The One At Christmas

I'm home for Christmas, and while my family is exasperating and sometimes makes me want to pull every single strand of hair out of my head, I love them and wouldn't want to spend this time of year anywhere else.

Holidays have always been stressful at my house - whether it's Dad yelling at whatever meat we're having, or Mom complaining that no one's helping her when in fact we'd love to help, she's just horrible at delegating. It could be my younger siblings complaining about how the older kids don't help with setting the table, or my brother and me whining about having to move the (very heavy, awkwardly large) grill for the third time in two days, or my older sister yelling at everyone younger than her to go help Mom while she sits on her computer or hides upstairs and sleeps. These are the things that I've grown up expecting at holidays and to not have them would be very discombobulating. I complain about these things, but at the same time, these are the things that make my family's Thanksgivings, Christmases, and Easters feel like home.

Dad, I do not thank you for wearing a dress to bed and then not changing until after 11AM. There's a line, and you crossed it when you turned 13 and still insisted on wearing those things. I do, however, thank you for being good-natured enough to let us mock you mercilessly for it. Thank you for being the provider of beer to the poor college student who can't drink it at her Baptist school.

Mom, thank you for always putting on a fantastic meal that usually leave me feeling a little distended. Thank you for keeping up the tradition of carrot casserole, even though you know that Dad is the only one who likes it. It's great for throwing at squirrels for the next week until the leftovers mysteriously disappear.

Rachel... thank you for finally being less of a tight-butt. "That's what she said" is hilarious and I'm glad that Iraq made you appreciate juvenile humor a little more. Thank you for agreeing with and humoring my obsession with gnomes.

Austin, get off the computer and be sociable. Trust me; we're a lot funnier than Memebase. Thank you for knowing what I mean when I glance at Mom, roll my eyes and look at you.

Alicia, lighten up sometime. I know you crack immature jokes with your friends - you don't have to act like a little adult just because Rachel's around. Thank you for being our own comedic relief when we need someone to laugh at before we explode on each other. Your attempted input into arguments is the stuff of legend.

So, family, even though I know that none of you read this, thank you for making my holidays full of stress, yelling; and when everybody else gets here, muttered cussing. Thank you for making me laugh at myself and how I turn back into a 12-yr-old whenever I am around more than one of you. Thank you for the stifled giggles when someone has a really good "that's what she said" that we can't let Mom or Dad hear.

The One Where I Can't Say "No"

I wrote this a few months ago, and just now actually have time to finish it because the semester from the pit of hell is over.

I have a problem. I'm far too accommodating. I can't tell people "no" when they ask me to do things with or for them. I haven't figured out if this is just my personality, or if it's because I was never allowed to say "no" as a child. I'm starting to think that it's probably a little of both. I will say "yes," even if it will hurt me in the long run. Like tonight – I went to a three hour meeting with one of my friends because she asked me to, and she got bonus points or something for bringing a friend.

Now, I love spending time with the people I care about. Quality time is my #1 love language. That's not the issue in this situation though. The issue is that I have a test tomorrow that is worth almost 20% of my grade in a class that I'm already not doing particularly well in. The meeting wasn't even pertinent to anything school related. I went, sat for three hours and then had to start studying for this test. (Just for reference, I have over 60 pages of notes and powerpoint slides - 6 slides to a page - that I need to have just about memorized by 11am tomorrow, and that's on top of the 187 pages of the textbook that I was supposed to have already read.) We didn’t get back on campus until almost 10:30, at which point I was tired and cranky, and all I wanted to do was sleep.

I started playing the violin when I was 8. I had begged my parents to let me take lessons since I was 5. I put up with piano lessons for 3 years just so I could get to the point of being able to read music where Mom deemed me capable of starting violin. I love my violin, and I love playing it - it's named Bethany - but I had severe (what I now recognize as) anxiety issues and I hated playing in front of other people, even my parents. When I was 9 and had been taking lessons for just over a year - not really long enough to be very good - my parents decided it was time for me to start playing in church. I still HATE playing in front of people, but when I was 9 I wouldn't be able to sleep on Saturday nights because I was worried about if I was going to make a mistake, or if I was going to freeze when I got up to play, or if I was going to trip as I was walking to the front of the sanctuary. You name it, I worried about it. The lack of sleep didn't help calm my nerves at all. I hated having to go through this every single week, but if I told Dad that I didn't want to do it, he would just get angry and start yelling about how he was "paying for these lessons, and if you aren't willing to play in church, you should just start paying for your own lessons, or better yet, we can just sell your violin and you can go back to piano." I lived for two things at the age of 9 - my violin lessons and art class, so the threat of taking the lessons away was enough to make me shut up and deal with all the shaking, awkward sweating, and my heart pounding in my ears for the hours leading up to it and then after. This eventually lead to the realization that I just had to do whatever I was told, with no questions asked, and no room for dissent. This went to the extent of me seeing requests as commands because, if you were asking me, you had obviously expended all of your other alternatives.

This was the case with another situation, ironically enough, also involving my violin. When Grandmother died in 2002, my parents "asked" me to play Ashokan Farewell (that's not very good quality, but it gets the point across) for her memorial service. I had been teaching myself this song for about a month at that point, but being 12 and away from my teacher for almost 6 months; I hadn't been trying very hard. I didn't feel ready to play it, but I had no choice, so I muddled my way through and got pity compliments after the fact. I am still terrified of going to Corvallis, even though I'm fairly certain that no one will recognize or remember me.

We’re sticking with the violin theme, because those are the events that I’m remembering right now.

When I was 12, my violin teacher started a program in which once a month, about 10-12 of her students would go to a nursing home and play for the residents. This was a wonderful program, but I was one of her most advanced students and we all had to play at the same level as the 6-7 year olds who were just starting to play. I hardly ever had solo numbers, so I was happy about that, but I felt patronized having to play “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” every single month. I worked up the courage to tell my parents at one point that I didn’t really want to do it because it wasn’t really helping me play any better and I felt stupid playing with the little kids. I was told that I was being selfish and that I needed to look at what my motivations behind these feelings were. I was told on no uncertain terms to suck it up and deal with it if I wanted to continue taking lessons. Obviously, this threat had worked before, so I caved and didn’t talk to them about it ever again. Eventually, my teacher started a small ensemble group with the students who were more advanced. We still had to play with the little kids, but we also got to play the Brandenburg Concerto and other fun pieces that required some skill. So, while this ended up working out for me in the end, the result was that if I didn’t like something, I just dealt with it and didn’t say that I hated every minute of it.

I now have problems saying "no" to anything. I volunteer for anything and everything at my college - granted, we usually get free t-shirts out of everything, so that’s how I justify over-extending myself most weekends. Homecoming? You better believe I was greeting those alumni like a boss! Getting Started Weekend? Yeah, I was working with those freshmen! (granted, I was paid for that because I work for Student Life. ;) ) I also do anything, or go anywhere with my friends when they ask, even if I don't need to make a Wal-mart run for the 4th time in one week. This has gotten so bad that I don't get much sleep, or enough time on weekends to do my mountains of homework because I am doing things around campus, or running an errand with my ex-roommate because I haven't seen her in almost a week. My day-planner is crazy full, but I still feel guilty on the rare occasion that I don't respond to an email asking for volunteers for help with Grandparents' Weekend or being on a panel for Student Life when my boss asks.

I hope and pray that my children will be able to say "no" to me. Not in the bratty, 2-yr-old’s, I-don't-want-to-go-to-bed way, but in the I-am-uncomfortable-with-this-and-it-scares-me-more-than-anything-I-can-think-of way. I pray that they will try new things without me forcing my vision of perfection onto them. I pray that I marry a man who is nothing like my father and doesn't have to have absolute control over every minute aspect of his childrens' lives. I pray and lose sleep over the fact that I have the spine of a wet noodle when it comes to my parents. Another facet of them requiring total control is that in order to have any semblance of a life outside of their narrowly defined box I had to learn to compartmentalize and ignore parts of my upbringing, but that's another post because this one is already really long. :)

The One Where I Rant About the Pearls

With the recent death of Hanna Williams due to her adoptive parents' extreme use of the Pearls' child-rearing methods in To Train Up a Child, there has been justifiable outrage among the forums of which I am a member. ATI does not officially condone the Pearls' ministry, but it does not condemn it either. I was raised on the methods that the Pearls suggest. The basis of "training up a child" is breaking that child's spirit so that they will follow you blindly and have no discernible personality.

I left this comment on the Amazon product page of the book: "I was raised on this book and now that I'm out of my parents' house I can honestly say that the methods outlined in this book and by the Pearls in general are the reason that I have nothing more than a civil relationship with my parents. The control issues that require a need to "break a child's will" will not only break that child's will, but also break their character and any hope of ever having even a semblance of a good relationship with them once they reach adulthood."

I know this is a little late - like almost 2 weeks - but the effect that this book had on my relationship with my parents is astounding and a little disheartening. My parents still have control issues that make having a relationship with them difficult. They insist on having a say in every decision that I make - whether big or small. This is why I find it incredibly difficult to talk to them about anything of substance.

The Pearls' methods and the entire No Greater Joy organization is founded on the need to control every aspect of your childrens' lives from the day they are born. For a child who already had a compliant nature, my parents' constantly bringing the hammer down on little infractions made me into a sneak. I felt the need to hide everything about myself from my parents because I didn't know if they would approve or not and I didn't want to deal with it if, by chance they didn't.

I can remember the few times that I actually opened up to my parents about what I was having problems with as a teenager and getting a lecture. Had they found out about it from someone else, the lecture would have been completely warranted and, while I wouldn't have liked it, I would have understood the reason for it. But because I went to them, looking for advice and help, the lectures did far more harm than good.

The methods outlined in No Greater Joy give no guidance of how to wean yourself from treating your children like wayward toddlers, as evidenced by the fact that my parents insisted on spanking me until I was almost 18. At that point it borders on abuse. A teenage girl should not be getting spankings from her father. Even when I was in community college at the age of 18, my mother would consistently say "you know, you're not too old to spank," to which I would just walk away. I believe that spanking is perfectly fine in the right context. But this, most definitively, was not the right context.

The need to have control drove a wedge between me and my parents that I don't see going away anytime soon and I can honestly say that I hate the Pearls for that.

The One Without Any Real Purpose

This semester has been the hardest one so far for me, and it's only six weeks in. I am in the final class that I have to take to get my required Bible minor and it has brought to light all of the bad theology that I was taught growing up. I'm not saying that the profs here are changing my mind about things, but they are making me question what I have been taught. The fact that in my head I know that salvation is grace-based doesn't transfer over to my actions or motives. I was raised being told one thing, but then outwardly having to act as something else.

The Prayer of Jabez was popular when I was about 10-11 and my Mom read it several times, was in a Bible study about it, and fell for its message hook, line, and sinker. She would insist that if/when we prayed out loud - at the dinner table, during Wisdom Searches, etc. that we use the same format that was laid out in that book. This made God seem like a short-order cook to me, but only if you were already close to him.

And how exactly did one get "close" to God. Well, that was simple. You had to read your Bible for hours a day, pray for even longer than you read, and be a good, obedient child. To a 10-yr-old with ADD, the reading was out of the question because I would get bored within the first few minutes and start thinking about something else. Of course, if I were to tell my parents that I was getting bored while reading my birthday Proverb in King James English for the fiftieth time, I would have been told to pray that God would give me patience. But there was another issue. I was never really taught how to pray. I had heard my parents and older siblings pray many times, but I didn't know big words like "substitution," and "propitiation," nor did I know how to use "thee, thou, or thine" correctly. I was convinced that if I were to pray I had to use those kinds of words and if it was less than three minutes long I was somehow being blasphemous because obviously if I couldn't talk to God for longer than 30 seconds I must have some major strongholds in my life that were keeping me away from a deep relationship with God.

When I was little there was a family who lived down the road from us who had three girls around my age and I would play with them for hours at a time. They were the first to introduce me to secular music with the dreaded "back-beat" in the form of Hanson, Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears, and other pop bands of the 90s. I felt so guilty when I would come home from their house, but I couldn't tell my parents because I knew that I would get in trouble for not telling them to turn it off. There were a few times that I did ask them to turn it off, but I felt like a prude and I didn't want to be embarrassed by asking them to stop something that I couldn't find anything inherently wrong with, besides the beat. I would be in a bad mood for the rest of the night because I felt guilty, but didn't know how to express it. I was convinced that I was in a bad mood because of the music and the effect that Satan's noise had on me. I would blame my inability to pray or concentrate on the fact that I was disobeying what was definitely the 11th commandment "Thou shalt not listen to 90s pop."

While the "stronghold" theory is a somewhat acceptable way of explaining to kids how sin can pull you away from God, it only served to make me feel guilty and question my motives and the reasons behind my actions. I was one of the most guilt-ridden children you can imagine. I blamed myself for my Mom's depression after Grandma died. I blamed myself for my younger siblings being undisciplined. When my brother started molesting me I blamed myself for that too - maybe if I had said "no" that wouldn't have happened. When I got to be about 16, it became "maybe if I had not let him do that I would be courting someone by now." There had to be some reason that God wasn't blessing me. Was it because I listened to and enjoyed sinful music? Was it because I was damaged goods? Could God not love someone who had become dirty?

This pattern of guilt was systemic. It eventually made me decide that God just didn't care about me. I tried to be the person I was called to be, but I didn't know what that was and I didn't know how to find out. And so, I gave up on God because I thought that he had given up on me. I went to sleep horrified of what the implications of not knowing if God existed could be. Mostly, I just wanted answers and I couldn't find anyone who I could ask without being judged and told to pray for faith.

I had a tough few years, but coming to this college has helped a little bit. I'm not as worried about my questioning. I know that it can be a healthy part of a Christian walk. I just wish it didn't make you feel like such crap and that it didn't consume all of your waking thoughts. What I wish more than anything is that someone would have cared enough to tell the scared, depressed 13-yr-old that 8 years ago.

The One with the Obligatory 9/11 Post

It was a beautiful, sunny September morning for me in Northwest Ohio when the world changed. It was my little sister's 5th birthday and I was excited for my best friend's family to come over for dinner that evening. I was working on my schoolwork while listening to the barely approved Christian radio station. I knew that if I didn't finish up at least my math I wouldn't be allowed to play with my friend and her siblings later.

My brother came into my room about 15 minutes after the first plane hit and told me that the WTC had been bombed. I was 11 and thought that the WTC was something like a big market. We didn't watch TV at that point, (my parents still don't) so me and my 14-yr-old brother had to haul the TV out of my parents' closet, set it up on Mom's dresser and get the bunny ears pointed just right. We stayed in that room for the rest of the day. As we came to realize that it was a planes, and not a bomb, I thought that was better because it would mean that the building could stand because the base was still strong. I knew that the people on the floors where it hit were probably goners, I thought maybe the firemen could get everybody below out and then put out the fires. I watched horrified as the first and then the second towers buckled and collapsed. I remember staring in disbelief and then pointing and gasping because I couldn't believe what I was seeing.

Dad came home from work around 10:30. I remember hearing the garage door opening as I watched the first tower fall. Mom didn't get up from her chair and Dad spent the day pacing back and forth. I made lunch for myself and my siblings and for the first time I could remember we were allowed to eat on the carpet.

We assumed that my friend's family wasn't coming over and so we experienced the rare occurrence of going out to dinner at Fricker's, which is a family favorite. Our waitress was wearing a pin that said it was her birthday too and my sister thought it was fantastic. It was one of the most somber, depressing meals I can remember. No one talked, except for the little kids and even they got the hint after a while that talking wasn't really a high priority right then.

My Dad made the decision on 9/12 that we wouldn't watch anymore coverage because he didn't think that my younger siblings - who were 5 and 8 - should be watching the towers collapse over and over again.

My sister was robbed of a birthday - she turned 15 today and she couldn't advertise it because people would make comments like "oh, I'll bet you'll have a blast", etc. She refuses to put her birthdate on facebook because she doesn't want people to know. While that is awful, the effect that those few hours had on my family were tremendous. My oldest brother had just recently commissioned as a 2LT in the Army. In 2007 my brother who was 14 on 9/11, enlisted in the Army, and a year later, the third of my brothers joined the Army. My younger brother who is 18 now is in his first year of Army ROTC with plans to commission in 2015.

Without that single event of terror, I don't think that my brothers would be placing their lives in jeopardy, but I am unbelievably proud of them and everyone else who is bravely fighting to protect my freedoms. Every year on my sister's birthday I remember the men and women who died trying to save people from a fiery death. I pray for their families, I pray for their children, but mostly I pray that we get those sons of bitches who did that to them.

In the now infamous words of George W. Bush:

"I can hear you. The rest of the world hears you. And the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon.”

How Far Have We Really Come?

Being home again this summer has been a huge eye-opener to just how far my family has come, and how far they still need to go in order to say that we have actually recovered completely from ATI's influence.

This was specifically brought to me a couple of times in the last few weeks. The first was about three weeks ago when I told my Mom that my best friend (we'll call her N) had moved in with her boyfriend. While I don't think this is a very good idea, and it's immoral, I am not willing to lose this friendship over it. They are planning on getting married, which, while it doesn't make it good, in my mind it makes it a little bit better. I told N what I thought about it, and she listened and thanked me for being honest, but this was what she was choosing for her life. When my Mom found out about it, she started going on a tirade about how awful it was. She then started to question whether N was really a Christian. This rubbed me the wrong way and I just walked away at that point because it wasn't worth the argument that I knew would follow.

Now, even though, her first step was to question N's salvation, this is a huge step from what would have gone down had I been in this same situation eight years ago. At that point, she would have forbidden me from ever talking to N again, and certainly would have had a heart attack at the idea of spending me the night at her and her boyfriend's house. So, while this is still not as much progress as one could hope for, it does show a little bit of movement out of the judgmental clutches of ATI.

The second occurrence was two weeks ago when one of the (also former) ATI mothers had dropped in to see Mom. Now, no one really likes Mrs. D, but she lives close to my family and my siblings and I grew up with and are close to her sons.

I have been babysitting my cousin's live-in girlfriend's twin eight-yr-olds every other week for the last couple of months. I unfortunately brought them home with me at the same time Mrs. D was visiting. She asked me who they were, and when I told her she didn't really respond except for a few thoughtful "hmm"s. I didn't tell them that my cousin and the boys' mother were living together - I only informed her that they were my cousin's girlfriend's kids. Granted, I can't know exactly what she was thinking, but when I think about how she responds to other things that are similar to this, I can pretty much figure it out. I can only assume, based on prior experience, that her thoughts were along the lines of "you shouldn't be helping them. They're living in sin and you're only encouraging it by enabling them."

Mrs. D had the misfortune of not only being in ATI, but also being part of one of the founding families of a fundy church. (My family went to a church that was a break-off from the Mennonites.) She has not gotten over the mentality of judgement that is so prevalent in ATI as is evident in the fact that she got after my little sister for wearing a shirt that was, in her opinion, "too tight," when my parents were right there and had no problem with the shirt, or any other piece of her wardrobe. She may have felt comfortable doing this because she and Mom used to be very close, but that died out when my family left ATI and most of our friends decided to shun us.

Seeing the different responses to these two similar situations highlight in my mind the progress that has been made, but also the long road that still needs to be traveled before I can say that ATI doesn't still linger over my family.

Awesome new website - here

An intro... of sorts (Part 2)

We spent a total of six months in Corvallis, Oregon - home of the Oregon State Beavers and Dad's alma mater. Grandmother ended up dying at the end of the fifth month (April 2002). About one month into our stay Justin, who was fourteen at the time, became too belligerent for Mom to handle so he was sent to the Indianapolis Training Center (ITC). He stayed there for the extent of our time in Oregon, except for the last 2 weeks when he was brought back to help pack up Grandmother's house. At that point there was nothing that could be done about him. He would leave after he woke up around noon and not come back until 2-3 am. No one knew what he was doing or how to make him stop.

Mom and Dad went to see Billy G. on the way back to Ohio because he was at ITC when we went through Indiana. He told them to disown Justin and leave him there where they would take custody. This obviously wasn't really an option.

We got home in early May 2002 and had the summer from hell. Justin was awful! He had finally had enough of the legalistic totalitarian rule and brought so many contraband items into the house. He started carefully with his music with bands like Good Charlotte, but he quickly graduated to death metal and bands such as Slipknot and Static X. He would insist on blasting this throughout the entire house when Mom and Dad were gone. At this point he was the oldest child at home except for in the summer when my older sister would come home from college, but she worked most of the time. As a result of this, there was no one at home to make him stop. He quickly spiraled down into occultism. He was a legitimate member of a coven. I have no idea how he got attached to it, but he was apparently in pretty deep. None of us knew about it until after the fact. He turned 15 that summer.

My parents were going to put us all (the younger four) into a private Christian school that fall, but I had always heard how sinful any school was so the concept terrified me and I cried and they ended up only enrolling Justin. He did well academically, but continued to spiral out of control at home. There was a minimum of one screaming fight between him and Mom and /or Dad every day.

In March of 2003 he attempted to hang himself in our backyard and then spent two weeks in the psych ward. Mom and Dad finally decided that they had to do something about him and sought out a counselor who specialized in demonic possession. My parents, my older siblings (the ones who knew about that specific problem) and I all believed that he was possessed. There was no other way to explain his sudden change in behavior. He had always been stubborn and violent (I have scars that will attest to that), but he was usually repentant and would try and make it right after the fact. This became not the case at all, so Mom and Dad called in a Christian counselor who specialized in that kind of thing.

It took almost a month for things to finally start to settle down, and during this time I was left all day, alone with my 2 younger siblings, and anywhere from 2-4 of the woman's special needs foster kids. I was 12, almost 13 at the time. (While I was ok with it at the time, I don't think that it was the greatest idea to leave an adolescent girl alone with kids who had severe handicaps and give her the instruction, "don't interrupt us unless it's a matter of life and death.")

After that we didn't do anything else organized with ATI, but me and my younger siblings were still homeschooled. I graduated having been homeschooled k-12, but they put my younger brother part time into the same private school that Justin had been in at the beginning of 10th grade. He graduated from a real high school - the first of this generation as he likes to remind us constantly.

So, that is the abridged version of why we aren't in ATI anymore. There's much much more, which I will eventually get into.

An intro... of sorts (Part 1)

I was born into the cult of ATI. I am the epitome of a cult child because I probably wouldn't have even been born if it weren't for my family's membership in ATI. My family has a "Gothard gap" - a significant period of time between the oldest three and the younger four. My parents joined in 1986 - the year before the first of the "second family" was born. I'm the fifth of seven and being one of the middle children in an extremely competitive family is hard enough without the added pressure of the image that has to be upheld in ATI.

I grew up going to the Childrens' Institute, and later Basic Seminars, and embarking on the yearly pilgrimage to Knoxville. We left the the year before they switched to the regional Advanced Seminars.

ATI and its various appendages was the single-most influential thing in my childhood and adolescence and it even has an uncanny effect on me now. I can't stand the song Umbrella by Rihanna, because it reminds me of the Umbrella Song and the "umbrella of protection" that was oh, so necessary. Any of the character qualities that were hocked at CI's and the numerous CF's that I had to sit in on (because we have to support our older sister) still have the ability to make my blood boil - especially initiative, because that's the one that my Mom always used to say we had none of.

My first memories of ATI are from when I was about 3-4. My brothers (Justin and Austin) and I would stay at my Grandma's house while my parents and older siblings went to Basic - first in Flint, MI and later in Archbold, OH. When I was six I was allowed to go to the CI. I thought I was the coolest thing ever. I went to by first and only Basic Seminar when I was 12 and then I just knew I had reached the pinnacle of awesomeness. Besides all of that there was the yearly trek to Knoxville in a stifling black twelve passenger van. Until I was eight (and old enough for pre-Excel) I had to stay in the dorms with Mom and my younger siblings and watch the seminars on the TV. I witnessed my first and only death when I was seven on that TV when the speaker died half-way through his speech. (For the life of me I can't remember what his name is and I don't have enough "initiative" for the involved Google search that it would require to figure it out.) Mom still has the recorded tape somewhere in her crates of ATI propaganda that she refuses to get rid of. That's about the extent of my memories of the actual organized part of ATI.

But the practices that ATI encouraged and in some cases mandated are what stuck with me. The totalitarian authority that my father wielded was awful and it did far more harm than good. Growing up in a chauvinistic home where the females were subservient gave me the impression that men were obviously better than women. I can remember my Mom after reading Debi Pearl's "Created to be His Helpmeet," talking to one of the other ATI mothers about how she had to give up so much in order to be submissive and how she loved it. Specifically the conversation was about paying bills and how that was the man's role. Yes, that was even became a gender specific task.

My oldest two brothers went to ALERT, and my older sister refused to do EXCEL and instead went and got her degree. Granted, it was from Patrick Henry, but at least it wasn't BJU or PCC.

My parents blame, but I thank (in some ways - we'll get into that later) my brother Justin for finally pushing them over the edge to get out. The beginning of the end was late 2001 when my grandmother started going downhill fast. Mom and the entire second family moved to Oregon to take care of her. My brother Justin had been acting up and being extremely rebellious (that word has so many bad memories attached to it) for several years, but it got much worse when it was just Mom left as the authority... and that is where I will pick back up another time because it's 3:15 a.m.

Hello!

This is basically just going to be me talking about what it's like to be someone who grew up in the "quiverfull"/ATI/ultra-conservative movements. A lot of it will be just trying to figure out how to react to the things that are still coming up in my life almost 8 years later.