my parents shun all modern medicine, especially psychiatry, I didn’t see a psychiatrist until after I escaped. I had no idea that the things I was experiencing were real, and valid. I was constantly told by my parents, especially my mother, that I just didn’t have enough faith in god. If I had enough faith in god, he would take my depression away.

That was my parent’s approach to mental illness. Today I credit my strong will, the will my parents did all they could to break, for keeping me alive.

The second incident was a year or so before I left home. I wish I could pinpoint exactly when this happened, but my childhood and teen years are blurry. I remember it was a sunny, warm afternoon, and my mom called me into my parent’s bedroom. My mom was on her laptop, excitedly pointing to the screen. “Look at this! This sounds just like my mother!” She said, scooting over so I could sit on the bed. I sat down and looked at the screen as my mom continued to talk. It was a list of traits of a narcissistic mother. As my mom read the traits aloud, my heart sank and I started to feel sick. The traits my mother was attributing to my grandmother are traits she had herself. Some of the traits made my heart beat faster.

Does your mother act jealous of you? Does your mother compete with you?

My mom was very strict about how I dressed. She bought me my first real pair of jeans when I was seventeen or eighteen. I had been forbidden to wear jeans or any dress or skirt above the knee since I was a toddler. When my mom went on a diet and lost a large amount of weight, suddenly we were allowed to wear pants, because my mom wanted to wear pants to show off her weight loss. She realized she would look bad if she didn’t let her daughters wear pants as well, so jean dresses and patterned skirts were out, and pants were in.

The jeans my mom bought me were tight hip huggers. I remember trying them on and looking at myself in the mirror. My mom constantly cut down my appearance, but looking at myself in ‘normal’ clothes and not the baggy, oversized skirts and dresses my mom forced me to wear opened my eyes. There was nothing wrong with me. I wasn’t fat. I wasn’t “up and down with no shape” like my mom told me I was. All my life my mom told me I was nothing special, and she was even surprised when men would catcall me on the street. “What’s special about you? I’m still young and pretty.” She’d pout.

From then on, wearing pants or anything even hinting at form fitting, was sure to be a battle with my mother. She would wear cleavage baring shirts and I would cry foul. “It’s ok for me, I’m married!” She’d tell me.

When I’d throw on pants and a t-shirt for a lazy day or for work, she’d ask me if I had a hot date, or accuse me of being indecent around my step-dad and brothers. The fact that my mother was worried that my step-dad and brothers would see me in a sexual manner is creepy as fuck, and very telling.

That’s a different story for a different time though.

So lost, the line had been crossed
Had a voice, had a voice but I could not talk
You held me down
I struggle to fly now

Does your mother lack empathy for your feelings? Does your mother act like the world should revolve around her?  Is your mother controlling, acting like a victim or martyr?

The number one person in my parent’s household is my mother. Once I hit puberty, my step-dad (my mom married him when I was three) stopped parenting me, and really any of the kids, and faded into the background. The house was run the way my mom wanted, and she ruled with an iron fist. It wasn’t just my feelings that didn’t matter, anyone who wasn’t my mother didn’t matter either. That went for all my siblings and my step-dad. My mother was ruthless towards my step-dad. She has a sharp tongue, and had no problem fighting with my step-dad in front of us kids.

It was at my mother’s insistence that our family started following the biblical feasts, covering our heads (which my mom did off and on, depending on whether or not she wanted her hairstyle to show.), and shunning anyone who didn’t believe as we did. I was a self-righteous teenager, because I was convinced we were doing it the right way, and every other Christian was following the bible half-heartedly.

What my mom wanted, my mom got. If I had something that she liked, she took it from me. If my mom wanted to sleep all day and leave me and my younger sister with the hungry, crying babies, that’s the way it was. If anyone questioned our mother, there was hell to pay. We’d endure hours of her screaming and ranting about how we were all ungrateful brats who didn’t deserve all her or her hard work.

Any time my mom would send me a text, letting me know she was on her way home, it was a scramble to make sure the house was spotless for when she arrived. Doing what she wanted, when she wanted it, was the only option we had. I would have done anything I could to avoid her wrath. If mom wanted her feet massaged for hours, her feet were massaged for hours. One of my younger brothers protested too much one time, and my mother gave him a bloody nose. She blamed him for angering her.

For my entire teen years, my entire life was taking care of my family. I wasn’t taught to drive or given a bank account, despite my pleadings. I had maybe two friends, but I wasn’t allowed to go places often. I had to beg my parents to let me go anywhere, even as an adult. I couldn’t even go outside without telling my mom where I was going. Up until I left my curfew was 10pm. I did most of the cleaning and most of the cooking. My younger brothers, also teenagers, were never forced to help. Any time I complained about doing all the housework, I was chastised for being ungrateful and disobedient towards my parents and god.

But there’s a scream inside that we all try to hide
We hold on so tight, we cannot deny
Eats us alive, oh it eats us alive

In the couple years before I left, I was growing more and more resentful and I stopped doing what my mom wanted. I stopped being available to watch my siblings all the time. I isolated myself from my mother. I stopped helping with schooling. Not that the kids were schooled even close to properly anyway—my mom was constantly pregnant and unable to keep up with the school work. Currently, my parents have a total of 13 children. Schooling even half of those by yourself is not feasible. Without my help, it became impossible.

Of course, that meant serious consequences for me. My mom would go on hours long tirades about how I was a horrible daughter, I was such a bad influence on her kids and she should just kick me out, I was never going to be anything without her, etc. She wouldn’t stop until I was crying, and then she’d quiet down and tell me she was just doing this for my own good. Sometimes the yelling would culminate into physical violence, where she would push or hit me and dare me to hit her back. I never hit back, not once.

Yes, there’s a scream inside that we all try to hide
We hold on so tight, but I don’t wanna die, no

I was newly twenty-two in the beginning of 2014, and I knew something had to change. I couldn’t stay at home anymore. Remaining under my mom’s tyranny meant I would have a mental breakdown and kill myself. I lost a lot of weight. I started cutting again, something I hadn’t done since I was a teenager. I stopped talking to my mother. She used anything I told her against me anyway. She would bring up things I did as a toddler (“you were such a bad child! You smeared jelly on my couch when you were two years old!) to prove that I was a bad person. Her moods fluctuated wildly, from calling me her “special girl”, to flying into a rage and pouring hot coffee on me.

I couldn’t take the emotional and physical abuse anymore. I was worried that the next time my mother grew angry and beat my siblings with plumbing tube (my parents were avid followers of Michael and Debi Pearl), I would snap and beat her with it. Their screams haunt me. Dressing my siblings and seeing the purple bruises on their bottoms and legs was killing me inside.

February or March of 2014, my mom and I got into yet another argument. I’m never going to claim that I was the best daughter there ever was. But for a good part of my life, I did everything and anything I could to please my mother. I completely believe everything she told me, and blamed all our issues on myself—she definitely did. If I could just be a better daughter, she would stop getting so angry at me.

I didn’t sneak out, do drugs, curse, or even bad mouth my mother to my friends. I was a good daughter. I did the best I could.

During this argument, I fired back with my own insults. I was tired of her using me as her punching bag when anything went wrong. If she had an argument with my step-dad, she would make my life hell for days. Something as simple as me putting on makeup would set her off. I was done. I was going to stick up for myself finally.

My mom cornered me in my room, got in my face, and started pushing me. She kept telling me she could see how angry I was, and I should just hit her. I told her to back off, and if she didn’t, I was going to call the police. She laughed. “What are you going to tell them?” I looked my mother straight in the eyes and said, “Oh, there are lots of things I could tell them.”

Her face grew pale, and she backed off. I closed my bedroom door and sat on the floor. I ate my lunch through my tears, and for the first time in my life, I told a friend what was going on at home.

I need to tell you something. I typed up to a friend on my ancient laptop.
what? She replied.
My mom hits me sometimes.

I met a guy through a co worker a couple weeks later. I was working at a greenhouse about a mile away from my parent’s farm, and one of the girls there took a liking to me. I had talked to guys online before—without my parent’s knowledge of course. They never would have approved, and my mom was notorious for reading my private conversations and even my diaries. This guy was different. I genuinely liked him and I even made up excuses to spend time with him. The first time I met him was at a coffee shop in town.

My parents knew something was up, especially my mom. I had become so distant from her, and she noticed. My mom wasn’t in control, and that wasn’t going to stand. She decided she was going to kick me out, and got my step-dad on her side. They sat me down one night after I got home from “visiting a friend” (I had been with my boyfriend), and told me that I was rebellious (not wanting to be at home constantly, not being a second mother, wanting a job, driving license, bank account, and more freedom), and they didn’t want me influencing their other children. My mom looked so smug and happy sitting next to my step-dad. I think she thought I would leave, realize life was horrible and that I couldn’t make it, and come crawling back to her. I was working a part time job at the time and I a little under $200 to my name. My parents knew this, but they were willing to risk me being homeless to “teach me a lesson.”

I was sitting on my bed messaging my boyfriend on FB a little bit after, when my mom came in. She had such a disgusted look on her face.

“I just wish you’d leave now.” She said. “I can’t stand seeing you here.”

And I don’t care if I sing off key
I find myself in my melodies
I sing for love, I sing for me
I shout it out like a bird set free

The next day while my mom napped, I packed a backpack with some clothes, my money, and a toothbrush. I nervously kissed some of my siblings good-bye, and asked my only local friend (a girl my mom hated and nearly banned from the house) to drive me to my boyfriend’s house.

Within a week, my mom was threatening to call the police to bring me back home. It didn’t matter that I was twenty-two and the cops wouldn’t have done a thing. My mother saw me as a child, and she thought everyone else did too. So in her mind, of course the cops would agree with her.

But I was free. Life wasn’t smooth sailing after that, of course not. My mom started a smear campaign, and I lost. Friends and family members stopped talking to me. The most ridiculous lies she told got back to me in the most surprising ways. I had to be careful who I trusted and talked to.

I stopped surviving and started living, and I’ve been on a quest to find out who I am. I was told so long who I was by my mother and religion, but that wasn’t who I really was. It was who I had to be to survive.

I was diagnosed with PTSD, anxiety, and Bipolar Disorder, and working through those in therapy has been exhausting and sad. Sometimes tearing open wounds means more struggle, but in the end I’d rather have a bone broken and reset then hobble through life on a crooked leg.

Sometimes I mourn all that I lost. Not seeing my siblings or being able to talk to them has broken me the most. I confronted my mother about the abuse and lies on New Years 2015, and she immediately cut me off from my siblings. I’ve talked to my mom maybe three or four times since then. I’ve asked her to go to therapy with me every time, and every time she said no or ignored my request. I stopped asking. I stopped responding to her messages and blocked her on social media. My mom isn’t going to change, and I’ve finally come to terms with that. I can’t expect things from her that she cannot give.

The sad thing is that my mom grew up in an abusive household, and she would always tell me that she was determined to not let the cycle continue. This serves as a warning to me. It’s so easy to be blinded by the bad things I’ve experienced and adopt a victim mentality. It’s so easy to think the world/my parents owe me something for what I suffered through. I’ve seen through my mom’s sisters that you CAN break the cycle. You don’t have to be a victim, and you can rise above. It’s slow going, but I’m working towards something good and whole.

Now I fly, hit the high notes
I have a voice, have a voice, hear me roar tonight
You held me down
But I fought back loud..
I’ll shout it out like a bird set free

No Longer Wanted: Natalie’s Story

HA Editorial Team20 Comments

My parents meant well. They wanted the best for me. They were excited to find the perfect formula to raise a perfect daughter.

And somewhere along the line they stopped wanting the best for me and started needing me to be what they decided was best.

And when I wasn’t that picture they no longer wanted me. That’s the best way I can describe it.

I think like many people raised in the world of homeschoolers, I’ve had the gut feeling that it’d be inappropriate to share my story. Our 11th commandment was to never speak ill of our family or lifestyle. There was always a push to hide what we were doing and never cast any negative light on the angelic conditions of homeschoolers and our perfect families. I’ve only told a few people what happened with our relationship.

 

When I was five we moved to acreage in the middle of nowhere. We listened to programs that told us music with a beat was scientifically proven to kill your brain cells. We didn’t have cable because all the shows would make us worldly. We stocked up for Y2K. We supported groups like HSLDA that told us the evil government would take away our children if we didn’t fight with them by paying membership fees. We obsessively absorbed the wisdom of the Pearl’s.

My experiences with the outside world were limited to church activities and the library, but even this was enough to make me question if my parents were really raising me correctly. My parents couldn’t keep up with all the books that I read. I’d borrow big piles and hide the ones that wouldn’t pass inspection in the middle.

My parents told me that people who didn’t homeschool their kids didn’t really love them. That people who dated didn’t value their future spouse and would get divorced.

Purity and gender roles were everything.

My mother obviously wouldn’t work outside the home, even when my dad lost his job multiple times and money was tight. Respect was the most important thing to my dad. We were all to submit to him without question, to the point that we couldn’t ask something that ended with a question mark. We had to direct conversation as respectful statements that he could choose to respond to if he wanted.

My mom couldn’t explain anything past simple math and my dad would get frustrated at me when I didn’t immediately understand it. I faked the majority of my math work past 2nd grade. Science was a similar story. My parents made it clear that I only needed it because the state required I learn it. It wasn’t vital for a woman’s education. What was vital was understanding that my goal in life was to be a wife and mother. I needed to sew, cook, clean, and learn to be the best wife and mother. All of my life was focused on that aim and that meant everything was focused on getting married.

I’m still sorting my education into the facts and what was just an elaborate attempt to shape my worldview. The “mistakes” that my parents made were probably the only way my brain developed in the shape that it did. They regret letting me have part time jobs, taking classes with other Christian homeschoolers, and not monitoring me close enough. My friends were all very intellectual. They pushed me to excel when my parents didn’t necessarily care. I started to question their mandates. I didn’t want to solely be a stay at home daughter. I wanted to figure out what I believed for myself. I wanted to understand my father’s beliefs. He wouldn’t explain them to me. He said my questions were disrespectful and I should just accept that he knew what was best. My role was to serve his family until I got married and then I would serve my husband’s family.

I wanted to go on a mission’s trip after I graduated. They grudgingly agreed, assuming I wouldn’t be able to raise the funds. I worked all summer and then my brother told them that it wasn’t appropriate to let me leave their guidance. They postponed my trip for 6 months. They canceled it again. Then my dad borrowed $2000 from my account without asking. When I sheepishly mentioned it he said he needed it to pay bills for our family and was offended I had brought it up. Months later I saw that he had paid it back. Eventually I convinced them that I should go on a mission’s trip for 3 months with our church. My reasoning was that I should serve others some before I got married.

College wasn’t ever a choice for me.

Going into debt was sinful. My parents couldn’t afford to send me even if they approved of the choice. I knew I wasn’t educated enough in math and science to get a scholarship.

My sister had the perfect long distance courtship. They only wrote letters for months. They didn’t hold hands till they were engaged. They didn’t kiss till they were married. My dad gave an hour long sermon at her wedding and he cried from happiness. She was everything they wanted in a daughter. Since it all worked out so well for them, my parents insisted that it was the perfect method. When I didn’t act like her I was a disappointment. They had been (untrained) marriage counselors for years. They’d insist on telling me all the intimate details of people’s marriages. Sometimes they were my friend’s parents. When I didn’t want to hear it I was disrespectful. When I didn’t want to read another book about submission I was rebellious. When I didn’t want to watch another marriage DVD series I was selfish and disobedient. All the scenarios ended with the wife realizing that if she just respected her husband more he would love her and things would be fine.

When I got tired of my life only being focused on marriage, I asked them if I could focus more on pursuing God.

They told me the only way I could pursue God was to pursue marriage.

Single people were selfish. Pursuing independence was sinful. Living outside the protection of my spiritual authority was unthinkable. My dad told me whatever I was doing, I should think of what he would want me to do and then do that. If I didn’t I was sinning against him and God.

When I got back from my missions trip I wanted to move out and for some reason they complied. A couple months later it was a different story. I had a full time job, and I wanted to buy a car. It was a battle. I wanted to pay for my own car insurance, and they finally lost it. They gave me an ultimatum: quit my job, move back home, stop pursuing my selfish independent lifestyle and I could remain their daughter. They couldn’t bear to see me living in sin any longer.

My father told me that God would always forgive him if he strayed, but he was a human so he couldn’t promise that he would always forgive me and take me back.

I couldn’t agree to their terms. They told me the choices I was making would make me a horrible wife and would ruin my marriage and children. My dad wouldn’t bless my marriage. My mom started crying and told me that she shouldn’t have had such high expectations for me. Maybe if she had lower expectations for me this wouldn’t be so hard. I was 18 and on my own. A couple months later I tried to reconcile with them, and my dad clarified that we didn’t have a relationship unless I could come back to the biblical model. I couldn’t.

Six months later my dad shared that he still felt the same however cutting off relationship meant he was giving us responsibility for me and he couldn’t do that as he was still responsible for all my sinful choices. He said he was sorry if I was hurt by the things he said, but they were true. He said we needed to have a relationship again so he could show me how to be better.

It’s been a couple years since then. Things are still rocky between us. It took me over a year to come out of the depression that our broken relationship caused. I was suicidal and cried continuously.

They were my entire world.

The hardest part is that I was close to my family. I didn’t think they were capable of disowning me. They were all I had ever known, and I was relatively happy with my brainwashed life. I didn’t know how to function without them. I had to learn to support myself on my own. I had to figure out who I was without my family. I had to deal with my parents turning my whole family against me.

Since then I’ve found out that members of my family helped and supported an elder that molested his adopted daughter for years. They protected him because he was the head of his household and knew best. Now when stories surface of incest and abuse I don’t question them.

Of course this happens, we were all taught to blindly obey.

I still have to fight the guilt when they say I ruined our relationship. I still hear that I should just be like my older sister and things would be better. I still hear that I’m not what they want. I still deal with them poisoning my relationships. Counseling and time helps. But it’s still complicated and it still hurts.

About My Homeschool Success Story . . .

HA Editorial Team4 Comments

CC image courtesy of Flickr, Illinois Springfield.

Editorial note: The following is reprinted with permission from Libby Anne’s blog, Love, Joy, Feminism. It was originally published on February 24, 2016.

I posted earlier this week about David McGrath, a college professor who used to be anti-homeschooling but became avidly and uncritically pro-homeschooling after having a homeschool graduate in his class who impressed him with her academic work and interest. Here is the relevant quote from his article:

All that changed when I started teaching at the college level, on an evening when I came home from work, slipped off my shoes, collapsed into the recliner and announced to my wife that the best student in my college composition class had been home-schooled.

An 18-year-old only child, who had been educated by her parents for all 12 grades, chose a seat in the front row on the first day of class.

The following 16 weeks, she maintained eye contact throughout lectures and discussions, listened intently to me and her classmates, raised her hand to offer an observation, an answer or to ask a question when no one else would, followed instructions to the letter, communicated verbally and in writing more clearly than everyone else and received the highest grade on every assignment.

She was the first student to arrive, had perfect attendance the entire semester and was a catalyst for every lesson I ventured.

In his piece McGrath goes on to praise homeschooling up and down, and to argue that homeschooling de facto provides a better education. In my response, I noted that the student he is describing could have been me as an undergraduate ten years ago, and that I am not okay with homeschool success stories like mine being used to erase the many stories of homeschool educational neglect that I saw growing up or have heard from other homeschool alumni since.

Homeschooling does not de facto provide a better education. Homeschooling is only as good as the parents who use it and the resources they have access to.

But there’s another point that needs to be made as well. The comment section on my post filled up with statements like this:

It’s also possible to be a “homeschool success story” while having experienced educational neglect. I had great SAT scores, was offered lots of scholarships, and graduated college with a perfect GPA. I got used to presenting myself as a poster child for the homeschooling movement. But now, looking back, I think my success was in spite of my home education, not because of it.

I was expected to teach myself most subjects – with absolutely no guidance, little supervision, and inadequate materials. As in, my parents handed me an outdated college-level science textbook when I was 15 and expected me to teach myself the material.

But if a homeschooler is successful in her studies and in her future career, that must mean that her parents did an amazing job and that homeschooling is the best educational option, right? I mean, what other explanation could there possibly be?

In comment after comment after comment after comment, other homeschool alumni who had also been “homeschool success stories” shared tales of educational neglect or the inability to fit in socially. “I didn’t take the subjects I was under prepared in,” explained one while another described her college experience as “so crushingly lonely that at times I couldn’t breathe.” I had left this side of things out of my post because I was focusing on the problem of using homeschool success stories to erase stories of debilitating homeschool neglect, but this too—the frequent surface-level nature of many homeschool success stories—is a tale that needs to be told.

One thing I wondered when reading McGrath’s piece was whether he ever asked the girl he described whether she had liked being homeschooled, or whether she considered herself better off for having been homeschooled, or whether in her estimation there were any inadequacies in her education. I have seen so many people go on and on about how wonderful homeschooling is without ever asking a single homeschool alumni for their thoughts. But then I remembered that, given that many if not most homeschooled students are raised to defend homeschooling to the teeth, asking is unlikely to get a straight answer.

I spent my entire college experience praising my homeschool upbringing. I was a model student with a perfect GPA. I believed homeschooling had gotten me there and fully intended to homeschool my children too. I believed that homeschooling was a better educational method than any other (and also that sending your children to school every day was akin to abandoning them and handing them over to teachers to be raised, of course). But then, one day, Sean (my then-boyfriend, now-husband) put a question to me that stopped me up short.

“Well yes, Libby, but don’t you think, given your parents’ educational backgrounds, the value they put on education, and your drive and motivation level, that you’d have done just as well academically if you’d attended public school?”

I had never once considered that, but in that moment I realized that he was right. I succeeded not because I was homeschooled but rather because I had parents who cared about education, who promoted academic learning, and who expected me to succeed. I excelled academically not because I was homeschooled but rather because I was a motivated and driven learner, ready to consume any knowledge I could put my hands on. And if I’d attended public school, I’d have had actual math teachers during high school, rather than be left struggling through textbooks teaching myself, alone.

For all that I was a model student, there were some important things missing from my homeschool experience. I have no criticism of my early years—my mother worked hard to teach me and siblings and I learned reading, grammar, math, history, and science thoroughly and in ways that were interactive and fun. But my high school years I was mostly on my own. I had an instructor I met with once a week for languages—Latin and Greek—and I attended a weekly homeschool co-op that covered choir, band, and art. I also attended speech and debate club, and two homeschool moms served as our coaches. But other than that, I taught myself. I was self-motivated and driven, so this wasn’t entirely a bad thing, but there are a number of areas where I would benefited from having an instructor or a more structured class.

Government? My parents counted my volunteer work on various political campaigns as government, along with reading the Federalist Papers on my own. Economics? My parents had me read Whatever Happened to Penny Candy and complete some consumer economics workbooks, once again on my own. Actually, I’m pretty sure my parents counted the anti-government summer camp I attended as government and economics credit as well. History? My mom counted my independent reading as history, which she figured was okay because I was a bit of a history nut. In college I lapped up the history survey courses like I’d never tasted water before, even as most of the students around me were bored because they’d already had history survey courses in high school. I hadn’t. Much (if not most) of what I was learning was new.

Once in college I avoided the subjects I wasn’t good at (as another commenter noted), and that meant staying the hell away from math. In high school, I had been expected to teach myself out of math textbooks. Because I’m a quick learner, this worked for a while, but then I hit calculus. I finished the book and we put it on my transcript, but I had completely lost track of what was going on. If I had majored in math, I would have started out behind. I’m a quick learner, and hadn’t had an instructor for math since grade school, so it’s possible I might have caught up quickly, but I preferred not to try. I chose to stick with subjects I knew I could handle.

But actually, we need to talk about English too. I never had an English class the way you would in a public high school. Most of the books everyone read because they were required for high school English classes I never even touched. I never analyzed themes in literature or studied the history of literature. And critically, I never learned how to do footnotes or write a research paper. My freshman year, I had my college friends read every single one of my papers before I turned them in, and I found myself at the writing center asking desperately for someone to please show me how to do footnotes. Do you know how confusing it is to have to figure out how to write a research paper for the first time ever, completely by yourself? I’d done timed essays, sure, and I knew basic grammar. But this? Nope. This was new.

Let me tell you a dirty little secret: Some homeschool graduates excel in college because they are intelligent and driven and college is the first time they’ve had access to instructors and education. They drink up education because they’re starved for it.

And then there’s the social element. Early on in college I formed a sort of community for myself with a number of other highly motivated and academically inclined students who shared my evangelical beliefs—everyone else thought I was weird, and I had trouble fitting in with other groups socially. Going to college felt like moving to another country. I didn’t understand the culture, but I also didn’t know the language. It wasn’t just that the other students were different from me—though they were—it was also that I literally did not know how to behave in social situations. I mean I could be in those situations, I just didn’t know any of the rules. And so I would sit in class surrounded by strangers I didn’t know how to interact with—and was in some sense afraid to interact with—and then return to the safety of my small circle of friends to study or hang out. If I hadn’t made these close friends quickly, my social experience would have been completely different.

But let’s talk about those friends for a moment. My friends were, like me, model students. And yet, they had graduated from public schools. It wasn’t until after Sean’s question about how well I thought I would have done in public school that I really thought about this. My college friends were just as driven and prepared as I was—if not more so—and they had attended public school. And if I’m honest with myself, a number of them were more prepared and more well-rounded than I was. Indeed, their high school education was objectively better than mine.

And yet, I would never once have criticized homeschooling during my college years. I was raised on such a strong strong dose of homeschool supremacism (I’m honestly not sure what else to call it) that I could not easily shake my belief that homeschooling was superior and public schooling was always sub-par. It’s all to easy for a homeschooling parent to see any criticism of homeschooling as criticism of them, but it was more than that. Having been homeschooled was part of my identity, too, and to admit flaws in that experience was simply out of the question. It was years—years—before I was able to reach a place where I didn’t feel like I had to homeschool my own future children. Actually, my oldest was two or three before I was able to reach that point—the point where it felt like an option, not a mandate.

When I put my oldest in public school, my mother cried. Wept. Please, next time you talk about homeschool graduates, remember that many if not most of us are in a position where our parents will see any criticism we may have of homeschooling as a direct attack on them. And I didn’t even criticize homeschooling, I simply put my kids in public school—but that was enough. Even now, I think carefully before mentioning any of my children’s school activities or accomplishments to my mother, because I never know how she’ll react—or whether such mentions will cause her further pain.  Those who use successful homeschool graduates as evidence of how awesome homeschooling is never stop to think about the tightrope we must walk.

I was homeschooled from kindergarten through high school, and I went on to excel in college and now graduate school. I am to all accounts a homeschool success story. But that is not all of my story. My story is also one of flaws and struggles. Would I have been better off if I had attended public school? I don’t know. Homeschooling gave me some opportunities I would not have had had I attended public school, even as it removed others. Do I wish I had not been homeschooled? At this point, no. I have walked through a lot of crap, but having been homeschooled is part of what makes me me, and I like where I am today, and who I am.

But I can say that there were things about my homeschool experience that were subpar, and that while I must have seemed like a model student to every one of my professors, there was something about that that was only skin-deep.

Second Amended Complaint Filed in Bill Gothard & IBLP Sex Abuse Lawsuit: 18 Victims in Lawsuit

HA Editorial Team4 Comments

HA note: The following is reprinted with permission from Julie Anne Smith’s blog Spiritual Sounding Board. It was originally published on February 18, 2016.

Content Warning: Details of sexual abuse and harassment

Yesterday, I received the following summary from the office of Attorney David Gibbs III. While it would have been easy to pull only specific highlights, the reality is that for each individual named, either by their real name or a pseudonym, their lives have been greatly harmed by Bill Gothard and/or the leaders at Institute in Basic Life Principles (IBLP).  I would rather let each survivor’s story be acknowledged and read. This is their voice now speaking out. These are true heroes!  Please pray for them. This is an emotional time for them as they finally get their day in court after years of suffering in silence. ~Julie Anne

 

Atty. David Gibbs III asked me to forward you the attached copy of the Second Amended Complaint in Wilkinson, et al v. IBLP & Bill Gothard. The Complaint was filed within the last hour and is currently pending review. Below is a summary of the case, and a brief synopsis of the facts stated in the Second Amended Complaint for each client.

Our clients are telling the same story that happened over and over again. There was repeated abuse – re-victimizing women and men for being raped. Psychological abuse and sexual harassment of rape victims. Manipulating and torturing people – including criminal activity – over and over again for decades. The Board knew about it time and time again. Ultimately, they did nothing but after Internet pressure sent Gothard out to further harass victims and cover up the abuse.

The Board states that they are looking forward to the order and structure of the legal process to find the truth. That means they hope they can hide behind a legal technicality to get the case dismissed. What the IBLP won’t do is sit down with these 18 victims, and the others that are out there – like Christians – and open their checkbook and do what is right for these people. IBLP built a 100 Million Dollar organization on the backs of people that they required to work 70 hours per week without paying them over time or in some cases not paying them at all – it was slave labor – but they won’t consider using the assets of that empire that was built on the backs of its victims to do what is right to help these people get counseling and to compensate them for what they helped Bill Gothard and others do to them.

Many of these victims have lost their health, their opportunity to be educated, and had their faith traumatized by a man and his organization. It is heartbreaking that IBLP will not do the right thing by those they have hurt. Instead, the re-victimization continues.

For each Plaintiff, in the NIED count (counts I,V,IX, XIII, XVII, etc.), you will find a description of the facts of that Plaintiff’s case – their story – what happened to them. Those facts are then used as the basis of each of the counts for that Plaintiff.

The following is a brief synopsis of the facts stated in the Second Amended Complaint for each Plaintiff:

1. Gretchen Wilkinson – the Second Amended Complaint states: she was sexually molested and harassed by Bill Gothard. (See paragraphs 123 – 129.)

2. Jane Doe – the Second Amended Complaint states: she was a victim of incest and severe physical and psychological abuse at home. Despite the fact that she repeatedly came to Bill Gothard and IBLP for help, she was told to “let go of her bitterness, “to let go of her rights,” and to “stop being rebellious.” Because she was adopted, Bill Gothard advised her family to disowner her, which they did. Because she was medically fragile, this had a devastating effect on her health. (See paragraphs 155 – 173.)

3. Melody Fedoriw – the Second Amended Complaint states: she was sexually molested by Bill Gothard at IBLP headquarters in 2012 at the age of 15. She made a report to the Hinsdale, Illinois Police Department. The conduct was classified as a misdemeanor and was not prosecuted, because the criminal statute of limitations had passed by the time the report was made and the matter was investigated. An associate of Bill Gothard’s had made a FOIA request for the police report back in 2014. (See paragraphs 200 – 211.

4. Charis Barker – the Second Amended Complaint states: she was sexually harassed by Bill Gothard at IBLP headquarter for an 18 month period, beginning when she was 18 years old. The details of his behavior toward Ms. Barker a very similar to the ways he sexually harassed many of his other victims. (See paragraphs 237 – 258.)

5. Rachel Frost – the Second Amended Complaint states: she was sexually harassed by Bill Gothard at IBLP headquarters while she was a minor and then while she was an adult. This continued over approximately a three-year period. (See paragraphs 282 – 314.)

6. Rachel Lees – the Second Amended Complaint states: she was sexually harassed by Bill Gothard at IBLP headquarters when she was twenty years old for approximately one year. (Paragraphs 339 – 360.)

7. Jane Doe III – the Second Amended Complaint states: she was sexually harassed by Bill Gothard at IBLP headquarters when she was 18 years old. Gothard had invited Jane Doe III to come to headquarters for counseling due to difficulties in her relationship with her father. He really had no interest in counseling Jane Doe III. He used this opportunity to try to separate her from her mother, so he could have her at headquarters alone. When Jane Doe III posted her experiences to the Recovering Grace website, Gothard verbally assaulted her for three weeks, until she agree to take the posts down. Jane Doe III made a number of attempts to bring Gothard’s conduct to the IBLP Board’s attention. She even went to CLA directly, to make sure they were aware of Gothard’s conduct for purposes of their “investigation,” but she was ignored. (Paragraphs 385 – 408.)

8. Jamie Deering – the Second Amended Complaint states that she was one of the younger victims. The Amended Complaint states: Gothard invited her to come to headquarters – alone – at the age of 14. Gothard sexually abused Ms. Deering, including inappropriate touching while she was a minor. Gothard also refused to help Ms. Deering when she attempted to contact him, as a result of physical abuse that she was suffering at home. (See paragraphs 432 – 453.)

9. Ruth Copley Burger – the Second Amended Complaint states that she is the adopted daughter of former IBLP “Biblical Counselor” Kenneth Copley. The Amended Complaint states: Copley repeatedly sexually molested and abused Ms. Burger. This occurred while Ms. Burger was living at the IBLP Indianapolis Training Center. Copley would use Training Center rooms – outside his residence – as the site of some of Ms. Burger’s abuse. He had a history of sexual misconduct before he was hired by IBLP and was ultimately terminated by IBLP due to sexual misconduct. Copley also raped Jane Doe II. (See paragraphs 477 – 494.)

10. Joy Simmons – the Second Amended Complaint states that she was sexually assaulted on her 24th birthday. When Ms. Simmons’ parents and her pastor, Pastor York (who is also an IBLP Board member), learned of the sexual assault, they determined that she was partly to blame for the sexual assault and determined that the appropriate course of action would be to send Ms. Simmons to Bill Gothard for counseling at IBLP headquarters. There, Gothard would press her for details of her sexual assault, sexually harass her while counseling her for her sexual assail,t and require her – on occasion – to work 100 hours a week for little to no money. IBLP refused to pay overtime. (See paragraphs 518 – 547.)

11. JANE DOE IV – the Second Amended Complaint states that she was raped at the age of eleven years old. She was sent to IBLP headquarters for rape counseling. There Gothard flipped a coin and decided that they should not report the First Degree Rape, as it would have been classified under North Carolina law. Gothard advised JANE DOE IV that he was the only one who knew how to counsel rape victims, denied her the opportunity to obtain professional counseling, and sexually harassed her while he was counseling her regarding the rape that she suffered at age 11. JANE DOE IV had to go hungry because of the minimal amount of money IBLP paid her, while requiring her to help take care of disadvantaged young girls. She is the only Plaintiff in this lawsuit who was interviewed for IBLP’s sham investigation. (See paragraphs 572 – 602.)

12. Carmen Okhmatovski – the Second Amended Complaint states that she was 17 when she went to work at IBLP. Although she was scheduled to have ankle tendon surgery when Bill Gothard began to pursue her – to bring her to IBLP headquarters, Gothard advised her parents that he knew a doctor who could cure her ankle problem by injecting her ankles with sugar water. When she arrived at headquarters, no medical care was provided for her ankles. Rather, Ms. Okhmatovski was sexually harassed by Gothard when he would frequently call her to his office, before hours, after hours, during the day, and in an IBLP van during trips. Gothard also sexually harassed Ms. Okhmatovski on a trip to Russia. Ms. Okhmatovski was also aware of the rape of another Plaintiff, JANE DOE V. Although the rape by an IBLP staff person had been reported to Gothard and the IBLP staff, it was never reported to the appropriate state child welfare agency or law enforcement. (See paragraphs 626 – 656.)

13. Jennifer Spurlock – the Second Amended Complaint states that she went to the IBLP Indianapolis Training Center (“ITC”) at the age of 15. Once she arrived, despite only having an 8th grade education, Ms. Spurlock was denied any further education by IBLP. While she was at the ITC, a juvenile delinquent by the name of “Jarvis” attempted to rape her. Fortunately, she was able to fight him off. The attempted rape was never reported to the state child welfare agency or law enforcement out of concern that it would discredit IBLP and the ITC. Ms. Spurlock was then transferred to IBLP headquarters and was assigned the job of keeping Bill Gothard company by sitting outside of his door and being at his “beck and call.” Still, Ms. Spurlock was denied any education beyond the 8th grade education with which she arrived. Gothard would regularly sexually molest Ms. Spurlock by rubbing her upper thighs, near her vaginal area and by rubbing her breasts by hugging her and rubbing his chest back and forth on her breasts, while he made disgusting noises. (See paragraph 680 – 718.)

14. Megan Lind – the Second Amended Complaint states that she was forced, by her parents, into the Indianapolis Training Center at the age of seventeen years old. Both before and after her eighteen birthday, Ms. Lind was illegally confined to her room at the ITC. Frequently, the only opportunity Ms. Lind would have to leave her room was for a counseling session with Bill Gothard. During these sessions, Bill Gothard would sexually harass Ms. Lind. After her eighteenth birthday, Ms. Lind was transferred to another IBLP facility where she was illegally confined and required to make meals for the people in the facility. (See paragraphs 742 – 761.)

15. JANE DOE V – the Second Amended Complaint states that Bill Gothard convinced JANE DOE V’s parents to send her to headquarters when she was fifteen years old. When she arrived, JANE DOE V spent a significant amount of time in Bill Gotahrd’s office in counseling sessions and running errands for Gothard. During the counseling sessions, Gothard would sexually harass JANE DOE V. Because a young man on the headquarters lawn crew took an interest in her, JANE DOE V was sent to the Indianapolis Training Center (“ITC”) in 1997. During an IBLP conference in Knoxville, Tennessee, JANE DOE V was raped by a 22 year-old IBLP staff person by the name of Matthew Heard. Although the rape was reported to the IBLP staff and Bill Gothard, the rape was never reported to the state child welfare agency or law enforcement. When JANE DOE V returned to the ITC, Mr. McWah, director of the leaders in training program, whipped her for being raped. JANE DOE V was regularly locked in the ITC “prayer room” for weeks on end. Sometimes the ITC staff would forget that JANE DOE V was locked in the prayer room and would forget to feed her. At one point ,JANE DOE V had an opportunity to run away. The only place she knew to run was IBLP headquarters. When she arrived, Bill Gothard ordered her back to the ITC. (See paragraphs 786 – 816.)

16. Daniel Dorsett – the Second Amended Complaint states that he began working at IBLP in 1993. From 1994 though 1996 he was Bill Gothard’s primary driver. During this time, Mr. Dorsett saw Bill Gothard sexually harass or molest over one hundred fifty young ladies. Gothard told him that if he told anyone about what he saw he would go “straight to hell.” In 1996, while a participant in IBLP’s ALERT program, Mr. Dorsett was illegally locked in a room for admitting that he had committed a sin. During his brief stay in the ALERT program Mr. Dorsett was exposed to unbearable torture when he was required to perform a mock rescue in the freezing cold in his underwear with no shirt or shoes. (See paragraph 841 – 858.)

17. JANE DOE VI – the Second Amended Complaint states that she went to work for IBLP when she was sixteen years old. She worked for IBLP from 1991 through 1998. From 1992 through 1997, she was Bill Gothard’s assistant. During this time period, Gothard constantly touched JANE DOE VI. He would play “footsie” with her (against her will), hold her hands, rub her legs, and fall asleep on her. JANE DOE VI eventually approached two IBLP Board member’s wives about Gothard’s behavior and the Board apparently implemented a policy in 1997 that prevented Gothard from having female assistants because of the sexual harassment. Apparently that policy was never enforced and the abuse continued. (See paragraph 883 – 896.)

18. JOHN DOE I – the Second Amended Complaint states that he was initially a volunteer and was later employed by the Indianapolis Training Center (“ITC”) from 1993 through 1994 and later from 1996 trough 1997. While he will still a minor at the age of seventeen in 1994, JOHN DOE I was sexually molested by an IBLP employee by the name of William Tollett. JOHN DOE I immediately reported the molestation to his father and ITC staff. Although Tollett resigned from the ITC the next day, the molestation was never reported to state child welfare officials or law enforcement. (See paragraphs 920 – 938.)

Here is the pdf file to the 213-page Second Amended Complaint. Be forewarned, it is very disturbing and details sexual abuse.  Second Amended Complaint

New Age Neglect: Rabbit’s Story

HA Editorial Team12 Comments

CC image courtesy of Flickr, andrew and hobbes.

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

I don’t… I don’t know if I’m ready to really talk about all of what happened to me. But I feel like maybe I should say something about my experience with homeschool because it had zero to do with Christianity and I feel alone, and maybe the reason I can’t find any other secular neglect homeschooling stories is because I need to write one. So this is, in brief, my story. Maybe I will write more someday, but I don’t know if I’ll ever be okay talking about it in a language anyone but me and my husband understand.

Now, in 2016, I have discovered the following things about myself, things that I feel should be known, in order to give context to this account: I am an intersex woman with PCOS. I have EDS, a collagen mutation that causes chronic pain. I have been homeless and because of those experiences became a communist. I am a bisexual pagan witch. I am severely disordered, impacted by schizophrenia, autism, and two personality disorders (borderline and dependent) as well as extensive PTSD and anorexia, both of these latter from my childhood abuse and neglect, and the further abuse and neglect they set me up to face.

My mother neglected and emotionally abused me, as did literally every other member of my extended and immediate family, including my younger sister, who was also homeschooled for a time.

When I graduated from a very good and positive Montessori school at the age of eleven (5th grade) my mother put me in yet another private school for 6th grade and then, in the summer after, quit her job and pulled me and my sister out of school. She got a license to homeschool us (or… whatever that is, the registration that keeps the truancy officers showing up).

She bought all the sparkly accessories for homeschooling, made a few desultory efforts, and then got bored (she always got bored) and just started… ignoring our education.

She said, she always told people, that ‘oh, she’s so smart, she reads all the time. I can just leave her alone and she learns by herself!’

When I said I wanted to go to high school, she said ‘ok but you have to be in charge of that’ and then did absolutely nothing, forcing me to ask my friend, another 13yo girl, about how to enroll in her school. We were thirteen!! I had to go through this other friend of mine, on the phone, not even given the internet or anything, and print out the applications on my grandmother’s computer during Christmas.

She continued her sterling record of doing absolutely nothing, not even feeding me adequately or taking me to see a competent doctor when I was very clearly having severe medical problems (other than my orthodontia, because heaven forbid her child have crooked teeth), through the one and a half years I managed to limp along with zero parental help or support in a public (well, charter/magnet) school–the first time I’d ever been to public school.

And then, when I failed out of that school, she acted like I didn’t exist.

Again, she reasoned that she didn’t have to pay attention to me, because I could read and ‘read all the time’. She seemed to dutifully ignore the fact that what I was reading was fiction.

Anyway, later on, when I started talking about homeschooling with other people, I got very confused when they assumed I was Christian, and fundamentalist at that. I simply had never been around that kind of homeschooler–I’d only briefly been around any other homeschoolers, but the ones I’d met were all New Age. Scientologists, Pagans, etc. And all abusive in the same way, similar way to what I’ve read about from Christian survivors, but with that New Age ‘rebel’ twist that makes it hard to… well, rebel against it visibly (how are you supposed to rebel against an atheist or pagan? Go Christian??).

I still feel alone. Whenever I hear about survivors, or meet them (I live with two others–my husband and our roommate), they’re from horrific Christian cults. I feel like the only one that was from a secular or New Age philosophy or cult.

I guess this isn’t a full story so much as a call to others.

Where are my fellow secular survivors, where are they? Please speak up, please let me know I’m not alone. I’m here. You’re not alone.

I found out all of my conditions and illnesses in my adult life–most of them in the past year–and am learning more about how to live with them. My husband and I have been together for 9 years this April. I have been in recovery from anorexia for nine years. I am no longer homeless. I am able to buy items that ease the pain and lack of mobility from my EDS. I have some support cats. I am at a point where I can laugh derisively at my mother and my relatives and their abuse and neglect of me. I am recovering. There is hope.

You–and me–we’re not alone.

I love you. You can do it. We can do it together.

Getting a Higher Education: LJ Lamb’s Story

HA Editorial Team2 Comments

HA note: The author’s name has been changed to ensure anonymity. “LJ Lamb” is a pseudonym.

Nothing prepared me for the shock that my homeschooling experience was woefully inadequate.

Despite getting an extremely high score on the test that asked about my ability to read and do basic maths, I quickly discovered that I didn’t know what I needed to know to survive in the classroom.

My only saving grace was that I needed to speak to someone about course load and disability, and once they heard the magic word disability everyone sent me on to the next person they thought could help me – which meant that I got signed up for scholarships and grants, got loads of advice and academic support, and managed to pull off decent grades. Nothing flashy, but solid grades that said I had studied.

During counselling I realised my experience was normal for a homeschooler, and I actually was coping extremely well, all things considered. Honestly, I’m not sure how I survived the first year. Often I felt completely overwhelmed and several times I freaked out that I didn’t have what it took, and I had no idea how to complete the assessment work.

At some stage after my first year I realised that I had not been given anything like an education from my mother, and it was a miracle that I was as good as I was with what I did know. My mother NEVER made me write assignments.

I did a total of 10 tests in my academia, and almost all of these were music related.

The only writing I had done that was essay-like, was 3 things I initiated because I wanted to write. I was never taught how to structure an essay, I had no idea, I simply wrote from my heart, which wasn’t very consistent when it came to getting grades. I can’t do math past my timetables. I know what a square root is, but please don’t ever make me use it because I don’t know that I would get it right.

My mother thought it was completely appropriate to give me 3rd grade science in high school, and then complained when I chewed through books in a few weeks. I still can’t spell, and especially not under pressure. Again, finished 3rd grade in high school. Mother didn’t care.

The only anything I did at a high school level was some of Jay Wile’s year 12 science. Somehow I was able to pick the books up and learn while only really having a 3rd grade science level.

Apparently I didn’t need chemistry either, being a girl and all you know.

I badly wanted to be a doctor. I had thought for a long time about what career in the science and medical field I wanted and it was perfect. Mother told me I was too stupid to be a doctor. My piano teacher on the other hand, believed I could. Unfortunately, I didn’t trust my piano teacher enough at that age to open up about why I thought I couldn’t be a doctor, which summed up to, Mother thinks I’m stupid, and has completely freaked me out about having to see cadavers as part of my study because she hates medicine. She is the only teacher I have ever had. Of course her opinion goes.

Apparently she was trying to live my life for me. Never mind that I actually do love medicine. Never mind that the cadavers don’t bother me. I respect their sacrifice, and what that means for me and the world of medical science, and I learn from them.

 

Following is my advice to homeschool alumni wanting to obtain a higher education.

  • Do a bridging course. I didn’t, and I wish I had.
  • Find out what the course requirements, prerequisites and assumed knowledge are prior to applying, and start preparing for them.
  • Find your academic gaps and look for ways to get them filled early in the piece.
  • Don’t be ashamed of your past. It’s not your fault. Be honest with your academic staff and support staff in asking for help. They can be very compassionate and understanding.
  • Tap into every resource that there is available to you.
  • Learn how to write a basic assignment and brush up on your maths.
  • Find out what resources you have at your particular institution. Mine had transition staff, English writing staff, maths help, counselling, disability support and social workers as main points of assistance. I used every single one of them in my first year.
  • Be realistic and kind to yourself. You have big gaps. They will not be bridged overnight. Don’t overload on subjects at first.
  • Find people who will support you.
  • Make friends with people. It’s okay if they are different and/or not Christian.
  • I made friends with the nerds. It helped me, because we were all a bit crazy and they could help my study style.
  • You do have a right to an education, and being a woman doesn’t make you ineligible. Don’t let anyone else convince you otherwise.
  • People who believe in you and your dreams and goals are essential. This goes double if you aren’t supported by your parents and family.
  • Get internet at home if at all possible.
  • Buy second hand textbooks online, or check notice boards. If you are in a hurry, finding a second year student for the same course may mean they will be happy to sell you the lot for a bundle price. Easy for you, easy for them. (But do shop around prior to purchasing!)
  • Look at getting a new job prior to starting if you are in full time work.
  • There are accommodation options within institutions if you need help or subsidized accommodation.
  • Take advantage of any extra tutorial groups, study sessions, etc. Trust me on this. They help a lot!
  • Don’t forget to apply for all the scholarships and grants you may be eligible for. You would be amazed how much money people will give you sometimes for being female, or disabled, or poor, and it can be extremely helpful. I had several things paid for by grants, including a new laptop when mine died, equipment to help with my physical and medical problems, and other money towards books, necessary one-off purchases, other useful things such as an iPad, etc. Sometimes there are large scholarships for persons who overcome several difficulties and extenuating circumstances to study, so ensure that you are aware, as that may mean you have a much easier transition.

Dreaming of a Way Out: Mina’s Story

HA Editorial Team3 Comments

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

Lucky for me, I attended a parochial school from 1st through fifth grade. I loved it. I loved my friends, learning, the teachers—everything about school thrilled me.

However, at the age of ten, after my parents had fallen under the spell of a religious group associated with the Branch Davidians, and they moved my sister and I out of the state and into a single-wide trailer in a very rural area of the country.

We were isolated. And we were homeschooled for the rest of our education, save for one year when a number of the “cult parents” banded together to pay a fellow-follower to teach seven of the children in a spare bedroom.

We were a true homeschooling Christian family. We wore long skirts. We didn’t cut our hair. The men wore beards. It was a miserable existence.

However, I always found hope in the idea that I would turn 18 and could leave.

I longed for a real education, and since I had gone to a normal school for the first five years, I knew what the real world was like.

But the longer we were involved in the movement, the more socially awkward I became during the limited social interaction we had with “the worldly people” we encountered at church, in stores, etc.

As I recall, around age 16, my mother mostly gave up homeschooling.

My mom went into a severe depression, and I don’t recall any sort of structure related to my education. Somehow though, I figured out I needed a GED, and I somehow got a GED study book and figured out where I needed to go to take the tests. I spent long hours in the night studying for my GED. I had no one to teach me and no guidance, so it’s kind of amazing that I figured out what I needed to do to pass it.

My father was a very controlling man and did not believe girls needed education, so my parents were of no help in the GED process. Mostly I studied in secret so as not to anger my very controlling father.

Once I had completed my GED (around age 17) I wasn’t sure what the next step should be.

I had heard one of the other followers talking about her niece who was going to a proprietary technical school. It sounded like a way out, and I asked her for the address of the school. I secretly wrote the school and managed to intercept all the mail addressed to me from the school. You can imagine my parents surprise when two individuals from the school showed up at our doorstep to sign me up.

I think my parents were so dumbfounded that a month after I turned 18, I left home to attend the proprietary school.

I had written a church in the area seeking a place to stay and ended up living in the home of another religious family. But it was less religious, and I could finally breathe. But that’s when the trouble started with my parents – constant calls and letters. Guilt. It was a loss of control for them, so the pressure to return was enormous.

I led a double life. None of the girls in the technical school knew my background. Thinking back, I think most of the girls came from rough backgrounds (they weren’t university material so they ended up in technical school), so my oddness didn’t seem so odd to them. They all had troubles of their own. But for me, who had no idea about the differences between a technical school or a private university, it was an amazing (albeit very expensive) year of “college.”

While it was a technical school, it was VERY hard for me. I would go to school early in the morning to practice things like typing (which everyone else knew), then go to my PT job before coming back to school.

Keeping up was hard – I had no context for the things I was being taught, and I really struggled.

The computers were out of my league and very challenging, since I had never been exposed to a computer.

At graduation (it was a year-long program), my parents put a great deal of pressure on me to return home. They told me the Lord had told them I needed to return, and it became unbearable. While I had no interest in returning home, the guilt was too much, and I did return home and found a job. Once again, I had to lead a double life – behaving one way at work and another way at home. After about nine months, I couldn’t stand it. My parent’s had become very controlling, and I knew I had to escape.

I had met a person who was going to a religious college in TN. I had no way of knowing about other colleges so I determined, once again, to secretly apply. I applied and was accepted. It was a four year religious university. I was beyond thrilled and looking forward to moving away and having a new life.

But my parents disagreed, and in a shocking act of violence (that led to the arrest and conviction of my father), they prevented me from moving.

More shockingly, I had the strength to get the police involved, and this ended up opening a few doors for me. I learned about community college and enrolled. But I was lost. I went to the guidance counselors, but they seemed out of their depth in dealing with someone who had no frame of reference for education. I muddled my way through one year before I quit and went to work full time as a secretary, all the while taking an occasional community college class here or there.

But secretly, I had a dream to become a lawyer. I had never met a lawyer, nor did I have any idea how to get to law school. But that little secret dream kept driving me. And I figured out how to apply to state universities. As I recall, since I had no grade or SATs, the university took me on as a special case. But there was so much I didn’t know, and the first two years were miserable. I felt so dumb.

I just didn’t know the basics that most people learn in high school.

Like math. I simply had no math education, and the college sent me to special high school classes to take math. I had no idea what anyone was talking about most of those first two years of university and, I made no friends. It was a foreign world – from the literature that was read to the science classes. I have no idea how I made it through – but I did. And I managed to graduate with a degree in journalism.

I eventually did find my way to law school.

And while I was older and not as socially awkward, it was still incredibly difficult for me. While other people seemed to know the basics of the constitution and how to research, I had no such skills, and I had to spend extra money hiring tutors to help me. But what I lacked in book skills, I made up for in zealous representation. I knew first-hand what it meant to be the underdog, and I knew how to fight for these people.

I’m now a partner in a large firm, and no one has any idea about my background. When other partners scoff at community college or state universities as being such bad schools, it stings, especially when I recall how difficult it was for me.

Homeschooling gave me no skills. It left me without a framework from which to understand the world’s social cues or even how to learn.

ANSWERS TO THE SPECIFIC QUESTIONS

• Experiences with socialization: When you stepped foot onto your college campus, did you realize you were (as many parents argue) well-socialized already? Or did you realize that you were not (and that those many parents misunderstood the meaning of socialization)? What sorts of difficulties (if you did experience difficulties) regarding social interactions and interpersonal communication did you have to deal with?

During the first year of college, I attended a technical school. Because it wasn’t a true college in the ordinary sense of the word, and the demographic that attended tended to be those who came from lower socio-economic backgrounds or who had not done well in school and couldn’t get accepted into a traditional university, I was able to bond fairly quickly with these people. Because they came from situations of poverty and often, domestic violence, we all seemed to have a common understanding that we were the “misfits” and this understanding created the basis for strong friendships.

However, following the year of technical school, I attended a state community college and then a state university, and finding friends and interacting with other students did not go well for me in these educational settings. My peers were often from (at least it seemed to me) affluent backgrounds. They knew things and had experiences I knew nothing about. I was scared so much of the time and made very few friends. I recall a group singing the tune for the game show “Jeopardy.” I hadn’t been exposed to TV, so I didn’t know what they were singing. When I asked, one of the students sighed and asked whether I had grown up under a rock? Indeed, that’s how I felt – I had grown up under a rock, completely devoid of normal social interaction. I had been taught to fear “worldly people,” and figuring out how to talk with “sinners” left me puzzled.

Interestingly, of the friends I did make during my university years, almost all were Asian immigrants, and even today, many of my closest friends are immigrants. I think my homeschooling and religious background was similar to the experience of immigrants who come to America. None of us were familiar with the traditional American culture. In a sense, I, like the immigrants, had grown up eating food, wearing clothing, and holding a cultural belief system that was not part of the traditional US culture – a culture that was as foreign to the immigrants as it was to me.

• Experiences with diversity: If college was the first time you had significant interaction with people of diverse backgrounds (atheist, non-Christian, Buddhist, gay, lesbian, trans*, people from different cultures or ethnicities than you, etc.), what was that like? Did you have any stereotypes in your mind about those people that were deconstructed?

Interestingly, while college really was the first time I was exposed to individuals who were different than me, I was surprisingly very accepting of these people. Because my life had been so sheltered in terms of interacting with “worldly people,” I had no frame of reference. And because my parents avoided all sexual conversations, we never discussed lesbians or homosexuals and I don’t know that I even knew anything about diversity in terms of sexual orientation. Lucky for me, my first ten years of life were spent in a fairly normal way, and in a state that was very diverse, so my experience with racial diversity had been positive and I think actually helped me gravitate to the immigrants who attended school.

• Experiences with academics: If you went to a secular college or a “liberal” Christian college, did you go thinking it would be a battleground for your soul? Was it? Were they any surprises you faced about how the college and its other students treated you?

While I initially had internal conflicts about giving up my religious beliefs (or at least the beliefs I had been forced to pretend to accept) it was actually (and surprisingly) quite easy for me to walk away from Christianity. I immediately began wearing makeup and jewelry (forbidden in my religious home). I did not have any real wrestling in terms of the direction of my soul or whether I needed to convert others. I don’t know how I escaped all that – I think I was just old enough (10) when my parents got into the cult that I already had a strong enough sense of self to see the ridiculousness of my parent’s new found beliefs.

• Experience with studies: Were there any topic matters that you excelled at, that you didn’t think you would? Did you realize your homeschooling education was actually pretty well-rounded, or did you realize it was severely lacking in certain areas?

My homeschooling was severely lacking and I struggled throughout college in every subject save psychology. Psychology came easy. Math, economics, literature, science – none of it was relatable. I had such a poor education, I didn’t know the basics. I didn’t know geography. I knew nothing and I literally had to fake my knowledge. And study very hard-which was tough because I hadn’t ever really been taught to study either. I hadn’t been exposed to world events. I hadn’t been exposed to books except religious books. I knew nothing about the world around me.
It was tough. I remember the professors seemed at a loss as to what to do with me – I tried so hard, but so often my grades were so poor. Somehow I muddled though – figuring out the answers but never really understanding the context because I didn’t understand the world in which I was living.

• Experiences with your parents: Did your parents support your enrollment in college? Did you have to fight with them to be able to go? Were they eager to help you get financial aid? Or did they withhold necessary documents?

My parents hated the idea of college. They saw no reason for a woman to go to school and they provided no support whatsoever – they had controlled my every movement before I went to college and the loss of control was very hard for them. They sent me long letters filled with scripture and prayers for my soul.

My parents had some strange beliefs about the government and hence had not applied for a social security card for me. When I knew I was going to go to college, I got a job at a farm picking strawberries. The employer wanted to know my social security number – which of course, I didn’t have. Somehow I managed to apply for the card and the resulting fury from my parents (specifically my father) was terrible and very frightening. Their fury (when I decided to go to college) actually led to their acting in a significantly violent manner that resulted in the police being involved.

My Church Tarnished Homeschooling: Leigh’s Story

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CC image courtesy of Flickr, James Lee.

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

My home schooling education started in high school, but even before that I was raised in a church that believed it was the best form of education. All of my close friends were home schooled; my pastor regularly preached on the subject.

About how good it was to home school, how the government was using the school to warp our minds.  My home was like any conservative Christian home: God came first. Democrats were bad, gays were bad, and anything that was not agreeing with the Bible was wrong.

Anything to do with traditional white America was good.

When it came to homeschooling itself it first started online, which made me happy. I could do the work how I wanted to- history first, and the rest later. Then my mother was handed used books from my closest friend’s mother. Instead of learning about the Civil War, or World War 2, everything related to the Bible.

I truthfully wasn’t upset; I planned on going to my church’s Bible school, which considering I was the daughter of a single mother I would have gone to for free.

I lost myself in it. I stopped speaking to the few non church-going friends I had.

I regularly stated I would court instead of date. For the only boyfriend I had ever had, it upset him. He himself was a conservative Christian, but he began to state that I was no longer myself. I only wanted to be a good Christian wife and mother. It upset him to the point until I left the church, we stopped speaking. His last conversation before me leaving the church was, “he wanted his future wife to be more than a wife, more than a mother, he wanted a equal, and I wanted to be less.” The friend’s mother who was teaching me stated this was for the best. That boy is not good. And she muttered something in relation to his Spanish heritage.

As I look back, I don’t know how I could have been that person.

I was raised in Florida, not some odd Midwestern state. I wore jeans, boots, and these things did not change.

My mother was a high school dropout, while my teacher was a military wife. A college-educated woman. When I would question why she made that statement, she said “because I don’t want you to make the mistakes I did.” And when this former nurse saw and was told the mental health problems I was having, I was given vitamins, and told that I needed to ask God to take it away.

I went to what can simply be called fundamentalist Pentecostal church. We believed in healing, and crying and laughter in the spirit.

I don’t know how much was real, and how much was fake.

I am isolated from my family because of what I now believe. I am still a Christian, but I still question things. I want to still learn about science. I don’t believe our president is a Muslim, nor do I feel the world is ending. Something that my former church holds onto firmly.

Homeschooling, and what it could have been, was tarnished for me because of my former church. The isolation, not getting my formative years, other opinions. I was raised to believe “hate the sin not the sinner,” but when it is someone who is gay, or another religion, or anything the church rejects, it’s “hate the sinner not the sin.”

We went out soul winning, as it was called, many times instead of school work.

My church was called a cult by many from the town I am from.

Before I woke up, I wondered how someone could be a member of Jim Jones’s church. The fact is, what many don’t understand, when you are a part of a controlling church you don’t see what it could be.

You see the healings, the hope, and even the love of God. I was the frog put in the pot and then someone started to boil the water. If I would have been put in at the end I would have ran, but like many I was given time to get used to it. Healing a woman, a man claiming that he, after being prayed for, finally feels the love of God?

What would be so wrong about that? Nothing, but when the same pastor states he has a witch in his church? Would that cause many on their first day to run? I would have.

He has talked about farms, K through 12 schools, and even building apartments.

The only reason I think I am out is because a former friend told me about a school involving horses. Because while I didn’t end up staying, it gave me some time to see there was a world out there. Where I could be anything I wanted to be.

The Day Faith Left Me: Sarah’s Story

HA Editorial Team5 Comments

CC image courtesy of Flickr, Ryan Hyde.

I remember every moment vividly. I was sitting on the back porch. I can see it all clearly as if I was watching a video re-run of my life. The colors, time of year, even the size of that tiny porch.

I remember waking up that morning feeling something tight around my stomach. My first thought was that something was not okay. I wondered what it was. It wasn’t until my phone rang about 5 hours later that I knew instantly just exactly what it was that had my stomach in knots. Somehow my brain and body knew that this was the turning point of my life the very moment I woke up. But I didn’t recognize it until the phone rang.

I was living in the basement apartment of a couple who used to be resident directors at the college where I went to school. I hero-worshiped the two of them. They were everything a good Christian couple should be. I was honored and humbled that they offered for me to live with them for the summer. I had just graduated in May, and I was searching for a job. I had to move out soon because school was over; it was time to move on.

I was in this place in life where I had a lot of wounds. My childhood was a homeschool mess. My earliest years were being raised in crazy cults, and by my teen years my parents had settled into something a little more “normal” and enrolled our family in ATI. English and math gave way to wisdom booklets, attending counseling seminars and teaching at Children’s Institutes. When I left home at 21 to go to college I had never taken a test, never written a paper, and had no math past the 5th grade. It was only my freshman year of college that I realized just how abnormal my childhood was, even for homeschooling families.

I felt like an alien who had been dropped on a different planet.

Everything was new.

Four years of trying to figure out how to be a normal person. Everything about college was hard. But I prided myself on the fact that I picked a great Christian school, I was studying to be in youth ministry, and regardless of all I faced growing up I held to my faith like a rock! When it came time to graduate I applied for a job at my alma-mater as a Resident Director. I loved that place. I loved those people. They stepped in and were my family. I relied on them for everything. I knew they didn’t hire people just graduating, but still I made it down to the final two.

I had been journaling, and praying, and God told me I was ready.

I had what I needed to be a great Resident Director. I had my theme for the year planned out. I had verses. I was on my knees in humbleness, and I thought about what God had prepared for me. I could stay and be mentored by my spiritual mom, I could be near my best friend, I would be a part of this amazing Christian community, and I would be IN… like truly accepted as a Christian leader. I would help shape the spiritual lives of my RA’s, and I would be Gods broken vessel. A cracked pot that He made new and useful.

Back to that porch. My cell phone rang. I knew the number. It was the Student Development Office. I ran up from the basement to get better reception and sat on the very small stoop at the back of the house. Breathlessly answering. And with the greeting I knew, I knew, I knew… all was not to be. They felt God leading them towards the other candidate. I choked out something about being grateful for the chance. Hung up. And collapsed into a ball.

From my body came wails. Like deep, someone died, guttural cries of pain. The sound scared me.

I remember crying “Don’t Go! Don’t Leave Me!” over and over again. I still remember the feeling, as if in a movie, of something coming out of my body and floating off in the air.

I knew then, my faith was leaving.

I didn’t want it to. I begged it to stay. I didn’t want this. But I knew it was leaving. And I knew I was falling into depression.

I called my best friend to pick me up. I knew I wasn’t good on my own. We talked; she was a great support. But I’m not sure she ever really knew what happened.

You see, I would have bet my life that God talked to me. That He had planned for me to work at the college. I heard Him. I felt Him. I knew Him. But when the leaders I trusted didn’t choose me for the job, when God let them to the other candidate, I knew I didn’t hear from Him. The proof was in black and white. God picked them. God talked to them. And I wasn’t in the loop. I wasn’t chosen. I wasn’t in the club. And more than that, I didn’t hear from God.

If I had been so wrong about that, than what else was I wrong about?

Nothing I knew held any water any longer. Everything must be questioned. Must be looked at. Must be assessed. I was not to be trusted. My judgment was not to be trusted. I needed to leave the bubble of Christianity… well I was actually forced out… and I had no solid place to stand.

A month-ish later I got a job at one of the most secular high schools possible. Every day I had to face viewpoints that would have scared me months earlier. My roommate was gay. My students were engaging in premarital sex. Evolution was science, and creation was laughable. Choice and lifestyle were individual matters and not dictated. I floundered. Most days I thought I was drowning. I saw the opposite of everything I had ever believed or thought true. I begged still for my faith to return. I prayed. I wrote in my journal. I show up at church. I talked to mentors and pastors.

But once rational thought was let in, once I started to question, once I realized that what I had been taught had no logic… well I could never go back.

Here I am years later… and every moment of that day is etched into my memory and consciousness… the day faith left me.

Notes From a Homeschooler: Michelle’s Story, Part One

HA Editorial Team2 Comments

Notes

HA Note: The following is reprinted with permission from Michelle Hill’s blog Notes From a Homeschooler. It was originally published on January 18, 2015 and has been slightly modified for HA.

Why Families Homeschool

Why families homeschool has always been an interest to me. I grew up in a rural small town just north of Austin. My family had decided that all of us kids should be homeschooled after I had just finished Kindergarten at the local public school.

It started out with good intentions.

Their daughter, that’s me, had almost failed the end of year reading test and the school had recommended to my mother that I be put in summer school so that I could catch up. Instead, my mother had opted to keep me at home for the summer and teach me herself using a phonetic program and audio tapes. In the following fall, my parents didn’t send my other brother and me back to school. Instead, they send a letter to the school stating that they were withdrawing us from school so that we may be homeschooled.

That was the start of our long homeschool career.

My parents had decided that the small local school was incompetent in educating their children, so they opted for homeschooling.

At the time, I was in 1st grade, my older brother was in 5th grade, and my younger brother was two. This was actually an abnormal reason to choose to homeschool. The majority of homeschoolers choose to homeschool for religious or moral reasons (mommyish.com).   My parents had simply decided that they could do a better job of educating us.

The second reason why my parents home-schooled us was because my little brother, Jason, had dyslexia. My mom had tried to homeschool him though Kindergarten. It didn’t go well. At the time, my mom didn’t know that he had dyslexia. Jason had problems remember his letters, the names of colors, and had a hard time with handwriting. The next year, she enrolled him in Kindergarten at the local public school to see if they could teach him better. When that didn’t go as planned, she pulled him out of school for 1st grade. Since then, my mother figured out that he has dyslexia, but has not officially tested him.

Now he is so far behind in school because of his difficulties with reading and math, that she refuses to send him to public school for fear that he will be placed grades behind.

Along the way, my parents had a fourth child, my younger sister, Elizabeth. Elizabeth was born with Down syndrome. When she was a baby, she had many complications and was in speech, physical, and occupational therapy. When she became old enough to go to pre-school, my family enrolled her in the public school’s preschool program. Elizabeth completed pre-school and then moved onto Kindergarten the following year. That’s was diagnosed with Legg-Calve-Perthes disease. It’s a disease that affects the ball and socket joint of the hip and essentially causes the ball of the joint to deteriorate. The disease causes pain and inflammation of the hip joint which leads to a limp and loss of mobility. After this, my little sister was pulled out of school so that she could take it easy at home. My mother also decided that the school was not doing enough for my sister. She was kept in the special education program that integrated the children into the classroom during recess and P.E. The school’s special education program had many flaws, but I will not go into that now.

So there was my parents’ three reasons to homeschool their children. They believe that they could do a better job than the local public school could. Jason had dyslexia and has fallen behind in school, and so now my parents keep him at home in fear that they will be judged for him being so far behind. Finally, little sister has Down syndrome, and my parents believe that they could provide a more specialized individual education plan.

In upcoming additions, I will discuss how homeschooling affected me personally, why I don’t think it’s a great idea and would never home-school my children, what flaws I have personally seen in other home-school families, and what I think should be done about it.

Sources:

http://www.mommyish.com/2012/08/20/because-i-was-homeschooled-im-not-homeschooling-my-daughter-474/

Part Two>