A Personal Plea- Part 10

Over the last two weeks, I have poured my heart and soul into these posts. I have talked about things I have never talked about before. Extremely personal and painful things. Some posts have been harder to write than others. At times, I have had to pause for a few days to figure out how to proceed. But no longer. Here I am, at the end. And perhaps this is the most personal and revealing of all my posts. Here I am, ready to tie together the last nine posts with my thoughts and feelings regarding the recent election of Donald Trump. I hope that it helps make clear my specific issues. This may get raw.

In the first three posts, I talked about my year of ongoing sexual harassment and assault. I talked about how it affected me, and my body image. How, instead of defending me, and sending a clear message to my abusers that sexual harassment and assault are never okay, the school ultimately sided with the boys and their parents. It wasn't looked at as unacceptable behavior. It was largely dismissed, and I was left to continue in my own shame, as my abusers continued on, and got bolder as time wore on. Granted, the school never knew about the assault, but why would they? I was already treated like a problem. Why should I think they would treat assault any differently?

The night before the election, I had my first PTSD dream about my sexual abuse at school in well over a decade. It's important to note that at this time, I didn't think there was any way Trump was going to win, so it's not like I was actually worried or afraid. At least, not on a conscious level. But I still had a dream that I was back at that school. Those five boys were abusing me again, and when I went to report it, the principal was Donald Trump. Instead of doing anything about it, he told me, "boys will be boys," and that this was normal behavior. If I didn't like it, I should either shut up or find a new school. And then he joined in. As I watched the election returns the next night, and he gained more ground, I could feel the panic attacks building inside of me. The next morning, I had to call into work, because I'd had 2 panic attacks before 8am, and I would have 4 more before the day was out. Never in my life have I ever had six panic attacks in a single day.

I felt incredibly unsafe and unprotected. Not only had the nation elected a self-admitted sexual abuser to the office of President, but they had also elected someone who is an abuser in many other ways as well. In ATI, I got a lot of crap from those who were supposed to protect and support me. My mom would tell me to go to my room and not come out until God had changed my heart and shown me the error of my ways. Whenever I would bring that up (she did it often), she would straight up deny ever having said something like that. She would never do that. And yet, I knew she did. When I would reach the point of desperation, and feel like I couldn't deal with Mom's abuse anymore and ask to talk to Dad about it, she would insist on being there, and then flat out deny everything I said, or else deny any wrongdoing. I felt like I couldn't breathe. Many people I had contact with in our church, and in ATI had those exact same patterns. The gaslighting was so intense I often wondered if I wasn't just entirely detached from reality. Not only that, but with any accusation against me by an authority, I had to prove myself innocent, or I would be treated as guilty, and punished accordingly. If something went wrong at home, I was often my mother's scapegoat. Obviously, I had done something wrong. Even when they were proven wrong, none of my authorities (with the exception of my father) ever really admitted to any wrongdoing. It was all justified, sidestepped, or flat out denied.

My entire life, I have worked incredibly hard to thrive in spite of some fairly serious disabilities. And I have succeeded. I have seen a very clear shift from ableism to inclusivism in the last twenty years. Society has become more and more accepting of those of us with various limitations and challenges. Instead of mocking us, or relegating us to a corner, society has made incredible strides in accepting us, and our differences.

Over the last 12 years, I have closely studied the suffering of the marginalized in the United States and elsewhere. I have seen what happens when the basic rights of people are trampled in favor of the majority. What happens when fear grabs hold of people. Not insignificantly because of my own lifelong experience with gross injustice, I have felt incredibly burdened with justice. With knowing that African Americans and Latinos, women and immigrants, Muslims and Jews, disabled and LGBTQ- the other- are being treated justly. And if not fully justly, at least better than before, with visible efforts to continue improving. I have seen this as a moral imperative. Jesus was clear: Whatever you do to the least of these, you do to me. All of these habitually marginalized groups, of which I am a part, these are the least of these. I don't see it as an option to either protect or not to protect. I understand the abortion argument. If you like, add the unborn to my list of the marginalized.

My struggle here is not a political one. It has absoultely nothing to do with politics. My struggle is a personal one, and a moral one. No, I'm not upset that my candidate lost. I voted for McCain and Romney. I'm used to that. Out of four presidential elections, my candidate has won once, and that was 12 years ago. I have never had an issue with anyone who voted for the "other" candidate. But that was all political.

Dear family and friends who voted for Trump, here is where I address you personally and directly. I am having such a hard time dealing with the fact that you voted for someone who is the spitting image of many of those who have personally abused me. Those who have sexually objectified me, and violated me. Those who have twisted their words and my words to fit their own agenda. Those who would never admit to wrongdoing, or show any kind of remorse for the incredible wrongs they committed against me. Those who gaslighted me to the point that I seriously questioned my own sanity. You voted for the person who is, in one person, in one body, the essence of all of my abusers in one. You voted for the person who has no respect for me, or for what I have been through. You voted for the person who mocks the disabled. All of the things I detailed above about my own experiences, I can give multiple examples of Donald Trump doing exactly those things to other people. Donald Trump is an abuser and a predator, who abuses and preys on people just like me. And you voted for him.

Not only that, but he has proven himself to be a direct threat to African Americans, Latinos, women, immigrants, Muslims, and the LGBTQ community. He has not shown himself to be any friend to the disabled, either. The only marginalized group in this country he has at all promised to protect, is the unborn. Because I see defending the "least of these" as an absolute, non-negotiable moral imperative, I cannot overlook the direct threat he poses to six (at least) of these groups, in favor of defending one. I don't understand how those I respect and love, and those I thought valued all human lives and rights equally, voted for Trump. I do not understand how you could do that. Like I said, this is not about politics for me. Believe me, I could make this about politics. But at the end of the day, I really don't care about that part. This is about protecting the unprotected. This is about making sure that those who have been traditionally marginalized in this country, and in the Western world, do not find themselves back 100 years in safety.

Yes. Those of you who voted for Trump, you voted for the embodiment of my abusers. You voted for someone who poses a direct threat to the vast majority of the marginalized in this nation, and I am having one hell of a time trying to swallow that. I am not someone to throw away relationships. But this is something that is going to take time. If I'm being honest, I don't feel like you're safe for me to be around. I'm on edge when I'm around any of you. And it's going to take me a lot of time to be able to sort things out. Don't question my love for you. I love you all. I do. But I don't know how to be "business as usual" with you.

I hope you all understand my heart in all of this. I hope you understand I'm not trying to shame or accuse. I am telling you how this makes me feel. And how this is causing one of the biggest struggles of my life. I don't even know where to start with this. But here it is. And I hope you can accept this, and have grace for me, and the many, many like me who are in a very similar position. Thank you, for sticking with me through 10 parts. Thank you for listening. I am finished.

A Personal Plea, Part 9

Without fully intending to, I found myself specializing in African American history as an undergrad history major. That's just how things worked out, because that's where my personal interests led me. Growing up in Cincinnati, I had always been keenly aware of the fact that the Underground Railroad had been especially active there. But when I began to actually study it, I discovered it was far more than "active," in Cincinnati. In fact, Cincinnati was THE central hub of the Underground Railroad in the American West. As I wrote in my Master's Thesis, not only was Cincinnati the western center of the UGRR, but it was also a microcosm of the abolition movement, in general. Everything the movement had throughout the entire country, Cincinnati had. These were all things I was incredibly proud of.

But as I continued my research, I discovered that there was another side to Cincinnati, and Ohio, in general. An ugly side. A dark side. In fact, the majority of Cincinnati was either ambivalent toward the issue of slavery, or straight up pro-slavery. In the pre-Civil War years, there were a few mass exoduses of African Americans from Cincinnati, usually to Canada. It wasn't a safe place to be, unless the color of your skin was white. There was an active and vocal minority, working against the hate, but most either actively or passively participated in it, much like in Nazi Germany.

As the years progressed, I continued to study American history, and African American history. In many ways, a historian is someone who witnesses history, more than the average person. And I began to realize, the United States is not, nor was it ever, what I was taught it was. Were our Founding Fathers brave? Absolutely. They were brave enough to go against the greatest empire on earth, fight a foolish war, and declare their own independence. But they were not brave enough to do it without slavery. Many of the Founding Fathers were abjectly opposed to slavery. Others, such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Patrick Henry, knew it was morally reprehensible, and yet they were not willing to be inconvenienced to the degree they would be if they both freed their slaves and outlawed slavery. Most other American nations abolished slavery as they gained their independence from their colonial powers. Many African Americans at the time of the Revolution believed this was going to happen here, as well. But it didn't. The Founding Fathers caved to the convenient and the comfortable. Willing to do what was necessary to throw off their own oppressors, but unwilling to make sure ALL in the new United States were likewise free.

I read about the Whiskey Rebellion, and how Washington sent thousands of troops to Western Pennsylvania to subdue a few dozen angry farmers, suspended all due process, and threw them all in jail without a trial. Yes, he cooled off and pardoned them, but still without a trial. So all the jailed farmers received pardons for crimes for which they were never properly tried. Yes, this was George Washington, grossly overstepping his Constitutional rights. Jefferson grossly overstepped his Constitutional rights as well, when he bought all of the Louisiana territory on his own, without Congressional approval. Polk straight up manipulated facts and lied to Congress to get approval to declare war on Mexico, and gain most of what is now the American Southwest, including part of my own new state, Colorado.

I grew up in the years of the "Moral Majority." The "New Right," as it is often termed. I heard my parents and many, many others within the Conservative Republican faction of society, praise the America of yore. They mourned how much modern presidents overstepped Constitutional bounds, praised how past presidents and politicians were "statesmen," and not "politicians." How partisanship was such a new thing. How our Founding Fathers all worked together to do what was right. How 19th century America was so incredibly Godly and noble and respectful to all. How America was so much better in the 1940s and 50s, when God and family were respected. But the more I studied, the more I found out just how much the history I was taught wasn't real. I heard about liberals changing history. I heard about the "revisionist" history the liberal agenda was pushing. But the more I studied, the more I realized, the conservatives amongst whom I was raised were just as guilty of revisionist history as were the fringe liberals I was taught about.

Exactly how Godly can a nation be, which kills and forcibly removes millions of Native Americans, just so they can have access to Southern lands to continue cotton cultivation? Cotton cultivation, which, almost exclusively relied upon the enslavement of four million African Americans? How Godly can a nation be, which enslaves millions of a race, rules that they are not people, which does not allow any protection against rape, torture, or even murder? How Godly can a nation be, which places economic and political stability over the well-being of the "least of these"? How Godly can a nation be, which even after emancipating its slaves, lynches innocent men and women, for nothing more than asking for the paycheck they earned? How Godly can a nation be, which doesn't allow for any legal recognition of the rape of a black female by a white man?

I could go on and on. But my point is, America never was any greater than it is now. Yes, you could argue that abortion is this nation's great stain now. But at the very least, the United States has done no worse than exchanging one evil for another. Until November 8th, minorities, women, people of other religions, immigrants, the disabled, those who are LGBTQ, etc., had never, in the history of this nation, been any safer than they were right then.

I was fed the lies, throughout my entire life, and I dismantled them myself. Please bear with me through my 10th and final post in this series. I will tie everything together from the last 9 parts. All I want, is understanding. All I want is those I know and love to understand my struggle now, and the struggle that will likely remain through the next several months and years. For those of you who have made it this far, thank you. Please, hang in there for one more post. 

A Personal Plea, Part 8

 Before I get into this, I'm going to ask that you please, please read to the end of my series before making any judgment or getting angry. Everything I say here ties to both my personal experiences, and my years of historical study. Thanks.

I'm not sure anything ever could have fully prepared me for the shock of stepping out of the ATI and fundamentalist revisionist history world and into the real history world at Ouachita Baptist University. I was not prepared to have so many of my preconceived notions completely shattered. But that is all beside the point of this series.

I am a social historian. Simply put, this means I study history from the "ground up." I look at people and social groups and movements. I look at society in general, and how society has shaped the past and present, as well as how the past and present has shaped society. In a nutshell, I study history through sociology. I'm not a military historian, an economic historian, a historian of science and philosophy, nor a historian of government. I'm a historian of the people. Sure, my focus is on African Americans, specifically slavery and abolition, but that doesn't mean I don't pay a lot of attention to the history of other social groups: women, children, the working class, etc.

Other  than African American history, the one area I have probably studied the most in a formal setting, is the history of Nazi Germany and the Third Reich. I have studied the horrors of the Holocaust, even hearing a Holocaust survivor speak in person while I was an undergrad. I have seen the progression of a WWI veteran and failed art student named Adolf Hitler, as he begins by unifying a desperate and starving post-War Germany against outsiders who might pose a threat. Many may not know that Hitler did not put forth his infamous Final Solution until WWII had already begun. At first, the plan was just to keep close tabs on outsiders, mostly Jews, but also homosexuals, Romani gypsies, the disabled, etc. Then he started giving incentives to the ideal "Aryan" couples to have as many children as possible, in hopes of out-populating the less desirable races. In essence, Hitler began by saying, "Make Germany Great Again!" He wanted to keep non-ethnic Germans from moving into the country. He wanted to keep an eye on non-ethnic Germans that were already there.

Instead of blaming a rogue government for the dire straits in which Germans had found themselves, instead of blaming highly unreasonable war reparations forced on Germany by the League of Nations, Hitler blamed the easy target: the Other. Those who were unlike everyone else. And as a result, a conservative estimate places the death toll of Jews, Romanis, homosexuals, and the disabled, at around 6 million people. That's not even including all the people who died trying to stop the Holocaust. In fact, before this happened, a word did not exist to describe the horrific nature of the Holocaust. The Jews had called it "shoah," the Hebrew word for "catastrophe." In the 1950s, a word finally arose in the English language- a new word- from Greek roots meaning "burned" and "whole." This genocide was so big, it wiped out entire family lines. I remember in music history class, when I was a music major, we were talking about the descendants of various Romantic composers. One asked about Mendelssohn's descendants. Our professor said, "There are no living relatives of the Mendelssohn family. They were all killed during the Holocaust." Entire family lines. Gone.

I remember one Christmas Eve a few years ago, having a conversation with one of my uncles. He was saying that he didn't really believe in Hell anymore. He said God is loving, and far more loving than any of us. I remember when he said, "I couldn't send someone to Hell. Could you? I know you couldn't." I was incredibly uncomfortable with the conversation, and I said so. The reality was...yes, I could see myself sending someone to Hell. Stalin? Bin Laden? Hitler? Yeah. I could. I have been in the kind of emotional pain, inflicted by someone else, that is so bad, day after day after day, that I couldn't see past. That made me want to die. The kind of pain Hitler inflicted on others? Yes. If Hell exists, he deserves to be there. Period, end of story. And so does anyone like him.

Before the last year, I had never heard any kind of significant figure in this country talk in a way that so clearly reminded me of Hitler. Someone who appealed to a disenfranchised group of people who felt completely marginalized. Someone who put a huge chunk of that blame on minorities. Someone who so blatantly disrespected the disabled. Someone who stated that he thought an entire group of people should be registered. Someone who shows no respect for women, and who refuses to take responsibility for his actions. Someone who gains the respect, loyalty and admiration of the KKK and other white supremacy organizations.

No, I don't draw those comparisons lightly. I have never in my life done this, and I did it with him all on my own before I ever heard the media do so. I remember standing in front of my classroom last December saying, "This is how Holocausts start. It is in your hands to stop it."

I have more to say, but I'll end this here. Please, keep reading, and keep in mind, I do not write this to shame, accuse, or blame. I write this to try, as best I know, to fully explain why I am having such a hard time dealing with this, and the fact that people I know, love, and respect, voted for him.

A Personal Plea, Part 7

The next few years continued with much of the same. More ATI events, more ATI church, more ATI at home. Not a lot of other stuff going on. As I was finishing high school, it wasn't so horrific. I mean, looking back, it was. But I wasn't developing those feelings of desperation that finally drove me to get out.

I graduated from high school in 2001, just before my 18th birthday. Most people go to college or get jobs after graduating from college, but I did neither. I was allowed to do neither. I taught a few piano lessons, but wasn't allowed to have many students. Most of the girls in ATI or the fundamentalist homeschooling world either got jobs (if allowed), or they helped raise their multiple younger siblings and homeschool them. There was enough to keep them busy. But when you're the only kid left at home and both of your parents are retired, there's really not that much to do. So I filled a lot of my time by practicing the piano 4 hours a day. I wasn't allowed to have just straight leisure time. I had to fill literally every hour from my mandatory wakeup at 6am until my mandatory lights out at 10pm. I was allowed one hour each afternoon to do what I wanted, and that was it. The rest of my time had to be filled with housekeeping, Bible study, or piano practice.

Of course at this time, I was starting to get really sick from my undiagnosed Celiac Disease. I was constantly in pain, I was exhausted, and I was quickly accumulating new symptoms. All I wanted to do was take my one hour of free time to take a nap. But that wasn't allowed. It was lazy. I remember being told that my 61 year old father could make it through a day without a nap, so 18 year old me should be able to as well. Add to the constant pain and exhaustion undiagnosed Autism, and it got even worse. Being home all the time with my parents, with little to do that stimulated me, was more or less a recipe for disaster.

My mom and I  began to have more and more conflicts. Mom would give me verbal instructions, and expect me to remember them and carry them out. I knew I wouldn't be able to remember them, because I've never been good with oral instructions. I would ask to write them down, but she wouldn't let me. "Kathleen, just listen. If you have a submissive heart and want to obey, and listen, you'll remember what I say." At first, I would just be nervous.  But later, after getting in trouble multiple times, being spanked with a switch, and being told, "Kathleen, you're either rebellious or stupid, and I know you're not stupid," I started having what I recognize now, as panic attacks when Mom wanted me to do something. Mom would start to give me instructions, and I would ask if I could get a pen and paper so I could write them down. Mom would again give me the "listen" speech, except, I would start to plead and cry, and get very worked up. She would look at me and tell me to stop crying and listen. She said I was far too old for tantrums. It wasn't a tantrum. It was an Autistic meltdown, based on the fact that I knew I couldn't remember her instructions, which would therefore lead to condemnation, reminders that I was stupid (sure, Mom thought I wasn't, but I knew I wasn't rebellious, so what was left?), a spanking, and time in my room to get my heart right with God. Though, those times were spent with me pleading with God to find me a way out of all this. And I got...nothing.

What my parents didn't realize at the time, is that I have what is known as Auditory Processing Disorder. It's often a comorbid condition with Autism. The way my neuropathways are constructed, I actually can't remember more than about two verbal instructions in a row. Writing things down is my guaranteed way of remembering them. Because they didn't realize I was Autistic, they treated me like a neurotypical child. And that slowly drove me to the point of desperation. Mom finally stopped spanking me in the summer of 2003, just before my 20th birthday. Why? Well she and my dad finally realized that my "learning disabilities" must have extended to more than my inability to do middle school math. It was a relief not to worry about being spanked anymore. The level of shame it induced to know that I was a legal adult, and still getting spanked, is indescribable. I often wondered what my friends would think if they knew. But I never told them. I couldn't.

Life continued. Mom and Dad decided it would be good for me to take a few music courses at Cincinnati Bible College (now Cincinnati Christian University), but only part time. When I auditioned, I got a call back from the department chair, telling me they wanted to give me their biggest music scholarship, but I would have to go full time. Of course, I wanted to take it! What an offer! But Mom and Dad  said no. They didn't want me to go full time, or get a degree. They wanted me to just take a few classes. I was disappointed, but I thrived in school. I loved my classes. I loved them so much, that when the end of the semester came around, I wanted to take more. But Mom and Dad had decided to spend the spring in El Paso, assisting some missionaries our church supported. Going was pretty much the last thing I wanted. I made that clear. I wanted to stay home, go to school, and keep teaching my students. Mom made it clear, that wasn't an option. This was a family ministry, we were a family unit, we do it as a family.

I won't go into much regarding our time in El Paso, except to say this: We attended a small bilingual church during our time there, and the people kept telling my parents how remarkable it was that I came, even though I was 20. Mom would always say to them, "Yes, she wanted to come and serve with us. That was her decision." Yes, she did. One evening, while in our borrowed apartment, I lost it. I finally told my mom that I hated it when she would tell people I wanted to come, because this was the last place I wanted to be. But I had no choice. It still amazes me that my mom came back with, "But if you didn't want to be here, you wouldn't be." With a voice raised by desperation, I said, "No! That's not true! You told me I could either come or find a new place to live! You didn't give me a choice!" I'll never forget the way she looked at me when she said, "So you wanted to come more than you wanted to find a new place to live."

I don't remember what happened after that. I do remember feeling desperation. That if I didn't get out of there, I would explode. But what was I going to do? I had poor health, I had no job, no money, and no car. I knew any number of relatives would take me in, but I didn't want to turn anyone against my parents, so I just continued in my misery. I'm not going to get all into why or how I finally got out, but I did. My parents declared me to be in rebellion, and continued to remind me that I was out from under my father's umbrella of protection. At 22. Leaving was traumatic in and of itself, and sparked years of dealing with undiagnosed PTSD, which had been misdiagnosed as Bi-Polar disorder, thanks to a long family history on my dad's side.

The last few parts will include some of my own personal studies and knowledge, before I begin to tie all of this together, to actually get to my "personal plea." Please, bear with me through these last few posts. This is the best way I know to try and make myself understood. 

A Personal Plea, Part 6

In December of 1997, my parents and I started attending a different church, one comprised mostly of ATI families. Those who weren't in ATI, still were, for the most part, fundamentalist homeschoolers. I think there were two families in the church that sent their children to school. The church was an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist church, not officially affiliated with ATI, but that didn't really matter. The teachings were the same. No rock music, no dating, girls and women wore long skirts, the young people were expected to stay home until marriage and not go to college. I had everything reinforced everywhere: Home, church and with all ATI events. No wonder I got so caught up in it all.

1998 saw many more ATI events, and an increasing self-consciousness over the fact that, while many of the girls at church wore skirts all the time, even while not at church, I didn't. May came, and with it, came the beginning of swimming season, once again. The first day of swim practice, I told my mom I needed to go to the pool after school for our first practice. Mom looked at me and said I could be on the swim team again if I really wanted, but she wanted me to go upstairs, put on my swimsuit, stand in front of the full length mirror, and think about whether I could feel good about myself in a swimsuit, knowing that a hundred men were looking at me. No, I'm not kidding. Add that to what I'd learned the previous fall at the Counseling Seminar, and my experiences in the 6th grade, and we're talking major body issues taking root, right here. Of course, I had no issues with my bathing suit. I never had. I grew up on swim team, and I had already gone a couple years in this very developed body. But my mother had mastered the art of manipulation (please note- she wasn't like this when I was little, and she's nothing like this now, she has since admitted that this was very wrong and apologized). Instead of her being the bad guy and telling me no, she manipulated me into making that decision myself, transferring all responsibility for the decision to me. I couldn't claim she made me quit, no, she gave me the choice, and I made that decision. And of course, I did choose not to be on the swim team, and it broke my heart.

Some might ask, why I didn't just assert myself and do it. Why didn't I just go for it, and let my mom disapprove? Well, a couple reasons: 1. Those of us with Autism, especially kids and teenagers, are highly susceptible to manipulation from anyone we care about. It's hard for us to name it and say, "Yeah, no, I'm not going to let you manipulate me. I'm doing me." 2. ATI teaches that when you "rebel" against your parents, which this would have been under ATI's definition of "rebellion," you remove yourself from the protections of your authorities, and essentially give Satan and his demonic minions a free pass to do anything they want. Out from under that umbrella, I could get hit by a car while riding my bike to practice, I could hit my head during practice and die, or I could even get raped. And of course, all of those things would be my fault. Mine. No one else's, because I asserted my own will over my parents' and did what I wanted to anyway. Not only that, but ATI liked to remind us of I Samuel 15:23, which states that rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft. Of course, this is taken out of context, but based on ATI's teachings, if I was going to be on swim team anyway, I may as well go join a coven.

This was one very large part of my struggle, throughout our ATI years. Anything I did, I did because I wanted to, not because I had to, according to my parents. And yet, I did almost everything because I had to, not because I wanted to. But my parents took no responsibility for that. Through the years, I died a little inside, every time I came across something like this. It really started to take its toll on me, leading me to a point of sheer desperation. I have probably two more posts left on my ATI years, before I can move on and start actually getting to the whole reason for all these posts in the first place. Thank you for bearing with me, and please continue to bear with me. It is so important to me that those close to me truly understand the depth of my struggle right now, and likely for the next four years. 

A Personal Plea, Part 5

The summer of 1997 was the summer I turned 14. We began the summer by going to ATI's big yearly national conference in Knoxville, at the University of Tennessee. ATI took over a significant portion of the campus for that one week every summer. School was still in session for the public schools in Ohio, so my mom and I went, while my dad stayed in Cincinnati to work. This was my first significant exposure to ATI as a whole.

My mom and I got there, and we stayed in un-air conditioned Hess Hall, where we shared a suite with another solo mom and daughter duo. With all the families in ATI with 4, 6, 8+ kids, it was pretty unusual for just a mom to attend with one child. Of course, I didn't know that yet. What was interesting, which I noticed right away, was the hundreds (thousands, actually) of women and girls wearing long skirts and dresses, and the men and boys in long pants (but no jeans) and collared shirts. It must have been 90 degrees and about 95% humidity, but there were no shorts or sleeveless shirts in sight. There was a very specific "look" to everything as well. It's not like everyone was walking around in stylish maxi skirts and tops. Looking back, it was a little Twilight Zone-esque. It's very hard to describe, but when a person spends enough time within fundamentalist homeschooling circles, it becomes very easy for that person to pick fundamentalist homeschoolers out of a crowd. I still do it to this day, and when I have the chance to investigate or ask questions, I have yet to be wrong.

Our first morning there, my mom and I headed off to breakfast, and then went our separate ways, as Mom went to the parent sessions, and I went to the program for 8-14 year old girls, Pre-Excel. Pre-Excel wasn't horrible. It was kind of more like a gender segregated Vacation Bible School than anything else, or at least, that was my impression. In the evening, Mom and I met back up for the evening family sessions. This was 19 years ago, and I was new to ATI and all that entailed, but I do remember something very important: The energy present during the Knoxville conferences was invigorating and contagious. The more the week went on, the more excited I got about living this new "godly" lifestyle, about the leader, Bill Gothard, and his teachings, and ATI's "New Approach to Life."

Following Knoxville, in October of that year, I went to the Indianapolis Training Center for ATI's "Young Ladies' Counseling Seminar." I was 14, and one of a few hundred girls ages 14 and up, who spent approximately 10 hours a day for a week in the main conference room, listening to Mr. Gothard himself talk about how to counsel people in crisis, the "Biblical" way. Why anyone thought it was a good idea with a bunch of teenagers is beyond me. Throughout the week, he would talk about the specific evils of rock music. No, I'm not talking about Aerosmith and Metallica and Bon Jovi. Or rather, I'm not just talking about them. Mr. Gothard would talk about how the rock beat was inherently evil, created by witch doctors and pagans in Africa to conjur evil spirits. It was then brought to the US by the African slaves, and made its way into American music over the years. Even Contemporary Christian Music (CCM), and a LOT of more modern Gospel (yes, this includes the Gaithers), was actually evil. We were told of how so many of the world's problems, and the church's problems, and teenage rebellion, etc., could be solved by eliminating this evil music, in favor of old fashioned hymns and new music that was not contaminated by a rock beat. They told us that rock music caused tumors, homosexual behavior, and cannibalism in rats. It made plants die. It threw everything around it into utter disorder. Of course, we were then asked to make a covenant with God to never listen to rock music, and not allow Satan a stronghold in our lives through that.

We also were taught about how we should never ever keep anything of any kind to our parents, and that even the tiniest secret could open us up to attacks from Satan, because we had removed ourselves from under our father's God-ordained "umbrella of protection." We were encouraged to call our parents and confess any and every tiny infraction we had ever kept from our parents. I'm not talking about drug use, a shoplifting habit, stealing money from our parents, sneaking out at night, etc. I'm taking about things like maybe that one time you sneaked a flashlight under the covers to finish a book after lights out, three years ago. Or maybe that one time you told your parents you had brushed your teeth, but didn't when you were 8. Or that time you accidentally forgot to water your mom's ficus plant before church one morning. Those kinds of things. Any tiny infraction could, according to Gothard and ATI, completely open you up to attacks from Satan and his demons. Even writing this sounds ridiculous. I have no idea how I didn't see it then. But of course, I was only a 14 year old girl, told by her parents to listen to the things this wise man said.

The most horrific part of the Counseling Seminar is one that was actually exposed by the mainstream media in late May and June of 2015, after the media found out about Josh Duggar's sexual abuse of his sisters and a neighbor. The curriculum used to counsel sexual abuse victims in ATI is extremely victim-blaming. It actually blamed sexual abuse among siblings on little girls being outside of their bedrooms wearing nightgowns. Or parents allowing their sons to change their baby daughter's diapers. Or parents allowing a younger child to hang out with an older one, unsupervised. Bill Gothard taught that if a victim was sexually abused and cried out, he or she was blameless. But if the victim did not, then they were, to a very large degree, responsible. There was zero room for any kind of real understanding of how the human psyche works, and that people react different ways to trauma. Some have a fight instinct, and some freeze. And this has absolutely nothing to do with character. Of course, in order to prevent such things, it was the responsibility of girls and women to dress as modestly as possible, so that the boys could not possibly be "defrauded." For me, this proved to be a bit of a nightmare, because my previously 34C bra size had grown by then. I'm sorry, but when you have the kind of chest I have, nothing but a cardboard box is going to keep people from seeing that yes, in fact, I do have breasts. And this would prove to be a real problem for me for years to come, especially considering my past sexual harassment and assault.

I think the Counseling Seminar was the proverbial nail in the coffin for me. By the time I went home, I had been caught. Completely, and entirely caught by the cult, and I would spend the next 8 years struggling with not being good enough, and not being content with where God had "clearly" intended me to be. Over the next few years, I would slowly lose more and more of myself, as my true personality retreated further and further inside of myself, in order for me to even be able to survive. And that, is the perfect place for Part 6 to pick up.

A Personal Plea, Part 4

I know a lot of you will read this and ask, "What does this have to do with Donald Trump?" Well, this particular post has no obvious correlations, but it is absolutely necessary background information in order for you to be able to understand the posts to come. So please, bear with me through this one.

In August of 1996, my parents enrolled our family (which by this time consisted of the three of us), in the Advanced Training Institute International (ATI), a fundamentalist Christian cult founded and led (at the time) by Bill Gothard. Up until then, life at home had been pretty rough. As I said in earlier posts, I already had PTSD when I reached the 6th grade. Two sibling-related traumas had caused it at the age of 3, and again at age 6. Based on that, it shouldn't be a surprise that by the time I was 13, my older siblings had driven my parents to the point of desperation. As any good parents would, they thought they were to blame. They thought they were bad parents. They weren't- my siblings each had unusually heavy issues to bear from the beginning, due to their adoptions, that I, as a biological child, simply didn't have. But my parents didn't realize that. So even though I was not at risk to go off the deep end as my siblings had, my parents thought I was, and took it upon themselves to become better parents.

There was a family at our church who had 4 happy, well-behaved kids, all older than I. Since they had turned out two wonderful adult children, and two wonderful nearly adult children, my parents asked them what their secret was. They introduced my parents to ATI, Bill Gothard, and homeschooling. And my parents completely went for it. Of course, they didn't realize it was a cult at the time. It wasn't secret (though it definitely was exclusive), people weren't forced to live in a communal compound (though they had several throughout the country, referred to as "training centers"), they weren't forced to shave their heads (though men did have to shave their beards- including my dad), etc. They just thought it was a good resource for godly living and raising godly children. As they looked into it, what they saw was family after family with a dozen happy, smiling, obedient kids.

My parents went for a week long introductory seminar for the parents of newly enrolled families at the Indianapolis Training Center, and came back talking about so many different things. Imagine being 13 years old, raised in a fairly "normal" Catholic/Evangelical hybrid home (I know, I know, it doesn't sound normal, but it was a lot more normal than you'd think), and suddenly your parents come home from a week away and tell you that all the rules had suddenly changes. You'd been promised your whole life that when you turned 13, you could start wearing light makeup and get your ears pierced, but suddenly, makeup became vanity, and pierced ears became body mutilation. You'd been promised your whole life that you could start dating at 16, and could go to all the school dances throughout high school, except now, dating led to depravity, and father-led courtship was the only way to go, and only once you were an adult and ready to get married. Your parents had stopped spanking you at the age of 8, only to take you out to eat (I still remember the exact booth at the Frisch's on Spring Grove Avenue we were in) and tell you that they suddenly had been shown God's way to discipline, and that they were going to start spanking you again, but more often, and this time, with a tree limb, and imagine that continuing until you were nearly 20 years old.

I could go on and on, but I won't. The point is, my life got turned upside down by well-meaning parents trying to save a kid who didn't even need saving. I remember fighting over homeschooling. I didn't want that. I wanted to be in band (which, I was in for the Christmas concert at my old school the one year after I left, due to an awesome band teacher (you're reading this, and you know who you are) and an utter dearth of decent French Horn players in the 7th and 8th grade bands). I wanted to be able to be in school plays. I wanted to be able to swim in high school. I didn't want to be removed from the things that most gave me life. I remember fighting over the "courtship covenant" my parents wanted me to sign when I was 13. That was going to be just one more way I was different from all of my friends, and everyone I had grown up with. I remember being told that I wouldn't be allowed to go to college. I had dreamed about college since before I started preschool. I'm not even kidding.

Other than those things, the first year in ATI wasn't horrible. I still went to youth group, I still listened to my contemporary Christian music (CCM), and I still was on swim team. But by the summer of 1997, my parents had so deeply bought into the lies of ATI, that the real trauma started. And that's a story for Part 5.