Eleanor Skelton blogs at eleanorskelton.com, is the news editor of the UCCS student newspaper, and is majoring in English and Chemistry. The following was originally published on Eleanor’s blog on March 12, 2015, and is reprinted with permission.
In July 2014, Ashley came over to my apartment to visit one Saturday morning.
Then Ashley got a text message from Gissel, one of her friends from the Pentecostal church she’d left six months ago.
“Hey, can you come pick me up? My dad kinda went crazy and kicked me out. I dont have anywhere to go… can I stay with you?”
Gissel was on her lunch break at work, so Ashley and I drove over to get her.
On the way to her dad’s house, Gissel explained she already planned on going to live with her grandmother in Texas.
The night before, she’d stayed out with her boyfriend and a group of other friends until past midnight. She discovered her dad had locked her out when she tried to come home, even though he’d never enforced the curfew he set for her older brother and his girlfriend.
Gissel kept asking why it was different for her as a girl, why she was being punished.
One of Gissel’s younger sisters let her in the house so she could get her suitcases already packed for her move. We put them in the trunk and drove to Ashley’s house.
The rest of her siblings watched us from the window, huddled together.
Ashley told Racquel what had happened and that Gissel would be staying over for the rest of the week until she flew out of town. Gissel went back to work for the day, and we picked her up that evening.
She was quiet. Reality set in.
Silent tears slipped down her cheeks. There was no home to go back to now.
We hugged her, asked her if she was ok or needed to talk. Told her it was ok to be sad, ok to cry.
Later she sat next to Ashley on the couch while we watched anime and the first Pirates of the Carribean movie.
Ashley helped her dye her hair that week, another thing that the church deemed sinful. Gissel started wearing a crucifix her dad gave her. He’d told her if she was going to leave the church and wear jewelry now, she might as well wear that.
After Gissel left for Texas, we kept in touch. I asked her last fall how she was doing and if she would like to share her story.
She answered:
Now she is free, free to live outside the cage.
I thought once Racquel and Ashley and the others that we’d moved out were free that excitement would dissipate, that everything would start to go back to normal. That the Underground Railroad wouldn’t need to keep operating.
But Gigi reminded me that so many more are out there, waiting.
Gissel studied social work at community college and works in a healthcare center in Texas. She also now cohosts a YouTube channel called Gen and Gigi.
Eleanor Skelton blogs at eleanorskelton.com, is the news editor of the UCCS student newspaper, and is majoring in English and Chemistry. The following was originally published on Eleanor’s blog on March 11, 2015, and is reprinted with permission.
Aaron and the rest of us moved Ashley out of her parents’ house. This is his perspective.
It’s hard when someone you care about is stuck in an abusive environment. It’s worse when you feel like you could and should be helping them to get out of said abusive environment.
Unfortunately, that’s often not up to you.
Fundamentalist cults use brainwashing techniques to make people think there is no way out. Effectively, they remove their members’ autonomy and consent.
When you’re trying to get someone out of a cult, the temptation is to pressure them into it – after all, they’re stuck there, right? They need your help to get out!
Doing that will only make things worse. You’re emulating the same techniques as the cult, which means your “convincing” is only going to last as long as you’re around. It also destroys trust – how can someone who has been abused using brainwashing and consent-destroying abuse trust someone who uses the same techniques?
And before the cries of “But we’re doing it for their own good!” begin, the cult leaders say the exact same thing. They’re just trying to save the person’s soul, after all.
So what are we to do? It’s the hardest thing – you have to let the person make their own decision.
As people, we tend to think our decisions are just a little bit better than anyone else’s – after all, we don’t let our judgement get clouded, amirite? But for someone to successfully get out of a cult, and stay out, they have to know their support system isn’t just more of the same brainwashing, only from the other side.
We’re talking about informed consent here. So let your friend know you’re there for them. Let them know what options are available. The cult tells them no one outside the cult will help them; you need to show them that’s a lie. The cult tells them they’re all alone outside the cult – show them they’re not.
Notice it’s show them, not tell them. Cults love to change the meanings of words: It’s not abuse, it’s “discipline” because we “love” you. You aren’t a “captive”, we’re holding you here out of “love.” There has to be action with this, and it has to be action that is diametrically opposed to the actions of the cult.
It’s difficult – you’ll be stuck just waiting sometimes, feeling like you can’t do anything for your friend. And yes, sometimes people will choose the cult, and choose the abuse. But if those helping them are taking away their consent, how are we any different than the people currently oppressing them? We have to be different, as different as it is possible to be. Otherwise they’ll be exchanging one oppression for another.
There’s a caveat, though: If there is physical or sexual abuse happening, especially if the person in question is under 18, absolutely call the authorities (Child Protective Services or the police). That may cause them to lose trust in you for a time – but it’s better than them dying from the abuse.
I’m not going to sit here and tell you that everything will work out, that everyone chooses to leave abusive and manipulative situations. It’s just not true. Sometimes, the person chooses the cult. And that sucks. But sometimes people shake off the manipulation, the brainwashing, and the abuse. And that is the reward.
Aaron K. Collett blogs at aaronkcollett.wordpress.com. He graduated from UCCS with a bachelor’s in communication in fall 2014, and he was a reporter and opinion editor at the campus newspaper, The Scribe.
Eleanor Skelton blogs at eleanorskelton.com, is the news editor of the UCCS student newspaper, and is majoring in English and Chemistry. The following was originally published on Eleanor’s blog on March 10, 2015, and is reprinted with permission.
I introduced Racquel and Ashley to my friend Cynthia Jeub shortly before they left the church. Here is her perspective.
Mouth shut like a locket Like you’ve nothing to say Speak your mind up, Come on, baby, free yourself… Don’t let nobody try and take your soul You’re the original – Switchfoot
I met Racquel over the phone. She explained that her best friend, Ashley, was being kept from attending her college classes, and her parents had taken away all contact to the outside world – no Internet, no cell phone, and she couldn’t drive.
“We can get her a cheap cellphone,” I said, “One she can hide, and use in case of an emergency. It’s dangerous if she won’t be able to contact anyone.”
Racquel hesitated. “I’m not sure if it’s really that big of a deal. They’ve only done it a few times, and it made her get behind at school, but I really trust our pastor.”
It would be several weeks before we met in person. We had an argument. Her church was a large congregation of Protestants who spent most of their Sunday meeting time meditating and speaking in tongues. She told me that the pastor could always tell if your spirit was in the right place or not, based on his communication with the Holy Spirit. I asked if the pastor had any accountability, but she found it unthinkable that he’d say anything that wasn’t true.
Racquel said that though she loved horses, she wasn’t allowed to enter any competitions. She agreed with the church doctrine, she said, because it kept people humble. Winning competitions, or even trying to be good at something or to look good, was distracting from drawing attention toward God and away from oneself.
That conversation bothered me because it was so backwards: I was taught to pursue excellence, because it brought glory to God, and I was a living sacrifice.
We lived on two sides of the same degrading self-deception.
—-
It was early 2013, and I drove an hour to the airport to pick up my dad from one of his events. He asked about school and life, and I confided about the exciting things going on: I was rescuing abused adults from cult-like fundamentalist families.
The first person who got out was Eleanor.
I wasn’t there when she moved into her first apartment, but I was part of the group of friends that gave her support as she adjusted to life away from home for the first time in her early twenties. After that, Eleanor did most of the networking for what we called the “Underground Railroad.”
She didn’t go looking for these people, she just found them everywhere – in her classes and at work, she found people in the many cult-like churches of Colorado Springs, adults still living at home, adults with weakened self-confidence, adults with limited skills and resources, all trying to get out, all trapped and afraid.
In our little group, I earned the title of “the logical one.”
Eleanor, and another girl named Cynthia Barram, turned to me as the no-nonsense anchor. When Eleanor found someone who was in a bad situation with their church or family, she’d connect them with me, and I’d check the facts. Then we’d find small solutions – things like helping people get a car, cellphone, job, or place to live. Many people were trapped because their parents wouldn’t even let them get a driver’s license.
I networked with the homeschool families I already knew, and asked them if they could provide “stations” in our “railroad.” I wanted parents who were good homeschoolers, not abusive, who had experience with adoption, and could demonstrate that homeschooling could be done in a way that wasn’t harmful. If such parents had a guest bedroom, we could send homeschooled alum there to pay rent, while still having parental figures who could provide support without the intense control their own parents used.
The homeschooling community could respond, I thought. They could prove to those who’d been abused that it wasn’t all this bad.
It surprised me to find so few homeschooling parents who were willing to help.
I related all of this to my dad, and he quickly shut me down.
“Don’t get between rebellious kids and their parents,” he said. “I do not support this. You don’t know the families and the full stories. You shouldn’t get involved with this at all.”
“Daddy, I think these situations are…different. There are some rebellious kids…”
I didn’t say Alicia, because my older sister’s name was so taboo in our family that it was always implied, and I didn’t want to hurt my father’s feelings.
“But there are also some very controlling churches and families, and they don’t ever let their kids, especially daughters, grow up. Even if they’re adults.”
He grunted severe disapproval, signaling that the conversation was over. That was the most we ever argued, because I always succumbed. I turned up some of the classic rock music he’d introduced me to, and let it drown out any awkwardness in the car. I decided I cared too much for those girls I’d met to just leave them in those suffocating situations. This was just one more thing I’d stop talking to my dad about.
——
Eleanor and our little crew kept working to help people.
We helped a girl escape from an arranged marriage, and gave resources to people whose parents kept them from contact with the outside world. Mostly we talked to our friends who were in cults about their aspirations and personalities, and helped them see their controlling churches as obstacles to what they wanted out of life.
The common theme was that we all had our own problems to sort. I thought there weren’t any problems with my family, but then I needed to fall back on our group more than once. Our friend Aaron supported me when I got drunk for the first time in my life, a few days after my parents kicked me out. Eleanor was frustrated with how Racquel and Ashley couldn’t see that their church was a cult, but she still kept in touch with her own overbearing parents.
We’d all lost the trusted older-generation adults in our lives, so we leaned on each other, but we were still young and inexperienced and unstable.
I posted an article on the Huffington Post about my frustration with freeing people. I couldn’t control them, but I also knew they wouldn’t stand up for themselves. I was tired of waiting.
I found out later that Ashley used a code name when she talked about me to her mother, because she was afraid her parents might find my writings and deduce that she was planning to leave.
In December, Eleanor sent out a distress signal to the group.
Ashley’s father discovered she was dating a guy outside the church and said he was kicking her out.
Around 6 a.m. on December 16, 2013, Ashley’s father texted her that he was dumping her possessions out at 3 p.m. Eleanor and Racquel left with Ashley to collect her things in Cynthia Barram’s van while her parents were at work.
When Aaron and I arrived, her bedroom furnishings were strewn about.
Racquel drew our attention to the picture frames. Her father had removed the family photos with Ashley from the walls and laid them face down in a corner, a symbol that her family had already disowned her for rebelling against the church.
Her father had also damaged the car she drove by tearing off the rubber lining in the door. And dumped out her purse in the car.
Racquel’s parents were less strict, and she moved out on slightly less dramatic terms.
Eleanor was living in a two-bedroom apartment, and she now housed three extra refugees there, including another girl who worked with us at the school newspaper. It was too small for all of them, so they moved into a house together, sharing costs.
Cynthia Jeub blogs about philosophy, religion, and growing up in a homeschool family of 16 and their television show at cynthiajeub.com. She studied communication and theater at UCCS, and was a reporter and culture editor at the campus newspaper, The Scribe.
Eleanor Skelton blogs at eleanorskelton.com, is the news editor of the UCCS student newspaper, and is majoring in English and Chemistry. The following was originally published on Eleanor’s blog on March 9, 2015, and is reprinted with permission.
Content warning: victim-blaming, religious manipulation.
Do you know what it’s like when You’re scared to see yourself? Do you know what it’s like when You wish it were someone else Who didn’t need your help to get by? Do you know what it’s like To wanna surrender? I don’t wanna feel like this tomorrow I don’t wanna live like this today Make me feel better, I wanna feel better Stay with me here now and never surrender Never surrender
– Surrender, Skillet
“Mama! Mama! Look at the butterfly!” I squealed in delight at the wonder perched on my shoulder.
“Don’t move, Lovey! It’ll fly away.”
I stood as still as possible as my mom snapped a picture of this beautiful creature, and watched as it flew away. I remember thinking as I watched the butterfly float into a beautiful, summer day, how amazing it would be to be able to just whisk yourself away whenever you chose… I had no idea how much I would pine for that fantasy to become a reality.
I always remember my parents being there. No matter what the occasion was. Pajama day at school, Grown-up day, Job day, doctor’s appointments, they were always present. I can’t remember an important event they were not in attendance for. I went to them with everything, no matter how strange, and they were always brutally honest with me. I liked it that way. Being a straight forward person, I needed that to grow. Things were always so comfortable…and then 2001 came and everything changed. Drastically.
My mom had gotten involved with a church when she was 15, and the experience had always stayed with her. She had visited a Pentecostal holiness church and had received what they call The Holy Ghost, which to them is the basis of salvation. You cannot attain Heaven without it, and once you have received it, even if you walk away from God, you are marked and you will be a target for Satan. My dad, on the other hand, is Irish /German and was raised Catholic. He was actually an altar boy growing up and wanted to become a priest. However, he grew out of that sometime in high school.
While living in Louisiana, my mom met a girl named Billie Jo, and they went to a Pentecostal church together. My mom converted all the way this time (lost the pants, threw away the jewelry, chucked the TV and music) and as soon as my dad joined, we essentially became Amish with microwaves.
Source: First United Pentecostal Church of Colorado Springs
But even then, my parents broke me in slowly. As an only child, I had practically every Disney movie known to man, and they allowed me to hand over my Disney movies in exchange for Veggie Tales. From there, it was my Veggie Tales traded in for either a trampoline, or a puppy. My daddy bought me both.
They introduced me into that world slowly, and with ease. I appreciated that, even then. I knew they could have completely ripped everything away from me and made the transition harder than it already was. But they didn’t. I never thanked them for that. I guess it kind of got buried under every other emotion that surfaced after.
At first, things weren’t so bad. The family environment was great. Having no family in Colorado, the church appeared to be exactly what we needed. I started going to the church school which consisted of about 50 kids. I made friends quickly, and it seemed so easy at first. We were accepted as new converts and everything was cool. My parents also made friends, and were treated like family by the pastor. They were like their kids.
I believe this is what started the depth of my parents’ relationship with the ministry. Around 2006, the pastor decided he wanted to evangelize and ended up electing a man from Mississippi to pastor the church. I’ve never seen a man so hell bent on changing people for the worst.
Brother and Sister Burgess | Source: Ashley
To my parents, this couple took the place of God. I have literally heard my dad say that if John Burgess asked him to stand on his head for 6 hours a day, in the middle of I-25, that he would do it without hesitation.
They believe that he is the voice of God, that even if he is wrong, and they sin because of his advice, that God would honor their obedience and look past their own wrongdoing.
The church services are filled with hype and the sermons are mostly guilt, especially directed at young people. They warn us of the wrath of God if we choose to walk away and almost every service we are reminded of the horrors that have happened to backsliders all through Pentecostal history, including those from our own youth group.
One instance in particular was one of my close friends Sharonda. She grew up with me, my mom babysat her and her older sister, and I looked up to this girl. She was my idol for a long time. She was my piano inspiration, she was cool, and she loved people. I’ve never met a heart as big as Sharonda’s. She was shot and killed late summer 2012. The case was never solved, and the Burgesses made not only her death, but her funeral an omen and message to all of us, that we should not run from God, for he is a jealous God, and his vengeance is strong. She is seldom mentioned among the young people. It just hurts too much.
Source: First United Pentecostal Church of Colorado Springs
The Burgesses continued to push their way into the minds of the church, and more and more young people have been driven away from God. Most of the “backsliders” that I know, don’t even believe in a benevolent God anymore. This started to become my opinion very young. I couldn’t see how any of this made sense. I thought the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was just and honorable? Not malicious and manipulative.
After my parents began to blindly follow the Pastor, I started to lose control. I shut off all emotions because I just couldn’t handle them anymore. I began to get more and more reclusive, and eventually began to blame myself for the guilt and pain that my parents were dealing with due to the controlling ways of the church. Everyone feels this way. It’s their modus operandi.
I didn’t know how to help and I began to fall into a deeper depression. I began to self harm. This was done is so many ways, I cant even begin to explain it all. Eventually, the self harm wasn’t enough. I attempted suicide six times starting at the age of 11.
I tried everything. Nothing worked.
My mom caught me cutting once and literally dragged me in to Shanna Burgess (the pastor’s wife), who promptly told me as I lay on the floor. bleeding profusely, that it was all in my head and I needed to stop being so angry at God.
She told me I was the one to blame.
After coming to her weeks before with my heart wide open and breaking in pieces, I explained one reason why I felt so alone. I was raped when I was 6 years old and had no way to express my feelings. She, of course, immediately took this information to my mother who denied it profusely. My parents have never believed me. She told me I needed to stop feeling sorry for myself because come on, it never happened! I hated them before but after this? I could never forgive them.
They had and still have a hold on my parents like nothing I’ve ever seen.
Source: Ashley
When I turned 18, things started to look up. I was finally allowed to have a phone because I had turned 18 (pastor’s rules for youth), I was finally granted rights to a car (that I bought, of course) and everything was going good. I had been in good graces with the Burgesses and my family and I was following the rules to perfection.
And then after a falling out with my best friend at the time, I started to become close friends with a girl named Racquel. We began to grow closer and closer as the months went on, and before you knew it, we were opening up to each other. I told her things I had never told anyone ever.
Eventually, our concerns about the church and their doctrines, the Burgesses and all sorts of other questions came to the forefront of our conversations and we began to discuss them. We grew even closer after learning about some of the abuse that the other one had endured.
We got caught discussing these topics, and we were separated and forbidden to speak to one another. This happened four times. Each time we grew closer and closer and eventually, we started to go to extreme lengths to see each other. My parents and the Burgesses resorted to lying to both of us, trying to force us to hate each other.
After another six months of not speaking, we once again rebelled and talked about what had happened. We realized they had lied to both of us, obtaining information by hacking email and bank accounts. My parents forced me to stop attending my college classes because Racquel might try to visit me there.
We communicated to each other through Eleanor for about 3 weeks, and then we started to sneak out again. We had contemplated running away many times before, but something was different this time. When two adults aren’t allowed to talk because they get caught listening to One Direction, there’s some serious malfunction going on. It had reached an all time idiocy and we had had enough. We both left home, and the night I did that was the hardest decision of my life.
Three days later, my dad was going to throw my stuff on the sidewalk. My mom, who was out of town at the time, convinced him to let me come pack my stuff, so he left for a few hours. Racquel and Eleanor went with me. The first thing I noticed when I came in was that all my pictures were facing down and some sat in piles on the floor. I almost lost it then.
I just remember feeling like my parents died, and I was cleaning out their house.
A little later, Cynthia Jeub and Aaron also came over. I’ll never forget the look on Cynthia’s face when I saw her. I walked outside to greet them, and she just looked so disturbed. But there was also pride in her eyes. She hugged me for a good ten minutes. I’ve never expressed how much that hug meant to me.
They helped me pack up and I decided last minute to check my mom’s car. I went to look for any remaining items, and when I opened the door, I saw that the inside of the car was destroyed. I can only assume my dad went crazy and trashed the car. It was really scary.
Everyone was panicking because we didn’t know when he was coming back, and he has guns so people were starting to freak out. We left not long after. It didn’t really hit me until then, how drastic the change was going to be.
Since then, I have gone through a lot. I’ve put myself through an abusive relationship, made myself be something I wasn’t, lost connection with my family for months at a time because of “religious differences,” moved around a lot, found out I was adopted by my dad, been through a ton of counseling, self-harmed, ran from my home state, even shut my humanity off a few times.
But one thing I can say I haven’t, nor will I ever do, is forget who I am and where I came from.
I can’t express how hard it has been. The sleepless nights, the thousands of times I’ve cried myself to sleep, and woke up screaming. I wouldn’t wish this on anyone.
But you know what? I don’t regret it. I can’t. I’ve invested too much into this decision to fault it. To those of you trying to escape, its not impossible. It’s not easy, but I promise its worth it. We have helped more people come out since my decision to leave, and the feeling is so liberating, knowing you are a voice and a model for them.
To those of you who have siblings that are still in captivity, don’t give up hope. They will make it. YOU are their light, no matter how dark you feel sometimes.Because sometimes the darkest shadows have been cast by the brightest lights.
And no matter what bad choices you make long the way, I’ve found that I don’t have to be ashamed of them. Because they are finally my decisions. So while wading through your red river of screams just as we have, remember you do not fight alone. You can make it.
And never surrender…. the battle will be worth it, and we will win the war. I don’t wanna feel like this tomorrow I don’t wanna live like this today Make me feel better, I wanna feel better Stay with me here now and never surrender Never surrender
Ashley attended public school and later homeschooled online. She finished her senior year at the pentecostal church’s school. She was the first person on her mom’s side of the family to finish high school and attend college. She is interested in psychology, forensics, and criminal justice.
Eleanor Skelton blogs at eleanorskelton.com, is the news editor of the UCCS student newspaper, and is majoring in English and Chemistry. The following was originally published on Eleanor’s blog on March 8, 2015, and is reprinted with permission.
Source: Wil C. Fry, creative commons license. Image links to source.
Liz helped our network assist Racquel and Ashley. Here is her perspective.
Nearly two years ago, I received text messages from Eleanor about a friendship between two girls that had been recently forbidden by their religious leader.
I was asked to attempt to sneak a cheap TracFone to one of the girls at her school because I would not be recognizable to her parents, who had confiscated all her means of communication. Unfortunately, she wasn’t in class that day.
Eventually, they acquired their freedom by leaving their church behind and living with friends.
Most people assume their own community has only good intentions in mind for members. Why would we believe otherwise if an overwhelming majority of us were taught that strangers are the ones who seek to hurt us? In reality, data suggests that most cases of violent crime and sexual assault occur between people who are at least acquainted with each other or in regular physical proximity.
In spite of statistical and factual realities, we teach our children to fear strangers. We teach them to avoid the rare anomalies but fail to teach them to look for warning signs in the mundane. This contributes to the denial in identifying abusive communities when people are a part of one.
Instead, people taught to fear the outside world might think that to leave would be worse.
The philosopher Hannah Arendt says that evil is banal. It is predictable, common, and is generally perpetuated by unremarkable people motivated by their own, typically material needs. An intense, outward adherence to a particular ideology or manifestation of a psychological condition might be present but neither are enough to explain why communities as a whole behave a certain way.
In other words, abusers are regular people and not the monstrous caricatures we see on TV or evil stepmothers in children’s fairytales. There might be a few narcissists and sociopaths at the upper echelons dictating the orders, but several people who are afraid of seeking out other dissenters within the group.
With hierarchy and scale, diffusion of guilt and responsibility is inevitable. Diffusion of guilt is generally paired with resistance to collective guilt that should logically follow the diffusion. The lower end claim to be following orders, the higher ups claim they didn’t personally do it. It’s the same garbage that makes none guilty for abuse that many participated in. It is as if people hope that with sufficient diffusion, the amount of culpability per person is rendered insignificant. Dilution of active ingredients in homeopathic “remedies” operates this way.
Abuse as a phenomena doesn’t become significant simply because the perception of responsibility among abusers is thinly spread out because there is always someone else to blame in the eyes of the guilty such that their victims somehow become responsible for their own abuse.
What I’ve gleaned from my studies in history and politics is that there is a tendency to conceal or otherwise diminish the significance of abuses as a means of trying to protect the legitimacy and reputation of an organization such as the Catholic church, many American universities, collegiate and professional sports teams, the entertainment industry, among many other examples.
When an organization cares more about protecting its own reputation than removing abusers or helping victims, there is a reason to question the validity and value of such an institution and the complicity of people within afflicted organizations.
Even if an individual abuser recognizes the harm they cause, to reject the cultural norms is to risk being socially ostracized and possibly, their standard of living. Obedience experiments by Milgram and replicated by others show that people are generally submissive to figures of authority up to a certain point. It is likely that people from more isolated communities would escalate punishments further when commanded by members of their community than people from the general population being instructed by a stranger because of a greater sense of obligation and desire to belong in the former.
Defection is complicated. It comes with a high price tag in both an absolute and perceived sense.
People in deliberately isolated communities are generally taught that outsiders are evil, that its their own fault for being mistreated or that victims deserve it, and that the victims aren’t being treated badly in the first place. If maltreatment is believed to be normative and benevolent it tends to make victims attempt to justify what is going on as a means of internalizing conflicting messages.
The more isolated people are, the harder it is for them to recognize their own condition and the more complex the logistics of leaving becomes.
Liz was trained at a local college in her hometown to teach freshmen at her high school about how to avoid and recognize dating violence, local resources for victims, and statistics regarding the frequency of rape and lack of conviction. She was also a student teacher assisting adult education courses in rape escape and self-defense in evening courses offered by her school to the community.
Eleanor Skelton blogs at eleanorskelton.com, is the news editor of the UCCS student newspaper, and is majoring in English and Chemistry. The following was originally published on Eleanor’s blog on March 7, 2015, and is reprinted with permission.
Content warning: forced starvation, religious manipulation.
Somehow I never imagined the inner peace and joy I felt as a 5 year old girl after being filled with the Holy Ghost would disgust and scare me. I am writing this because I believe my voice should be heard. I hope that by telling my story it will help my healing and others with similar stories as well as prevent more stories like mine from happening.
The music was loud and the atmosphere was pulsing with energy. I wanted to show how much I loved God, so I went up to the front of the sanctuary and danced with all my might, letting my tears flow. I had been taught that I should dance before the Lord and not let anyone’s opinion stop me.
Often I was the first one or the only one at the front of the church. This was good. It meant I was a leader, and that I was fighting spiritual warfare. It would also show my pastor, who was God’s voice in my life, how my walk with God was and what a good apostolic young person I was. I remember night after night where this was my mindset.
Source: First United Pentecostal Church of Colorado Springs
I was isolated from other members of the youth group because I would refuse to do things that the Pastor had commanded us not to such as ride in a car with a guy unless it was approved or there was a married approved chaperone was in the car. However, then there were the many many times where I sat or knelt at the alter weeping feeling the guilt of my many sins because yet again I simply failed to uphold the standards because again I had listened to unchristian music, watched a tv show, or could not stick to a daily prayer life.
For years I went through a cycle of getting trouble with my best friend for questioning the pastoral authority or why we held to some of our standards or had completely disregarded the rules, and then being told that I and my best friend Ashley should not talk or hang out because our personalities did not complement each other. Meanwhile, I stood by as she was abused in so many ways by both the pastoral authority and her parents because the only thing I could do was be there for her.
In January 2013, my best friend and I had come to the conclusion that we did not and could not agree with the church. However, we were discovered yet again and were ripped apart. This time, the Pastor lied to both of us, trying to turn us against each other by saying that the other one had ratted us out.
At the direction and guidance of the Pastor, my friend’s parents were punishing her for not losing weight because it was said that God could not use her unless she lost the weight. Because of her inability to meet their demands, she had begun starving herself. I texted her in absolute caring compassion for her to “FUCK (written politely as $@##) what they [her parents] think” to drive home to my friend that starving herself was not the answer, and that her parents and pastor were wrong.
During one of the long sessions in the Pastor’s office after getting caught, I discovered the Pastor had hacked into my best friend’s phone and found my text. I was questioned about my lack or respect for authority. My hands were tied as I seethed in anger not able to tell the pastor the context of the text, lest the abuse she suffered would increase because the Pastor was part the abuse. My best friend was far too scared of losing her parents and being kicked out to do anything other that play along with them. So at the age of 19, she had every form of communication, transportation, and even her means of education stripped from her. She was not even allowed to be alone in her own home.
Source: First United Pentecostal Church of Colorado Springs
In March, the deception worked and the pressure had finally broken me to the point that I gave in and did exactly as the church (i.e. the Pastor) wanted me to do. I felt helpless and that the reason for my insanity was that I was not submitted. I continued to not talk to my best friend and tried to force myself into the mold they had created for me with my approved Christian friends and my guilt-ridden prayer life.
I still had all of the same questions. Why must a man my pastor dictate to me what God wants and God not talk to me directly? Why must I not be allowed to talk to my best friend who was still the most important person in my life? How could so many injustices and abuse be what a loving God wanted? So when my little sister decided to leave suddenly and move in with a guy I had never met, and I had no idea were she was or if she was safe, when my approved friends failed, I reached out to the one person I knew who would be there: my best friend.
Source: Eleanor Skelton
Within two weeks of resuming secret communication, we had both discussed in detail what we saw wrong with the church, and had stated that no matter what we were going to keep communicating, even if it had to be hidden. Almost immediately, my best friend started to date a coworker.
On December 15, 2013, her dad followed her to her boyfriend’s house, and that night he kicked her out. I received a text saying, “they know everything can you come and get me.” I immediately drove to her house and picked her up. From there we were housed in a friend’s apartment who had also recently escaped an abusive fundamentalist home.
There has been a lot of healing and learning since then and now. Learning to live outside of the box has not been easy, nor do I think it ever will.
I now have the wonderful freedom of choice and with that comes both what I would describe as the beauty of a rainbow and the burden of the rain cloud.
Making these choices is the scariest and most exhilarating thing that I have ever done. I have learned and accepted more of who I am.
I can only hope that healing will come in time and the scars will become less painful.
Racquel graduated with a bachelor’s in psychology in May 2014. She struggled with undereducation from inadequate homeschooling and private education in her church throughout her college career. Racquel hopes to pursue a graduate degree in counseling, and her job involves assisting troubled teens.
Eleanor Skelton blogs at eleanorskelton.com, is the news editor of the UCCS student newspaper, and is majoring in English and Chemistry. The following was originally published on Eleanor’s blog on March 6, 2015, and is reprinted with permission.
Why did you informally call yourselves the UnBoxing Project?
Right after I moved out, several others came to me, and I’d provided emotional support or physically helped them to move out. I’d alert the same network of friends who supported me, enlisting their aid.
My friend Cynthia Barram, who also happens to be African-American, started calling it “Eleanor’s Underground Railroad.”
The name stuck. I think this was for a couple of reasons.
1.) Homeschool kids often read a lot of history.
I researched the Underground Railroad for a 6th grade project, and I often reenacted what I read, playing “slaves” and “overseer” with my siblings. Several of my homeschooled alumni friends that I met in college played the same games in childhood.
Before bedtime, my mom used to read us Laura Ingalls Wilder books and the Between Two Flags series, set during the Civil War. I read biographies of Harriet Tubman and historical fiction like Jip, His Story, and the patriarchal Elsie Dinsmore series. My friends Kathleen and Rebekah wrote their own Civil War historical fiction novel in late middle school, distributing serialized chapters after church each Sunday.
I think homeschool subculture really connected with this narrative.
We weren’t immersed in popular culture, so we tended to identify more closely with people from before our time.
2.) It became a model for social action.
No, we weren’t actually enslaved.
We were controlled, some of us were abused. My friend Kyle, who works at a non-profit to prevent human trafficking, says that the number of young adults from this background being denied agency by overbearing parents is troubling.
But we didn’t adopt the name as a direct comparison. I don’t pretend to understand what others before suffered. It was just a model, a template.
The original Underground Railroad worked because it was subtle. A secret, subversive organization for social justice, involving Quakers, escaped former slaves, and other religious or politically motivated people who couldn’t tolerate the injustices they observed.
So they hid people, moved them from house to house until they reached freedom.
And that’s what my friends and I did.
We took people escaping oppression into our homes, fed them, gave them a place to sleep until they were ready to move on to their next station. We told them it was okay to be themselves, to follow their dreams and desires.
Harriet Tubman and the others became like our patron saints, our guides. We followed the model because it worked for those before us.
And by following in their footsteps, we also sought to honor them.
Eleanor Skelton blogs at eleanorskelton.com, is the news editor of the UCCS student newspaper, and is majoring in English and Chemistry. The following was originally published as “The Underground Railroad: Intro” on Eleanor’s blog on March 5, 2015, and is reprinted with permission.
“Eleanor, does your church teach the doctrine of pastoral authority?” my friend Racquel asked.
She was waiting with me in the classroom for my Organic Chemistry review session to start.
“What is that exactly?”
Racquel attended an apostolic Pentecostal church in Colorado Springs that taught a person wasn’t saved unless they had been baptized and spoken in tongues at that particular church, not another Pentecostal church in the area.
A long list of offenses such as watching movies and television or wearing short skirts and jewelry could grieve the Holy Spirit, and then you’d lose your salvation and have to “pray through at the altar” again.
“Pastoral authority means that Brother Burgess prays and decides if it’s God’s will for us to talk to a guy in the church, date him, get engaged, or marry. And whether or not we can move out of town and attend another apostolic church,” she explained.
“Other apostolic churches allow social media and let their young people listen to CCM [contemporary Christian music], but our pastor has decided it’s not spiritually good for our congregation.”
Racquel didn’t see the harm in what her church banned, but believed her pastor had good intentions.
“I can tell my pastor cares about the people in the church, the way he walks around and prays for us during the service.”
I hadn’t moved out of my parents’ house or begun dealing with the unhealthy cycles in my own life, but I knew something wasn’t right. A church should support my friend, not make her miserable.
Over the next few months, Racquel and I had many theological discussions, and I argued that Jesus was about freedom and grace, not rules. I said her church had the tendencies of a cult. But she couldn’t see it yet.
—————————
I’d started texting Racquel’s best friend Ashley. She’d just gotten permission from her parents to own a cellphone and drive the car again, even though she was nearly 20 years old and attending massage therapy school full time as well as a part time job.
I had moved out in August 2012, and felt even more strongly that Ashley’s family situation was toxic since my escape from fundamentalism.
In January 2013, I lost contact with Ashley when her parents and Brother and Sister Burgess discovered she and Racquel had watched movies again and listened to rock music, including Skillet. Brother Burgess declared Skillet was demonic after listening to their song “Monster.” Ashley finally bought her own iPhone with parental and pastoral permission eight months later.
Now it was late October. Ashley and I were meeting for coffee that evening. She taught me Search for Truth Bible study lessons, intended for potential converts, as an excuse so her parents would allow us to hang out.
I was driving down south towards Starbucks when I got a text message from her.
“I’m sorry, Eleanor. I can’t come meet u. My parents are now not letting me use their car for anything.”
“Stay calm, see if I can pick you up in a bit,” I replied.
“I’ll try. Don’t know if I can last that long. Cya.”
“You can make it. I believe in you. You still ok?”
“No I’m not. I’m done Eleanor, I’m sick and tired of this. I can’t do it anymore. I’m too tired and can’t keep this facade up. I’ve fought for 13 years against this and am too tired to continue fighting this. I have no control and no choice. I’m fed up and there’s no way out. I realize that now. I just don’t know what to do now.”
“Do you want out? Do you want to make the jump?”
“Yes I do. But I can’t.”
The church and Brother and Sister Burgess trapped both girls in an awful double bind, using manipulation and lies. I knew they needed out.
I organized a network of friends to be prepared when they asked for help. We informally called ourselves the Underground Railroad, in honor of the Civil War stories most homeschooled kids read over and over.
But when would they be ready?
As Cynthia Jeub wrote in The Trouble with Freeing People that fall on the Huffington Post, describing Ashley’s situation, I couldn’t force them to leave.
“Helping her feel ready to take freedom for herself is the only way to make her free,” Cynthia wrote.
Eleanor Skelton blogs at eleanorskelton.com, is the news editor of the UCCS student newspaper, and is majoring in English and Chemistry. The following was originally published on Eleanor’s blog on March 4, 2015, and is reprinted with permission.
Source: Konachan.com. Image links to source.
Get out your guns, battle’s begun, are you a saint, or a sinner? If love’s a fight, then I shall die, with my heart on a trigger.
“Eleanor, my best friend’s parents told her she can’t drive the car unless she loses weight consistently every week.
I’m really worried about her. Yeah, she could lose some weight, but it’s not that bad, and I don’t think that’s healthy. What do you think I should do?”
My insides went cold, feeling the familiar rigidity and control descend, but this time for someone else.
They say before you start a war, you better know what you’re fighting for… if love is what you need, a soldier I will be.
“Eleanor, I’m 26 years old and my mom wants me to get married. She says she’ll send out the word among the [Indian] community to find a man for me. But I don’t want an arranged marriage.”
My friend already had a bachelor’s degree from an ivy league college, wasn’t enjoying her post-baccalaureate pre-med classes, and knew her parents wouldn’t understand her adoption of American culture.
She asked for help in moving her things out of her parents’ house. I rounded up a few friends and she got out.
I’m an angel with a shotgun, fighting ’til the war’s won, I don’t care if heaven won’t take me back. I’ll throw away my faith … just to keep you safe… and I wanna live not just survive tonight.
“Did you know Mike died?”
“No, I just talked to him last week. He was trying to start a chapter of the F.A.S.T. club at his graduate school.”
The coroner ruled Mike’s death a suicide. Mike grew up in the Colorado Springs homeschool community, although I didn’t meet him until college.
Questions about his death still linger with me and my friends.
Sometimes to win, you’ve got to sin, don’t mean I’m not a believer... Yeah, they still say I’m a dreamer.
Text messages from Cynthia Jeub, September 2, 2013.
“I need help. My dad is angry because he’s not making enough money. Can you help Lydia and me get out and find a place to sleep until our apartment paperwork goes through?”
“Dad was yelling at me when you tried to call. I never thought this would happen. We have a friend who will help, we might need help from you when we get back.”
“Dad says he might turn off my phone and Internet. Tell [a friend] to come if you don’t hear back again.”
They say before you start a war, you better know what you’re fighting for… if love is what you need, a soldier I will be.
Google chat conversation, June 2013.
“I just want to go Home and be with Him. It’d be so easy… one bullet, one noose, two cuts, but I can’t bear to think of facing Him when I got there… For being a coward. For not trusting him enough… I really just want to escape. Wouldn’t you eventually get over it [grieving for me]. Death is a natural part of this life.”
A younger friend was suicidal again. She’d done this off and on since she was 13, and a couple of friends and I had talked her out of it, over and over.
“As long as I’m in class, getting A’s and studying all the time without a boyfriend or any other distractions, no one really pays me much mind. A fight’s brewing. So I’ll let you know after it happens if it does happen.”
Once again, her parents crushed her with unrealistic expectations.
I’m an angel with a shotgun, fighting ’til the war’s won, I don’t care if heaven won’t take me back
...and I wanna live not just survive tonight.
I didn’t become an activist because it was another hobby. Friends came to me with their wounds, their struggles. And I couldn’t just let them keep bleeding.
This is a series on helping isolated homeschoolers and religiously oppressed young adults escape cults and abusive households.
Eleanor Skelton blogs at eleanorskelton.com, is the news editor of the UCCS student newspaper, and is majoring in English and Chemistry.
I don’t have a courtship story.
But I believed in courtship. I desired that lifestyle, wanted my dad’s approval of the man who asked for me.
I loved the cultural symbolism in Jewish bethrothal ceremonies as a teenager, and I’m still sentimental about Fiddler on the Roof. I never got as far as the Maranatha story and child marriages, but it was part of my dream.
But it was the dream of one in a cage.
While living at home going to college, as a disillusioned 20 year old, I wrote this journal entry:
6/1/2010
Feeling better to some extent. [the last entry, I’d had suicidal thoughts.]
Yesterday, a thought hit me that I really can’t shake. It makes me so sad.
I realized that if I ever married, no husband would really like having Dad as an in-law. Which sort of means I shouldn’t get married. (Since in-laws are a major cause of divorce.)
I had sort of wondered if I would ever marry because I don’t know if I could ever trust someone so deeply (since I have been hurt so many times by different people).
But…that means no children. Ever.
None of my own at the very least. Probably none at all. And that hurts so much inside. It makes me cry so hard. I didn’t realize how much I wanted children one day until I realized I probably can’t.
I can’t know a ‘normal’ life of motherhood / womanhood. Probably I’ll never know what it’s like to be cherished, loved, thought beautiful (by a man).
I mean, I haven’t met any guys I really like at school, and those I do like I couldn’t really love in that way. But still, I had sort of been hoping in the back of my mind, though I hadn’t been ‘looking’ or flirting at all. But maybe this is why God hadn’t ever brought anyone across my path anyway.
Maybe I’m not meant for it – though a part of me desired it deeper than I ever knew.
My friends are growing up and thinking of marriage and getting to know some young men – not me. I have my nose in schoolbooks (though I really enjoy school)…still…
It’s not that I don’t want to rest in Jesus’ love for me – which is perfect love – it’s just that I had expected certain things would happen to me.
And now the wisdom of ever getting married doesn’t look good. I know I shouldn’t give up hope. God can change anyone’s heart and anyone’s situation, but facing the prospect of never having children and growing old alone someday is difficult.
And yet getting married really isn’t a requirement for being fully human (I read something about this in my Bible study notes). Jesus went through his whole life without being physically married – he was celibate.
So I know I wouldn’t be alone in that…it’s just hard to face all of a sudden like this.
Eleanor
Nearly five years later, it still hurts to revisit how the cage crushed me.
How these doctrines set up an unattainable ideal in adolescence that I later realized would never work in my family. So I tried to kill my desire for companionship, made myself ineligible.
I still want to be a mother. Now I think of being a foster mom if I never “find someone.” Now I know how many iridescent possibilities the world holds.
I can appreciate the significance of Jewish tradition without letting courtship and purity culture hijack it, without being obligated to follow it.
Courtship and purity culture were never mandatory, and they didn’t make me better than anyone else.
They were just another part of the fundamentalist box that I left.
Homeschoolers Anonymous 