I am currently 19 years old, about to be a junior at a prestigious liberal arts college. I have a great family who cares about me; I have an above average GPA, but to me, my life feels in shambles.
My name is Abby, and I was raised in a cult.
It started out innocently enough. I was four years old, my family had moved to a new town, and a member from a nearby church came to our door to invite us to their congregation. My father decided to visit, and eventually became a member. This church was a Fundamental Baptist Church and it also had a school adjoined to the building, a small kindergarten to 12th-grade Christian school. When I turned five, my father decided to send me there. For the “education” he would claim, but as he slipped further into the religious community, I suspected it had more to do with my family's adoption of their ideologies.
On my first day of kindergarten, my teacher told the whole class that Santa Claus wasn’t real, and it was horrible to think he was because it was taking away the attention from Jesus’ birth. After a couple months of this type of indoctrination, I told everyone in my family that I had gotten “saved,” and that they were all going to Hell if they didn’t get saved, as well. I would go on to be “saved” multiple times throughout my childhood, but these conversions never seemed to stick.
This behavior served as warning signs to my mother, yet my father turned a blind eye. My life was built around that church, that community, that school. From the time I was five, until the summer of my junior year of high school, I was trapped -- spending nearly every day within this toxicity. It impacted my parents differently than me because the church had the most control over me. I was the vulnerable one. They taught the children to be “of the world” and not “in it.” After I started school there, I had no “worldly” friends, just the ones who went to the church and school.
They cut you off from anyone else that has any different ideas, by telling you that the “world” is dark, and sinful and full of pregnant teenagers and drug addicts. I’m not going to go into everything that they did, because frankly, you've already seen these things showcased in your local conservative church congregations. And my particular church took it to extremes in their overreach of modifying behavior and thought patterns.
- You have to be “saved” to be admitted.
- You must wear skirts below the knee.
- No nail polish.
- You must wear pantyhose and slips underneath your skirt.
- There must be always six inches between you and the opposite sex (I once got into trouble for high-fiving my friend who was a guy).
To become a member of the church choir (which I did because all of my friends were doing it), you would have to sign a contract saying:
- You may not go to the movie theater.
- You may not go to the beach.
- You may not wear pants.
The pastor would preach sermons on how you should not let your children watch any movies other than ones rated PG, and even some of those were iffy, regardless of their age (like 17). I was forbidden to read or watch "Harry Potter" because it glorified witchcraft, and that is an abomination. Many more painful grievances could be listed, but that is not what I want to focus on.
What I want to focus on is how it affects me to this day. When I started getting into my teens, I began to realize how much I did not want to be in that school or the church. I knew what was going on wasn't right, and I was especially aware that I was different than most teenagers my age. I was still so immersed in the community, but I would go to Walmart with my parents, and people would stare at me, even laugh at me. I knew I was not a normal teenager. I was different, and I most desperately just wanted to be normal.
I would beg my dad to send me to a public school and, of course, he told me no. I knew I was not “saved,” and that I was stuck. So I played the part. In order to avoid being ostracized by my peers, my teachers, my pastor, I learned to play the part very quickly, very well, and at an early age. I was going to fool them all, be the perfect Christian girl, pretend I that I dreamt of being a pastor’s wife when I grew up, and then as soon as I turned 18, I would be out of there.
It was self-preservation in the environment that I had been forced in, but to this day, I’m not quite sure if it was the best or worst thing to do. As soon as I left the church at the age of 17, I started having anxiety attacks which have become more frequent over time. Because I had been the playing the part of someone I was not for so long, I never had the time to figure out who I really was. Childishly, when you are younger you think that as soon as you get out of a bad situation, everything will be great. I learned that while it can certainly be better, there will always be repercussions. I have also learned that although I am working to lessen the grip those repercussions have on me, they will still always be there to some degree.
I was thrown down from the Baptist’s heaven to Earth, where I did not know who I was, what kind of personality I had, and what I wanted to aspire to. Although I was able to leave, it was too late, I would carry the lessons that they have instilled in me forever. I will always have a “me vs. the world” mentality, even though I know it is wrong. I have to remind myself that everything is not a sin and that literally everything is a shade of gray.
Even though they were sometimes horrible to me, I grieve over the people I grew up with, and families that treated me like I was their own. They now shun me and refuse to talk to me. It was like my whole life was a book and someone tore out not just a chapter, but most of the pages. I had to start all over. I have no self-esteem from years of people telling me I would amount to nothing, but a subordinate to my future husband. I have random bouts of unexplainable anger and sadness. I explain it to some people that it is like a form of PTSD. Certain things are triggers to me, and I have nightmares about being forced to go back, and being trapped so I cannot leave. This is still happening to me every day, and it’s been three years.
I used to be ashamed of my childhood. It was not my fault, but I always still had the feeling in the back of my mind that people would still stare and laugh if I ever exposed my past to them. All I ever wanted to be in life was normalcy, and now I know that I can’t have that. I’m never going to be and that’s OK. I can hide from it all I want, but it will still be waiting for me when I give up and come back home to my empty house. Things like reading articles, and even watching "Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt," help me feel like I’m not alone. I’ve come to terms with my situation, and I also know I’m not the only one who has experienced this, or will. There’s even a name to what I have: religious trauma syndrome, and there are many that suffer from it. I am no longer ashamed of who I was, or am now. For being raised in such a close-minded environment, I’d say I’m doing pretty well thinking for myself, and I can still continue to grow and learn from the “world” around me. Those people from the “world” aren’t that bad, huh? They aren’t really the ones I am worried about anymore.
My name is Abby. I was raised in a cult, but I have a new life now.
