Author: Eleanor Skelton

Eleanor Skelton is a freelance journalist and educator. They were homeschooled kindergarten through senior year of high school within the high-demand subculture of fundamentalist Christianity during the 90s and 00s before completing their bachelor’s degree at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. Eleanor speaks about their experiences in leaving a cult to advocate for other survivors. They are currently enrolled in a journalism graduate program at the University of Alabama. They write about deconstruction and mental wellness at www.eleanorskelton.com.

Why my parents aren’t villains

Editorial Note: The following is reprinted with permission from Eleanor Skelton’s blog. It was originally published on January 17, 2015.

The morning I moved out, I texted my research professor who was helping me leave that my parents weren’t letting me take the heirloom violin, but left me an old laundry basket, a case of canned green beans, and a pot they didn’t like.

She replied, “That sounds like Harry’s birthday presents from the Dursleys.” Yep. The crazy relatives who made Harry Potter live in the cupboard under the stairs.

Sometimes my parents act like the Dursleys. Or even Miss Minchin in A Little Princess. It’s easy to compare my parents to fairy tale bad guys. And even helpful sometimes in predicting their behavior.

But villainizing anyone denies the psychological complexity at work.

My parents are more like the mature antagonists in classical literature. They’re more similar to Javert in Les Miserables, whose sense of justice and punishment for lawbreakers overrides any compassion, rendering him incapable of giving or accepting mercy.

And the pastor who said honoring my parents as an adult meant absolute obedience isn’t a villain either.

Sometimes I feel like fundamentalism was like living in Wise Blood, one of Flannery O’Connor’s Southern Gothic novels. The story is riddled with variations of extreme street preachers proclaiming damnation, but unable to uphold their own rigid moral standards.

My parents paid tuition for the A Beka Academy video curriculum, which was more than other families at our church could afford and made sure I graduated with an accredited high school diploma so I didn’t have to take the GED like my other homeschooled friends.

In 3rd grade when I was diagnosed with ADHD and prescribed Ritalin and a depressant, my mom saw how unbalanced I was. She told the doctors she’d make our home quiet so I could focus. She copied my long division problems lengthwise on lined notebook paper so I’d keep the columns straight.

My parents noticed I wasn’t on the growth percentile charts at the pediatrician’s office. They appealed for insurance coverage for my growth hormone replacement therapy when I was 12 to 16. Female growth plates between bones fuse around menarche, so my parents worked with my endocrinologist for an experimental combined treatment that delayed puberty and gave me more growing time.

My dad was even going to sell our more expensive car to afford a year of treatment without insurance.

If not for the daily Nutropin and monthly Lupron injections, today I’d be a real-life dwarf. I wouldn’t be able to drive a regular car or reach dishes in kitchen cabinets.

And they did pay for my first three years of college. My dad always said he wanted to give me “every advantage in life.”

I know deep down my parents love me.

Even if they don’t believe I am an adult yet. Even if they try to control what I believe and what I do.

Their beliefs dictate that they should shun me because I don’t measure up to what they think God wants.

Back in high school, the pastor at my last church talked me through why the King James Version isn’t an inspired translation or the only valid Bible to read. It was one of the first conversations that helped me to recognize the fear and control inherent in legalism.

And now he too believes I should be ostracized.

The summer I moved out, I borrowed the graphic novel Watchmen from my punk friend Kat. It’s about the second generation of a group of superheros blended into American history. But the first generation wasn’t as perfect as the press advertised.

“Who watches the Watchmen?” the book asks over and over. Who makes sure the good guys don’t become bad guys? What happens when authority is corrupted?

And (SPOILER) at the end the “villain” is one of their own. Disaster is sort of averted, they save the planet, but there is no real hero, either. Life just continues.

It’s not black and white.

Like Cynthia Jeub wrote, of course it wasn’t all bad.

My parents did many good things. And many hurtful things. I’m not obligated to give into their demands, I don’t have to lose my freedom. The bad doesn’t void the good and the good doesn’t cancel out the bad.

But if I don’t recognize their human complexity, then I am refusing to see the raw reality. And I will blind myself from the truth.

Why do you say you left fundamentalism?

Editorial Note: The following is reprinted with permission from Eleanor Skelton’s blog. It was originally published on January 15, 2015.

The biggest question that surfaced during this week’s series was: “What do you mean when you say you left fundamentalism?”

I’m mostly referring to the definition that Homeschoolers Anonymous used in their 2014 alumni survey:

Christian Fundamentalism includes, but is not limited to, the following ideologies: Christian legalism, Quiverfull, young earth creationism, anti-LGBT rights, Christian Patriarchy, modesty and purity culture, betrothal and/or courtship, stay-at-home daughter movement, Dominionism, and Christian Reconstructionism. It is not limited to Protestantism and can also be seen in Catholic, Mormon, and other subcultures.

Does it mean I stopped believing core doctrines of the faith? No.

Have I wrestled with what to believe now? Yes.

I actually wrote a post on it called help my unbelief.

But many of the fundamentalist ideologies listed above are recent inventions, reacting against the hippie movement and supporting the conservative boom of the Reagan administration.

These are not central tenets of the faith, at least traditionally. My Catholic and Orthodox friends have showed me as much.

The trouble is that we mean different things when we use terms like fundamentalism. Or legalism. My sister told me her freshman seminar at Bob Jones University discussed how to avoid legalism. But from my perspective, the BJU student handbook is legalistic (check out the dress codes) and doesn’t allow college students to formulate opinions.

Why did I leave fundamentalism? Because those belief systems taught me to fear the outside, helped me to think that only people who believed the exact same set of things I did were safe to associate with.

This is why I refer to it as “the box.”

I realized purity culture can make women feel like their virginity determines their worth, and I stopped wearing my purity ring. I replaced it with different rings, rings that matched a new understanding of my worth.

I stopped believing in courtship because I realized my dad may never approve who I would want to marry.

I sold my copy of the Botkins sisters’ book So Much More during freshman year of college, because well. The Botkins said girls were more easily tainted by the college experience and should not seek out higher education.

Rebecca Davis wrote about why being a stay-at-home daughter is not a Biblical mandate in her post For Shame, Beautiful Botkins. She defends single female missionaries the Botkins condemned.

I read about how many were hurt by Bill Gothard’s teachings and abuse at Recovering Grace.

One of my chemistry professors reminded me that I didn’t have to believe in young earth creationism because “it’s not a salvation issue.” Now my answer is simply: I don’t know. I don’t care whether the universe came about in 6 days or 6 billion years. It’s a beautiful place to live, and I like to think someone awesome created it somehow.

Oddly, the Pearls’ articles against patriarchy in 2011 convinced me that my family was unhealthy: Cloistered Homeschool Syndrome and Patriarchal Dysfunctional Families, Part 2. Although their child rearing methods advocate breaking childrens’ spirits and enable abuse.

In my teen years, I knew several Quiverfull families, although my family only had us three. I loved hanging out with the family with 13 kids we knew in Dallas, and the Jeub kids made me feel almost one of them at their birthday bash in 2013. But I always wondered if they were really happy or if they hid their problems.

I read books like The Children Are Free arguing that Christianity and LGBT lifestyles aren’t incompatible. And my friend Cynthia Jeub wrote a defense of equal marriage rights, based on her own interpretation of the Bible.

I now support making all marital unions contract-based, with a divorce clause built in so breakups could be more amicable. Then religious organizations wouldn’t be forced to perform ceremonies, and my LGBT friends would have equality with any other couple.

My parents didn’t believe all of the fundamental philosophies I’ve described here. Many of them I found in Focus on the Family’s Clubhouse or Brio magazines and devotional / Christian living books I received for Christmas or birthdays.

Other ideas seeped in through guilt and fear-based devotionals like Leslie Ludy’s Set Apart Thot YouTube videos, which argue that “even the good things in our life [example: Starbucks] can become idols” and “the only true beauty comes from a life totally surrendered to Jesus Christ.”

For those who believe Christian theology, valuing anything to the point of worship would be idolatry. I believe that I give over my darkness and am healed by the light, and for me, I think it comes from Jesus. But videos and sermons like Ludy’s seem to encourage excessive self-denial and an obsession with sacrifice.

This is the problem with words like fundamentalism.

And other church buzzwords like surrender or take up your cross. (I took that last one literally in my self-harm.)

For one person, the words capture a beautiful release or fulfillment. For another, the same words trigger being crushed by guilt and self-hatred.

In leaving fundamentalism, I left behind a cult-like system of beliefs that caged me.

My friend Rebecca M. sent me an article last fall on recovery from religious abuse, which recommends: “Take a breather from organized religion for about three to nine months, at least. Deal with your questions about religion, ethics, and philosophy in an honest and challenging manner.”

This is why I only attend church services and events sporadically. Many familiar things are still painful. Rachel Held Evans described this in her post this week Post-Evangelicals and Why We Can’t Just Get Over It.

This is why it’s taken me over two years to hope I can find welcome in a church again.

This is what I left.

Read Part One, Two, Three and Four.

#WhyILeft Fundamentalism, Part 4

Editorial Note: The following is reprinted with permission from Eleanor Skelton’s blog. It was originally published on January 13, 2015.

Continued from part 3

Can You meet me in my room?
A place where I feel safe
Where I don’t have to run away
Where I can just be me. – TFK, In My Room

I was like a kid on an adventure the first night in the new apartment.

The second or third night, I called Cynthia B. crying and homesick. She said it was normal and part of growing up.

Until 2012, I never spent a night away from home without my parents. Then I stayed at a friend’s house one weekend in June before leaving.

And I had no idea how to cook.

My first roommate taught me how to make ramen in the microwave.

Dad always worried I’d burn myself on the stove or slice open my finger. Or spill something. I begged them to teach me throughout my teen years. I even planned a dinner when I was 14 and brought Mom the recipes, but Dad didn’t let me.

I started seeing through the cracks, saw how much fear had controlled all of our lives.

I biked to school and rode the bus for the first three months. Then my parents gave me back part of the money so I could buy a car in November 2012.

My second roommate taught me how to live paycheck to paycheck, how to find cheap, gluten-free food when I discovered I was allergic like her.

In April 2013, I found Spiritual Abuse Survivors blog network through a friend and soon after, Homeschoolers Anonymous.

I read about more gentle parenting methods at Permission to Live.

Through reading blogs and talking to friends, I learned it’s not normal to spank your children until they stop crying because crying is “rebellious” and leaving bruises and teaching your child to cover them is also considered abuse.

Most people, even those who grew up in church like me, weren’t spanked until they were 14 and threatened with a belt until age 18.

I started dealing with my dark side, confronting why I self-harmed.

A school counselor helped me through the first year, and my Christian counselor later came out of retirement briefly and my parents and I went to group counseling summer 2013.

Because… my parents did not back down because I left.

The first Sunday after leaving, I went down the street to visit a new church.

My family drove by while I was walking down the sidewalk, rolled down the car windows, and shouted, “Just remember, Bob Jones is still available!”

My dad sent me advertisements for cars he would buy for me if I went to Bob Jones. And a deluge of letters and text messages and emails and phone calls pleading for me to reconsider the first year I was away. My parents dropped by the Science Center on campus while I was tutoring, bringing gifts and asking me to come back.

My anxiety issues spiraled, but my professors understood, giving me extensions.

Heart and brain argued on where to draw the line. I loved my parents, but I wasn’t a child anymore. I didn’t want to have to choose between my family and my adulthood.

Which is why I identified with Tirzah’s story on Homeschoolers Anonymous last week: “Only in my mom’s sad world of jumbled theology would moving out be akin to losing one’s family.”

Everyone told me that my freedom would have a price.

But some days, I ache, wishing my family understood me. Understood my heart.

Understood that I don’t write to condemn them, I write because I’m in pain. I write because I want our relationship to change and heal. I write, pleading with other homeschool parents, “Please, don’t do this to your kids.”

I’m told that blogs are biased, I’m accused of not showing both sides.

So I’m including three open letters between me and my parents and one of the more impersonal ones my sister sent. Quotes can be taken out of context, so here is the entire conversation.

Letter from my parents 11-12-2012
(After the 2012 election. I had voted to legalize marijuana in Colorado after researching studies on the chemical effects of THC.)

My letter 7-9-2013

Mom’s response letter 7-16-2013

Letter from sister 10-27-2013
(Mostly an essay arguing that my actions require the church discipline in Matthew 18.)

Right now, my relationship with my family is inconsistent. We talk sometimes. They help in a pinch, but I fear control creeping in again.

But I know they don’t accept me or approve of me. Nothing seems to count now. Not being self-sufficient, not holding steady jobs, not graduating college this spring. Not my passion for journalism or theater.

It’s like my leaving was an earthquake, and now a canyon lies between us.

But I found others on this side of the canyon, too.

Friends who later asked me to help them escape their own boxes. Professors who encouraged my independence, who had life phase changes of their own in college. My pastor friend in Texas who listened to my story and made me want to try church again.

In July 2013, I told Lissi on G-chat:

You know what?
I realized something yesterday.
I don’t think my family is my family anymore.
I mean, I will always love them, and they are blood.
They are my kin.
But they are not the family I grew up with anymore. That is now changed forever.
My “family” now emotionally is more like Ducky [my second roommate], you, the two Cynthias, other close friends, and my professors.
You all treat me more like family and support me more than my own family does.
I think this realization makes me more okay with emotionally separating from my family, too.
Because at least I have you all. <3

She replied, “Ahhh… the Chosen Family realization.”

Yes, the fight was worth it. Now I am free. Free indeed.

Read Parts One and Two.

#WhyILeft Fundamentalism, Part 3

Editorial Note: The following is reprinted with permission from Eleanor Skelton’s blog. It was originally published on January 11, 2015.

Continued from Part 2

That’s why I hide here in the dark
So no one has to see my pain…
But can You bring the keys to my heart
And help me find the way? – TFK, In My Room

My growing independence unsettled my parents.

The fear crept in subtly.

I buried myself in 15 credits fall 2011. Several nights of the week, I stayed in the Math Center on campus doing calculus homework with tutors.

But Dad freaked if I didn’t respond to his texts or calls right away, threatening to call campus police to check on me. I explained I got absorbed in study and didn’t check my phone often.

He taped an index card that said “Campus Police: 719-255-3111” to the kitchen microwave.

The landslide started. I was 22 years old.

December 2011: I started seeing a Christian counselor because Mom took my sister.

I told him how controlling my parents were, and he encouraged me to set boundaries. I wrote in my journal that he told me to stop thinking in terms of “shoulds” and “musts” and more in terms of “wants” and “your reasonable heart’s desires,” because the former is living under the law, and the latter is “where freedom is and where Christ wants you to be.”

We met regularly until his retirement in April.

After finals, my parents raided my room, confiscating all Harry Potter books I owned and other fantasy they found objectionable. And two Harry Potter DVDs I’d checked out of the library.

Mom opened my bank statements. Said I spent too much money at Christmas. Opening any mail or packages addressed to me became a requirement for living in their house. I objected. They grounded me from attending a white elephant gift exchange party with my online writers’ group. Dad drove my sister instead.

January 2012: Dad said my hair had to be cut off because women with longer hair are more likely to get raped according to a book Mom read on self defense. I fought him for three weeks, gave in and donated 14 inches to Locks of Love.

My parents took away internet and cellphone access and driving privileges the last two weeks of winter break. I chatted with my friend Anna G. in Dallas on my mom’s iPad in the morning and on the landline with Cynthia B. so I didn’t hurt myself. I felt so trapped.

They threatened to prevent me from driving to campus for classes and work unless I signed a written contract. I didn’t like being manipulated, so I agreed to the chore list and asked them not to pay me.

My curfew was 7:30 p.m.

February 2012: I discovered my study buddy Racquel and Cynthia B.’s numbers were blocked on my cellphone. My mom said Dad told her to block them on our family plan since they’d encouraged me to move out. So I called them using campus phones.

March 2012: Dad and I fought at midterms because he wouldn’t let me study. I was enrolled in 17 credits (Organic Chemistry 2, Chaucer, Bacteriology, an English senior seminar, and a Merck honors research lab class) and tutoring on campus part-time.

I told him I wanted to move out after finals. He cried and told me he wanted to be a hedge of protection around me as long as possible.

April 2012: I bought tickets to go to New Life Church’s Easter production, the Thorn, for the first time. My dad said he didn’t approve, I went anyway.

May 2012: After finals, we took our last family vacation together to Camden, Maine. Mom and Dad said they had an idea. They would send me to Bob Jones University.

I didn’t want to leave UCCS after three years and attend an unaccredited school. I read the 2012 BJU student handbook and told my parents I wasn’t comfortable with rules like “on and off campus, physical contact between unmarried men and women is not allowed” and “Headphones may be used for educational purposes only and may not be used to listen to music” because it sounded Orwellian.

I didn’t want to leave one box for another.

They allowed me one phone call to Nia, a writing mentor. She said prepare to move out ASAP.

June 2012: Mom and Dad laid hands and prayed over me, saying I had been given to them as a loan when I was born and they were giving me back to God. They said determining God’s will for my life was up to me now.

I went with my writer’s group buddies to a 10:30 pm showing of Snow White and the Huntsman. I texted my parents before going. I came home, everyone was asleep. I woke up and the car keys were gone for a week as punishment.

July 4, 2012: I visited the Bob Jones campus with my family. I wasn’t allowed my laptop or cellphone so friends couldn’t sway me. I still didn’t want to transfer, even though Dad said I didn’t have to be a dentist if I went.

July 22, 2012: Met with my parents and my pastor after church. My pastor asked if I was being physically or sexually abused. I said no, my dad was just controlling and I wanted freedom to follow God on my own. He said the only way to honor my parents was to transfer to BJU.

July 23, 2012: I told an English professor and my chemistry research professor, Dr. Owens, what was happening. They listened to me, helped me sort my thoughts. Told me independence was part of growing up, that virtue in a closet is not virtue. Said to listen to my heart.

I told my parents to give me another week to decide. The next day, I got an email from BJU saying my registration fee had been paid. I called my mother and asked her to explain. She said they figured I’d go.

My parents tracked my location using the GPS on T-Mobile’s Family Anywhere feature. They checked multiple times a day and knew from the satellite map of the building if I was working in the research lab or standing in my professor’s office. So I was scolded for driving to a mentor’s house for advice.

July 27, 2012: I walked to investigate apartments near campus since my parents took the car. My mom told me they’d emptied my savings account of nearly $10,000. The funding I was using to leave. Money I earned working for Dad and money they gave me as my college savings.

July 29, 2012: Another meeting with the pastor. I said God’s will seemed muddled. He said I was letting Satan confuse me. He said BJU was the only Scriptural way to honor my parents. I twisted my hands in my lap, said I couldn’t do it. He said, “Then I’ve got nothing more to say to you,” and walked out.

I sat in the pew sobbing. My mom came in.

I said, “Do you realize I can never come back here for church now?”

July 30, 2012: Dr. Owens picked me up and took me to the bank so I could remove my parents from my checking account, which only had $200. I drove her car from campus to a downtown branch, but the bank couldn’t transfer the money back to my account.

I signed up for my own cellphone plan. And my friend Mary W. and her mom gave me one of their bikes, a helmet, and gloves for transportation.

August 1, 2012: I signed a lease for an apartment with my roommate. Dr. Owens gave me $500 towards the deposit.

Mom and Dad said my possessions must be out of the house by 5 p.m. Around 3 p.m., I texted friends for help. I dragged furniture and boxes out onto the front porch in pouring rain.

Five carloads of friends came, carrying my punk pink-haired friend Kat, Ivy, Adaeze, Elsie, the Peveto twins, and Kristi and John.

Mom took my house key, but she couldn’t kick me out in front of all my friends. We pulled up at the apartment complex around 7 p.m.

And I was out.

Or so I thought.

Read Parts One and Four.

#WhyILeft Fundamentalism, Part 2

Editorial Note: The following is reprinted with permission from Eleanor Skelton’s blog. It was originally published on January 10, 2015.

Continued from Part 1

They make me feel so empty
Their words, they cut like knives
You tell me to forgive them,
But I’m not sure I’ll survive… – TFK, In My Room

“The way you talk about English, you really don’t seem like a dentist to me. You talk about it like you really love it,” Cynthia B. said, shifting in her electric wheelchair.

Cynthia B. was my first friend outside the box. We met in a British literature survey class fall semester 2010.

“I get that the practice is your dad’s gift to you, but maybe there is another way to honor him. Maybe you could take the practice, keep it for a few years, then pass it on to safe hands. And do something with English.”

But I didn’t see how I could be my real self and not disappoint my parents. Since I couldn’t have both, I was sacrificing myself in an attempt to please my parents and protect my siblings.

But my creative soul was reawakening.

My dad said leisure activities were a waste of time since it wasn’t school or work for his office. He said rest was for the dead.

I taught myself to sightread music using a hymnal when a family friend gave us her old piano right after moving to Colorado Springs. Mom had wanted a piano ever since she first married. Dad said I didn’t have time for lessons, but later allowed my sister to learn from our pastor’s wife.

But if Mom or I sat down to play, my dad would call us away within minutes and give us a more useful task.

I hid in my room when I read or wrote poetry or waited until I was alone in the house to play a musical instrument.

Senior year of high school, I took A Beka Academy’s Jaffe Strings orchestra program for the performing arts requirement, using a family heirloom violin from the 1890s.

But Dad didn’t let me play in the orchestra group at church or take private lessons after graduation. He drove me to rehearsals, but had Mom call my mentor and say I couldn’t attend the actual performance. After two times, I gave up.

Later, I drove myself to college, so I paid for violin lessons every other week second semester of freshman year. But June 2010, a week before our group performance in church, Dad told me I couldn’t participate because it was on his birthday.

I called my teacher to back out. She was furious. I hung up, called my mom crying. Mom said I had to obey my dad.

I asked Jesus if I could die now. Breathing hurt.

Trapped at home alone, I dialed Focus on the Family’s number in a panic around 9 a.m., thinking they wouldn’t involve the outside government agencies I feared. I told the elderly lady who answered that I was suicidal and needed to speak to a counselor.

While I waited, I read forum threads online to distract myself and watched the Lifehouse Everything skit on YouTube and sobbed.

A counselor called back around 2 p.m. I told him my dad controlled me and didn’t let me have friends and I was miserable. He said I should join a college Bible study on campus or at church.

I told him Dad didn’t allow that and asked him how I could move out and honor my parents. He said I needed to keep living at home and seek out friends and a mate in Bible study groups. Then he prayed with me and hung up.

Dad relented, I was in the performance. But he said he didn’t see any value in doing special music at church.

I despaired. The one hotline I trusted to keep my anonymity didn’t understand. Maybe I was the problem, maybe I should accept my loneliness and deaden my desires.

This is how I stopped feeling, how I got emotional hypothermia.

But I didn’t stay alone.

In October 2009, first semester of college, another homeschooled friend I met in driving school invited me to CleanPlace, an online Christian writer’s forum for teens run by a handful of women writers in their 30s. They encouraged my poetry and feedbacked my stories. They didn’t dismiss creativity as a waste of time.

Most of the members were homeschooled, and several of them had been crushed and isolated like me. I found community. I wasn’t the only one stuck in the box.

I started making friends at college, too.

First I befriended my professors, since I was a straight A student and I was used to talking to adults, not my peers.

Then I tutored chemistry in the Science Center on campus, my first real job outside my family or my church.

I’d avoided the punk girl with long pink hair and industrial piercings who yelled F*** at her Analytical Chemistry textbook, but then she befriended me. We debated Christianity and philosophy and traded graphic novels.

After sophomore year, I let myself read for fun again.

That summer and fall, after a discussion with one of my writing mentors, I read the Harry Potter books and later wrote a defense of them as being almost Christian fantasy.

I was happier than I’d been in years.

But my parents saw me changing. And they were afraid.

Read Parts Three and Four.