Emotional Pain

One of the best things about my life now is that I have finally found some relief from the emotional pain I was in for so many of my childhood years. If you've read some of the post on my blog, you probably realize that my current emotional state is not the greatest and my relationship with my husband is very rocky sometimes. Despite these painful times, the pain is so much less than the emotional pain I felt throughout my childhood.

As a young child, I was pretty happy. I never remember crying for what seemed no reason at all. Sure, there were times when I had to sneak out of bed at night with my brother so that we could find food. But at least I wasn't hurting emotionally. My parents started homeschooling and reading and promoting the Pearl books before I was born. However, their descent into the cult was more gradual. While I was still young, my parents moved to another state, probably to avoid CPS investigating our family. Moving to that state accelerated my parent's descent into the cult. A family friend suggested a church in the area. My parents were quickly drawn into the church and they were now involved in a full-blown cult. Soon after joining the cult is when my emotional pain started.

I still don't understand Mother's logic, but she likes to be different. Dear Mother bought fully into the cult concerning modesty, patriarchal beliefs, homeschooling, corporal punishment, and exclusiveness. However, Mother insisted that we had to be "different" in some way so that we could prove we were better than everyone else by not "conforming to the laws of man." Being "different" to my mother meant that we could not wear clothes exactly the same as everyone else in the church. We still made our dresses at home like everyone, but she would alter the pattern a small amount so that it was a little different. Our head coverings had to be a different color and a different shape than everyone else at the church. Being "different" in a cult where everyone  had cookie-cutter similarities was painful for a young girl that just wanted have friends and to fit in. I would push so hard just to have a dress that looked like all the other girls in the church. Or to even have a pink dress like everyone else instead of all my ugly brown dresses. Being "different" made me stand out and that was when I started to feel I was inferior to the other girls. I was thankful for any girl that would pay attention to me because I was the strange one. I was the ugly one. Only because Mother didn't want to "conform."

Although the next decade did have emotional pain of being "different," I still managed to keep two good friends. They usually accepted me, even if I was "different." I still wished I was part of a different family. I would still fantasize day and night about being in another family. But at least I wouldn't cry in bed every night about the emotional pain. But that all changed when my whole world crashed around me as a pre-teen. My Dad announced that he actually did not believe in the church that we had been pouring our lives into for the last decade. He had become a leader in the cult, and yet one morning he announced that we were leaving and that he actually never believed what we had been taught almost our entire lives. The cult was highly secretive, so I had no idea that there were even troubles between my Dad and the other leaders. That's when the emotional pain hit the heaviest.

Over the next year, the emotional pain got worse and worse. I would cry myself to sleep every night. Sometimes I did not even know why I was crying. Not knowing why I was crying only made things worse. By 14, I was secluded without any real friends and crying myself to sleep every night. I continued to cry myself to sleep for the next four years. Losing my friends was extremely painful for me. And now I was an outsider of the cult that I had been taught my whole life was the only true path. Now my Dad was telling us that his new ideas was the only true path to heaven, but how could I be sure that this was definitely the only true path? For a decade he let me believe the cult had been the only true path. Plus, my Dad's new ideas and new "church" had many problems. People came and went as a constantly rotating door. I just needed someone to tell me that I was on the right path and that someone actually wanted to be friends with me.

During this time, I started feeling extreme loneliness. I did not have many peers my age. The few girls that were my age that I was allowed to associate with were very toxic. My parents constantly warned me that they were not "good children" and that I should not hang around them very much. Because I did not have any peers close to my age, I developed strangely strong attachments to young mothers in our group. I am still baffled by the strength of emotion I felt for these women. They were my idols. They were on pedestals for me. But these young mothers never really paid attention to me. Sure, they would occasionally speak with me because I was constantly tagging along with them, but there was never any real communication. I would just sit and listen to them and soak up every detail of their lives. But the painful part about my obsessions was the extreme secrecy that was always kept in the cult. Even though I had already reached puberty and was going to be having babies of my own one day, everyone in my life made sure absolutely no one mentioned woman's issues around me. When one of the woman would become pregnant, it would be whispered about for months before finally telling me. Of course, by then I had already figured it out on my own.

During this time, I also craved any kind of physical contact. I would never dare to touch or hug my brothers. It was my job to make sure they kept pure and we already had issues within our family. I had to keep a safe distance from my brothers. While I loved my sisters, I would never imagine hugging them. The only time my parents touched me was to spank me. Some families believed in hugging after spankings but my family did not. Usually my Mother was so angry after spankings that all the children would flee the house for as long as possible. I would go months without so much as a hug from anyone. I remember longing so much for just a hug. I remember every day wishing that one of the young mothers would just hug me.

On top of the lack of friends, attention, and physical contact, my Dad's trouble with keeping people around that believed the same as he did deepened my hurt. For me, it was just one rejection after another. At one point the [Miller] family needed a place to stay and planned on moving into our house. I was ecstatic. I would have a young mother to be with me all the time! I looked forward to it for weeks. But it was not to be.

August 26, 2004 -- Thursday

The [Millers] are not coming to our meetings any more. They are not going to move into our house. They are leaving because: [other family's wife] speaks in the meetings, [single mother who was attracted to the group after her husband left her] head is not covered and she doesn't dress modestly and she speaks in the meetings. The [Millers] are angry because we did not address these issues before we tried to help [singer mother] in her financial place. [Mr. Miller] thinks that all of these should have been addressed awhile before this. Dad and Mother said that they think that [Mr. Miller] is just going to have to learn the hard way from this. I wish I could fly on wings as eagles away from troubles that tempest here; not to hurt when people leave. But we cant.

I clearly remember that day. I was sitting at my desk in my room crying like a schoolgirl who had her heart broken by her first boyfriend. I think the pain I felt that day was comparable to the pain young girls feel when they first get their heart broken. My attachment to the family was not normal. My attachment to the family was so strong that it broke my heart when they stopped talking to my family. I hurt so badly. I quickly became attached to another family, but they too would break my heart. When I read the passage from my journal that I posted here, I noticed something new. "Dad and Mother said that they think that [Mr. Miller] is just going to have to learn the hard way from this." When all of this happened, I always thought that my parents felt just as much pain as I did. However, when I read that line I could see that they could care less whether that family came or went. I'm sure they had no idea about the emotional attachment I had with the family, but even if they did they still would have had complete disregard for my feelings. That family and my feelings were just another pawn in their game. The family was disposable. My feelings were disposable. After that entry, my life just spiralled darker and darker. More and more people left and my parents had less and less regards to my feelings. Not too much later I stopped journaling for the most part.

My memories of the next couple years became blurry as I started to just try to survive. We lost our house and lived in a small space on another family's property. My Mother did not want to "interfere" with the lives of the family we were staying with, so she would keep us secluded outside in our cramped space for hours or even days at a time. Often we did not have water and the small amount of food we had was often disgusting. While we were forced to stay out of sight, my Dad and Mother would spend endless hours with the family. Often they would stay up late into the night talking with the family. Sometimes their laughter would float out into the night while laid on my cot and cried from loneliness. I could never figure out what was so wrong with me that my Mother did not want me around other families. I wondered what was so wrong with me that no other families ever stepped in and intervened. I wondered what was so wrong with me that other families often had so much good food to eat and yet they would never offer it to me or my painfully skinny brothers.  

The Duggers Aren't The Only Family

I've been writing this article for many days now. I know it's now been almost a week since Josh Dugger became a nationwide sensation after the accusations of him molesting five young girls came to light. I tried to write about this all before, but I could not face all the pain at one time. It's easier to point fingers than to admit that you were sexually assaulted while in a cult that teaches you it was your fault that you were sexually assaulted. For some of us, it's taken days just to write out the simple words: I was a victim of sexual exploration. It's something awful. It's devastating. It's life-changing. I had to write this article slowly because it is so painful. I had to write this article slowly so that my own body could process the trauma. Let me tell you my story.

Today I cried while reading articles about the Duggers. I cried because I felt like I was fighting a losing battle. I felt that once again my voice and the voice of many other victims was not being heard. I cried when I read the article "The Duggers are Not Hypocrites. Progressives Are." This article hurt so much because it was silencing once again the tiny voices of the Invisible Daughters who were daring to speak out. Not once did the article mention those poor girls. Not once did the article even mention that Josh Duggar’s action may have actually hurt someone or even destroyed some lives. The article called me a hypocrite because I am a "Progressive." I'm writing here today to say that I am not a hypocrite. I don't care if the Duggers are hypocrites, but I am not. I have my own story to tell and I am going to tell it to you today for the first time ever.

I met the Duggers before there were 19 kids in the family and before they were on TV. It was sometime in 2005 to 2006. Because my parent's beliefs slightly aligned with those of the Dugger's, we would interact occasionally. Back then, there was nothing impressive about them to our family. They weren't even the biggest family around at that time. Although the Duggers did follow the same teachings in childrearing as my parents, my parent's other beliefs in faith did vary from the Duggers and thus we did not meet with the Duggers very often. They were some of the "liberal" patriarchal Christians in the area. I've met the Duggers because they had similar beliefs to my parents. And it turns out my story is even closer to them than I thought.

I was a victim of sexual exploration. This is the first time I´ve ever mentioned anything about being a victim. I've never told anyone this story. I never want any of my family to find out. I never want my Dad or Mother to know. I never want my sisters to know. I never want my other brothers to know. I never want my husband to know. I never want any of my friends to know. I'm sure my brother remembers what happened but he's never mentioned it and probably never will mention it. I was very close to my older brother. I adored him. I looked up to him. We spent almost every waking hour together from early childhood. We were very close in age and most of our friends were mutual friends. Most of all, I trusted my brother. The day it happened is burned into my brain crystal clear. I couldn't believe that my beloved brother would do something to me that I knew was wrong. My world started spinning out of control that day. It only happened once. I am very thankful for that. I can only imagine what repeated incidents did to those girls.

I kept a secret journal for many years. This journal was given to me by a friend as a birthday present. I never told my Mother about the journal. Instead, I placed it in a ziplock bag and buried it in the back field of our 90 acre farm. That journal was for my deepest secrets. I still kept my everyday journal and my Mother would regularly read through that journal. However, the hidden journal was for my deepest and darkest secrets. I wrote in the secret journal the day my brother exploited me.

September 4, 2004 -- Saturday

We sewed on [Sarah's] dress today. We had fried green tomatoes today.

And the worst thing of all happened today! [Ron] and I went on a bike ride . When we came to the powerlines we stopped to drink water and rest in the shade. I think I will remember the rest. I will not go on another bike ride alone with him for awhile. I thought I was so careful. I listen to Mother. Why did he do this to me? Did I sin against God somehow?!? I'm so scared now. I try so hard to be good and it seems like it never works. Maybe I'm not actually a Christian. Maybe I'm tempting [Ron] to not be a Christian anymore

As I wrote out the dark secret, my writing became smaller and smaller as if it was even to shameful to put into full size text. That was the day I started seeing myself as an awful temptress not worthy of God's love or a husband. That day also shatter my trust in my brothers. I was always taught that my brothers were my protectors and yet I could not even protect myself from them.

Do I think that my brother did something that was wrong? Probably not. But it still affected me. I was still a victim. I will still have to deal with that for the rest of my life. I never wanted any repercussions for my brother for his actions. I never want anyone who knows us to know about the incident. I want it to stay a secret. But that still doesn't mean that it didn't hurt me. That still doesn't mean I didn't need counseling. I don't blame my brother for what happened. I'm embarrassed and ashamed, but I don't hate him.

However, I do blame my parents and the Pearls and the whole fundamental Christian homeschool movement. We had no sex education. We were never even given a book on how our own bodies worked. We never had contact with someone of the opposite sex outside of the family. We were normal, curious children. If we had been a normal family, my brother probably would have taken out his curiosity on his high school crush. Or from some magazines one of his peers managed to find. He would have had a non-destructive outlet for his curiousity. He would have a CONSENSUAL outlet for his curiousity.

Incest was a huge problem in our cult. Even at a young age, I knew that. The summer before my molestation, I listened to a tape series as a young adolescent. I don't remember that name of the tape series. I remember it was made by a woman and I think it was probably Jackie Kenaston. However, all the online searching I did could not produce that tape series. I suspect that it is no longer for sale to the general public. Most of that tape series was pretty unmemorable. Just the usual patriarchal gibberish that girls needed to dress modestly, submit to the men in their lives, and produce many babies. There was one tape that shook me though. This tape addressed incest among the church, although it never gave us that label. The teacher mentioned that there had been several cases in the church of fathers and brothers being attracted to the daughters. The teacher stated that as young girls, we needed to be extra careful to not allow that to happen in our families. She told us that we needed to always dress modestly, never talk about sex with any male family member, and always avoid dangerous situations. Less than two months after listening to that tape series, my Mother pulled me aside and told me I needed to be careful never to be alone with only one brother. She said she was bothered with how close [Ron] and I were getting and it was my responsibility to never be alone with him. Now mind you, this is the Mother that at this point had given me zero sex education. This is the Mother that at this point had given me zero education on my body or even my changing body. I did not even know the term "vagina." And yet here my Mother was telling me that it was my responsibility to never be alone with my brothers for some mysterious reason. My molestation took place the next summer.

Have I forgiven my brother? Probably. Have I forgiven the cult for my sexual abuse? Not in a million years. The Duggar girls have probably forgiven their precious brother, but that does not mean they are okay. That does not mean they are thriving. That does not mean that they are okay with what happened. It's hard when something like that happens when it's someone you love and someone you have been taught you must love for the rest of your life. The hardest part of what happened to me is to realize my brother and I were both victims of the cult. My mind cannot rationalize being angry or resentful of another victim.

The world is working so hard to silence my voice and the many other voices of the Invisible Daughters. Today, my voice is not silenced. Today, I shared my most painful story so that maybe one day some other precious daughter and her brother may both be spared the pain of such a dangerous cult.  

Personal Notes

Today was a rough day for me and I started going through my drawers. While going through my drawers, I found some notes I had written over the past year. I hope these letters provide a little insight into how I feel at times. I have changed the name of my significant other to Paul, which is not his real name. "Paul" in these letters are my significant other.

Note Number 1

Paul is angry for me AGAIN. This time, I'm not angry with him [I usually do get mad at him when he gets mad at me], I only hurt so much. The nightmares have started up again and I don't have anyone to help me through them. I'm all alone once again facing my demons. I never will be good enough for a man, will I? I'm just too awful a person for someone to love me. I'll never get that marriage I've watned for so long, will I?

I think what hurst the most is that with the coming of the fall, my depression is coming rushing back. I'm right on the brink of a giant abyss of hopelessness and I feel like there's no one there to pull me away. There's no one that really cares about me. There's n one there to tell me I'm going to be alright when I'm at my lowest point. There's no one there that cares when I am in screaming pain. Every time that I am at my lowest point, Paul and I fight.

Note Number 2

Angelica, why can't you be a better person? Why can't you keep track of all things? Why is it so hard to live with someone? I'm no longer living with my sisters who equally split everything. Now I have to be perfect all the time. I have to clean. I have to cook. I have to make all the decisions. I can no longer be messy or sick. I can no longer cry either. I used to love my life with Paul but now it's just so stressfull. I really can't keep up with it all. I have to do so many things to help him pluse work plus do everything by myself.

Note Number 3

I've worked so hard for so long to break free of the life I grew up with. I've worked so hard to not have to stress about my work schedule being changed or me getting off late. I've worked so hard to not have to outwardly explain to some why I can't do something that is completely normal to Americans.

I've lost a lt during this journey to be free. I've lost almost all my relationships with my family. I've lst almost all of my faith in Christianity. I've cried so many tears and felt so much pain through this journey.

Now, I feel like this long, hard journey has been for nothing. I'm back in the same awful position where I'm just an object to be used for someone else. This time it is in the name of Love instead of God, but it's the same game. My body is something awful that must be covered. My body is not my own and I can't say what hurts it or even what happens to it. My body is the possession of a man. I'm not trustworthy and I have to prove that at all times I'm not doing smething bad. I can't have friends. I can't have feelings or have a say. I can't say no to something. I can't leave the house because I can't be trusted. I've worked s hard for so many years t be free and now I'm living that exact same life again. I think there is no hope that I will ever have the life I dreamed.

I feel so many dreams smashed. I wanted a life with lve but without all the pain that I've felt for so many years. I had no idea that that wan't possible and now I feel so disallusioned. I feel llike all hope is gone. I have worked so hard only to find out it's not there. I have no hope of ever getting out.

So, is it true that I am just living in another hell with my Paul? Or is Paul completely normal and I'm just complaining too much about my life?

Why Doesn't Mother Care for Me?

I haven´t been to a therapist yet. That is on my list every week but I just can't get around to actually doing it. I'm scared that the therapist won't help or even make things worse. Or maybe a therapist will tell me, just like everyone else in my life, that all my problems are just made up and that there was nothing bad about my childhood. My deepest fear about going to a therapist is for them to tell me that my childhood actually was normal and that I should be a normal person. I'm not a normal person and I know most of that is due to what I went through as a child. I just wish that sometimes someone would acknowledge that.

Medical abuse. No one has ever told me that that was what I endured as a child, but I have become to see it that way. I spent this past weekend with my parents. While we were together, my brother and I were exchanging stories about what it was like to catch up on our immunizations so that we could go to college. I will tell you now, it's not a fun experience to be given every single shot that you should have recieved during your childhood in a span of a couple days. My brother passed out during the shots. My Mother only laughed at what we had to go through. She tried to make the excuse that possibly one of us were allergic to the shots. It angered me to see her only laughing off the hardships we endured just because of her decisions.

One shot that we never recieved as a child was the whooping cough shot. My older brother contracted a severe case of whooping cough. I remember for months straight he would cough so badly when he tried to eat that he would throw up. He lost so much weight during that time. He was just skin and bones by the time he started to get better. He coughed so much that his side began to hurt severely. My Mother speculated that he probably broke a rib from coughing. During this whole time, he was never taken to a doctor. He was severely malnurished by the end of the sickness but never did my Mother try to help him or even give him medicine.

I wrote in a previous post about my Mother taking me to the doctor when I had problems with bed wetting. This event is something that still makes me boil inside when I remember it. In a time where my brother had whooping cough, I got some rash that lasted five weeks, and none of us recieved our imminizations, my Mother rushed me to a doctor for bed wetting?! I believe that was all just part of her abuse. Another way to make her superior to me and to make me realize how helpless I was even with the choices about my own body.

One of the worst things about my relationship with my Mother is that I felt that I could not go to her about anything. I got a very bad urinary tract infection when I was probably around 10. I was terrified. I had no idea why it hurt so badly. I could not understand why there was blood whenever I urinated. I have many urinary tract infections but now I know how to help them heal faster. That time, I had no idea what to do to get better. I drank hardly any water and tried to avoid the bathroom at all costs because of the severe pain. It took over a week to heal, but finally it did heal but the scares of that memory never went away. I was terrified about what was going on with my body and in severe pain and yet I never spoke a word to my Mother. It is sad that I could not even go to my Mother about something as severe as that.

My Mother went to great lengths to make sure us children stayed quiet about the abuse going on at home. We did stay quiet, and actually stilll do stay quiet, but we stayed quiet to her as well. We've always known that she actually didn't care very much for us as human beings. I don't know what she viewed us as. I don't know if there was some part of her that did care for us. I don't know what about us she did care about. There had to be something because she at least fed us most days. I don't know what it is like to trust your mother. I don't know what it's like to have a mother that cares about you being ok. I only know a Mother that laughs about the hardships we endure because of her neglect. I only know a Mother that would prefer to not know so that she wouldn't have to take care of it. Some part of me still longs for a Mother that actually cares about me being ok.

Inferior to Mother

Right now the biggest drama swirling around my Facebook page is about the Naugler family. There are many many articles online about the court case right now. A quick internet search can give you a brief idea about what is happening with the family. I´m not going to go into long detail about the family, just go over a few details to give background to my post. Nicole Naugler with her husband and ten children have been living ¨off the grid¨ in what the state of Kentucky decided were unsanitary conditions. The Nauglers were ¨unschoolers.¨ Some of the Naugler children also do not have birth certificates or social security numbers, Nicole Naugler is offended because the state is asking her to provide her children with birth certificates and social security numbers. Her defense is that the way they leave their life, her children don´t need any form of identification.

I agree with Nicole Naugler on one small point. Yes, to continue their current lifestyle, her children do not need their identification paperwork NOW. The first obvious questions is are what about when they want to get a driver´s license or marriage license? But even that is not what I'm concerned with. My burning question is what if one of those children don't want to continue their current lifestyle? What if one of those children want to be completely different from how their parents are? I hurt inside for those children just because I know how it feels to want to be different but my parents had worked so hard to make sure I wouldn't be different. Sure, it may be legal to not give those documents to your children, but it is SELFISH on your part to not. Why are you not giving your children their documents? Because YOU say they won't need them?! Why do you get to have the say in their lives. Sure, you are entrusted to take care of them for the first 18 years of their lives, but your duty is to TAKE CARE OF THEM. Your duty is to do the best for them that you can. Your duty is not to turn them into little you's. Their happiness is what matters, not yours.

Another thing that bothers me is the status quo at the house. I don't have insider information on exactly how it is in their home but I have a pretty good idea based on my own experiences. They have almost nothing. They are dirt poor. The kids spend their time taking care of the land and playing on the land. They don't go to school or even learn from books. They probably don't have many traditional friends. They are socially secluded. And yet amongst all of that proverty and seclusions, their mother keeps up a Facebook page and a blog. She has a phone because she has mentioned on her Facebook page that some of the pictures came off of her phone. She has communication with others. She has an escape. What about those children? Do they have Facebook accounts and blogs? Are they even allowed on the computer?

Let me tell you how it was in my home... I remember I first laptop was probably around 1998. My Mother was very into the Y2K conspiracy theories. As New Years 2000 came closer, my Mother spent more and more time on the computer blogging and following blogs. I was around 8 at the time so I don't have an accurate measure of the time but I know many times she would be on the computer from lunch time to dinner time (which was usually a 5 hour span). Us children were always in charge of cleaning up from lunch and usually we were also in charge of prepping dinner. My Mother would neglect her household duties to be enthralled with the online life. The irony of it all is that never once were we allowed to go on the computer. Never once were we allowed our own escape. We were sheltered and kept in our secluded little world. The internet had bad influences so we could never go on the internet. But yet somehow Mother magically could spend hours and hours a day on the internet. As I got older, the internet was still forbidden. Finally at the age of 16 and 17, I would sneak out to the living room at night to open the computer and get online. Because a 17 year old girl could never "discern" the information on the internet.

One question that really eats at me is at what point would I have magically transformed into one of those people that could have full access to the full world. I was sheltered my entire life. I was kept safe because Mother would do it all for us. We were never told when we would hit that magical age when we could think on our own or do anything on our own. What made me so inferrior in my judgement than my Mother? What makes me so inferrior MY ENTIRE LIFE from my Mother. Yes, she gave birth to me, but she gave birth to me to raise me up and not to always be superior to me.

My story is why my heart breaks for these children. Sure, there might not be anything extremely wrong with keeping them in their lifestyle (except for the unsanitary conditions, of course), but at what point can they become actual people? At what point will they ever be equal to their mom? At what point will they have choice in what happens in their life?