Dispelled ~ One Girl’s Journey in a Home School Cult

Dispelled ~ One Girl’s Journey in a Home School Cult ~ Part 9: Sparks Fly

August 22, 2011
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by Chandra

I still remember what I was doing on Tuesday morning, September 11, 2001. It was a gorgeous morning, crisp azure sky with nothing but the blissful autumn sunshine overhead. Not even a cloud. I pulled into the church parking lot, sunroof back and something along the lines of Green Day blaring. I arrived at the office early, unlocking the door and booted my computer, prepping to attend to the stack of projects that pastors needed completing. I glanced over the counseling schedule for the day and realized that it was going to be a light day. After I had started a pot of coffee for all the guys, I went back to my desk to begin my day.

Somewhere around 9am the news came flooding into the office about the tragedies that were surrounding our eastern coast. Several key members of our church were in the air on business meetings, yet to be accounted for. My co-worker and I went to the sanctuary to pray and when I came back, my inbox said, “You’ve Got Mail” from this mysteriously attractive guy named Darren that I had met over the summer in the singles group. I was a baby, just 19 when I met him. And he was 29. But we were friends and we started an email conversation on 9/11 about the current events facing our nation. And for some reason, this conversation never stopped.

I was still living at home and I knew for certain I wasn’t about to let my parents screw up my chances at finding love and happiness. I knew I needed to leave the house before I could date, because there was no way in hell that I would ever consider courtship. My parents were so screwed up, that that model would not have worked, even though that was their clear desire for me. They wanted to be able to control whom I married so that they could continue to control me from beyond my father’s house.

I began to actively search with a dear friend for a place to rent later that same month. Things at home had grown substantially worse, if that was even possible. I was never home, often leaving early in the morning and often not returning until well past midnight. My sexy Honda became my refuge and respite from the intolerable home environment. My mom grew increasingly intrusive and controlling, opening my mail (keep in mind, I was 19), analyzing my credit card statements (again, I was 19 with a full-time job and zero overhead), my eating habits (she told me that I had bulimia- HA! I wish!), and my choice in clothing (my father told me while going to church that I looked like a prostitute).

I was told that my lack of pitching in with my hard-earned money to help out with household costs was the reason that my parents were in so much debt. I believed it, and internalized these statements, rather than recognizing that my dad’s sexual addiction was the cause of their financial state. Rather than throwing my money to them, I determined that my best option was to leave.

I was weary of trying to make things work at home, of no freedom and completely humiliating incidences. My mom would call people I was hanging out with, demanding to know where I was and when I would be home. Many times, she would be awake when I arrived home, and would begin her emotional tirades against me from the moment I stepped into the house. They never set a curfew, so I never felt compelled to keep it. Once, my mom barged in on a church single’s party, tracking down where this social gathering was. She appeared and demanded if I was there at the house. She came in, and dragged me by the hand out of this home and humiliated me in front of everyone. Again, I was 19. That was the final straw. I ripped into her, telling her how much I hated her and it was not two weeks later, that my friend and I found a condo that was offered to us by a member of the church where I worked.

I was thrilled to at last have found a place to live away from my parents toxicity! I had my little red Honda packed and ready to go weeks in advance, but I would be required to live with my parents through the holidays. My girlfriend and I were free to move in anytime after Christmas, so the day after Christmas, I planned my move. And this guy Darren, who had befriended me that autumn had the truck that I needed. I did not need help from my parents, and refused to take it. I needed to leave, flee- as far away from them as my situation would take me, and I wanted them to have no part of my new life.

I got myself moved and found my parents and my brother in my new condo, unannounced. I had forgotten to lock the door. I was more than just a little angry that they wouldn’t leave me alone, and told them to leave. This was my life, and I wanted to live it apart from them perpetrating their abuse and control on me. Little did I know what a long road I would have ahead of me in actually obtaining that freedom.

Dispelled ~ One Girl’s Journey in a Home School Cult ~ Part 8: The Road to Freedom

July 7, 2011
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by Chandra

It wasn’t until this past year, while speaking to my counselor, that she looked me in the eye and asked of me, “Did you ever think to call 911?”

Something like a tidal wave went through me. I still feel like I am picking up the pieces of that.

“No,” I replied. “It never even dawned on me.”

I still don’t understand the full implications of living in such a mind-controlling cult. I really don’t. It’s…indescribable really and I often feel like a blundering, clumsy writer trying to articulate it to the outside world. The truth is that I had been trained to believe since I was six that all law enforcement was to be feared. The only authority that was to be trusted was that of a God-ordained institution: marriage, family, and sometimes, the church (if that church was legalistic or a home church). Government, social workers, doctors, lawyers, police officers…were all to be feared implicitly and never, ever trusted. I had become so trusting of my caretakers that I had turned into the girl who was ignorant of their abuse: because I had been trained to rely on them for everything.

I stumbled through the next few months after my graduation with a feeling of being a nomad, feeling like I was waiting for a game of chess to end, but somehow the game continued to be sustained by a few pieces. In retrospect, I see how certain events were orchestrated to my benefit, leading me slowly into the path of freedom. Even in June, after I had graduated, I was still weak and sickly from my previous pneumonia and ARDS. I got tired very easily, and frequently felt short of breath. I was also depressed. After all, I was a newly graduated senior and I was without friends. It had been well over four years since Hannah and I had last spoken to one another and probably about a year at that point since we had seen each other. Still, somewhere in my heart there was a longing and an aching for the hope that we could renew our once precious and sisterly friendship.

In truth, I had never had another friend like her. We were more alike than not, even in the way the thought about life. What I didn’t understand, even at nearly eighteen, was that we were both cut from the same cloth: brainwashed, controlled, and manipulated. Because our parents were the best at manipulating and “raising godly daughters as a heritage unto the Lord” it was a very natural thing that we would approach the world in the same way. But at almost eighteen, I didn’t understand that. All I knew was that there was loneliness, an aching, a void, a starving and thirst for human companionship and the sisterhood of true friends.

After I graduated, I received a sizable amount of cash, and combined with money that my grandparents had generously gifted me with over the years, this allowed me to purchase my first car. My dad actually spearheaded the entire purchase of the car. I purchased my first car when I was 18: a 1993 Red Honda Civic, with all the bells and whistles. I loved that car! It was the best thing that had happened to me in nearly seven years. I would drive with the sunroof back, the stereo blaring and loved the feeling of burning rubber. This car held out its metaphorical hand to me, encouraging me to embrace the freedom of my future. And I took it.

Dispelled ~ One Girl’s Journey in a Home School Cult ~ Part 7: Surviving Abuse

February 15, 2011
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by Chandra

For a brief while, the storms in my life had appeared to reach a kind of calm. While I still, at 17, remained friendless and lonely, at least Candi’s abusive and bullying behavior towards me took a backseat as I prepared for my last year of “high school.”
My education, all twelve years of it, had been a complete fraud. The closer I become to achieving my degree in Special Education, the more I am dumbfounded how one parent could let their child’s academic achievements become so neglected. Not only am I a soon to be educator, I am also a parent of three sons who are all in school. Honestly, it sickens me.

My best friend and I have since concurred, that even though the state of Missouri had laws on what we had to achieve in order to graduate school, we both knew that neither of our mothers had done a thing to help keep us up to date and within the bounds of one of the nation’s laxest homeschooling laws. We both understood that in order to graduate, we had to meet certain requirements within our high school transcripts. Though both of us pleaded for help, our mothers ignored our pleas. We took matters into our own hands (just to have freedom!) and forged our own transcripts. Not my proudest moment, and I am sure that I did myself no favors. However, to borrow a cliché’: Desperate times call for desperate measures. If every state had strict oversight of homeschooling families, and a social worker assigned to each family in order to catch neglect and abuse, then this would not be an issue.

I can say with a great amount of confidence that based on my preliminary research, nearly 80% of homeschooling graduates that I have spoken with never completed 100% of the requirements that were needed in their state in order to graduate (if that state had no oversight or accountability written into their laws). The only ones who have met these standards, within these lax states, were the ones whose parents either a) enrolled them in an on-line learning school or b) their parents’ had a higher degree (e.g. a Masters) and a great amount of emphasis was placed on academic achievement (not character achievement). Someone needs to intervene on behalf of these children, and something needs to be done to rework the current laws on homeschooling. Yet again another reason I write.

I was pretty lonely in my senior year, and really regretted the fact that when I spoke to my Grandmas they would frequently ask me if I ever wanted to attend a senior prom. Wanting to please my parents, and escape the brainwashing of my mom, I gave them the answer that my parents needed to hear. I was happy being homeschooled, and “saving” myself for that one special person. Dating in high school, I told them, was wrong. Deep down, I wished that my mom had been out of the range of hearing so that I could have a private conversation with one of them and tell them just how unhappy I was. Not only was I not allowed to tell them what was really going on in my life, I was never trusted to talk to them apart from my mom. I was deeply saddened that I was missing out on such a big part of high school. I would look at my cousins’ prom pictures and my heart would cry. I longed to have a formal gown, longed to dance, longed to just have fun. And more than anything, I longed to have a friend.

Dispelled ~ One Girl’s Journey in a Home School Cult ~ Part 6: Growing Pains

December 9, 2010
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by Chandra

For the last six months, I dreamt of living in Texas and of being free. I knew that I didn’t know Gabe, but just the thought of getting out of the hell that I was currently in was all that I cared about. Everything else paled in comparison to the nightmare that I was living. My optimism still kept me going, and I was confident that even though I had been keeping an enormous secret from my parents, and that I didn’t know who this guy was, I would still find love and freedom. Two things I desperately wanted.

I began to use the babysitting and housecleaning money that I would receive weekly from our neighbors, to buy wedding magazines and collect things for my hope chest. I was truly convinced that the right way of doing things was to go through a betrothal process that would eventually end in a tightly monitored engagement period. I was determined to win the favor of this family by being the perfect example of a good homeschooled girl. My heart, for those six months, sang.

Maybe part of the reason why I am not so enamored with springtime as the majority of the populace is because nothing ever good came out of the months of February, March, and April for me. Our homeschooling conference was to be held in June, and by the time that April had made her entrance, mom and Candi were furiously working around the clock trying to finalize all of the many details that went into planning such a major event. This meant frequent phone conversations with one another that would last for well over six hours in a given day and also numerous phone calls to the speakers and vendors.

I knew from having been raised in this movement, that Candi would be speaking with Gabe’s dad, Mr. New, about his hotel arrangements and the sessions that he would be presenting to the flock. Candi and my mom took very seriously their role as leader, or “Shepard” as they referred to themselves. Much care and endless hours were spent with each convention speaker ensuring that the material they were presenting was exactly what they wanted “their people” to hear. Rather than being a facilitator of information, they felt they had been called by God to teach these “precious families” the way that God wanted them to live: in fear. We lived in fear of government, fear of extended family, fear of neighbors, fear of culture, and fear of the world and these fears dictated our belief system. Our homeschooling group had become an isolationist cult and it was led by two very powerful women: Candi and my mother.

Sometime in April, my mother began to carry around an air of hatred towards me again and I could tell that it was something that I had done, or failed to do. I knew to ask her what the problem was would be asking for unwarranted trouble so I kept my distance from her. I hid in my room to escape my toxic family and listened to Christian cassette tapes that I had bought covertly. My mom was adamantly opposed to Steven Curtis Chapman (too worldly), Michael W. Smith (too worldly), Newsboys (rock music was not Christian music), DC Talk (Christian rappers were wolves in sheep’s clothing), Amy Grant (she had an affair), Sandi Patty (she had an affair too), Rebecca St. James (not only did God hate rock music, Ms. St. James was not a “true homeschooler” and “not one of the flock”)…and of course every CD that I owned in my collection were from these artists. They lifted me up on the wings of hope and helped my heart to feel close to Christ. But I couldn’t sing along with them and I had to hide the tapes well.

Dispelled ~ One Girl’s Journey in a Home School Cult ~ Part 5: Freedom Longing

November 29, 2010
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by Chandra

My sixteenth birthday was fast approaching and something unusual was going to occur: I would be allowed to have my second birthday party, and this was no small matter: It would be my first co-ed party. I had sufficiently stuffed my depression and became exactly what they wanted: quiet, gently, reserved, and pious. In fact, I became so good at playing this game of theirs that I had eventually gained respect because I was so vocal in support of The Movement. Never a complaint was uttered again from my lips about how much I hated my situation. I learned to adapt so that I could survive and escape the abusiveness. Granted my father and I did not get along, but at least my mom’s spiritual abuse subsided. I learned to accept that this was simply my lot in life.

I actually regret that. I was telling my husband just the other day that if there was one regret that I had while in my parent’s home, it was that I allowed my personality to be squelched to such a level that even I barely recognized myself. I wish that I would have been a stronger person and simply refused to listen to their Kool-aid. I wish I would have talked to my grandmas and my aunts, I wish I would have been true to myself and been the person that I was created to be. I suppose hindsight is everything.

The big nagging question in my life was how on earth would I meet someone to marry out of this family? And how on earth would I do that when I was never allowed to be around guys? I knew that I had missed the boat on scholarships, and whenever I would bring up to my mom about going away to college or taking the ACT or SAT, I was pushed aside.

My family had risen to quite the level of power and status in our area, though the homeschooling groups themselves were riddled with infighting and politics. I listened daily to my mom giving advise to those who would call asking for help on applying for scholarships, when to begin applying for colleges, and when to take the ACT or SAT. I knew the answers. You apply for scholarships at the end of your sophomore year, apply to colleges in your junior year, and take the ACT or SAT every year from your freshman year on.

But I was a Daughter of The Movement, and those types of girls just simply did not do those things. It did not matter that I requested, nagged, and implored them to let me go to college, I was to remain at home until I married. I was to remain under my father and mother’s tyrannical reign, and then my husband would rule me. At that point, that actually sounded appealing. I wanted to take the ACT or SAT exam, but that was where my mom and Candi’s sick paranoia kicked in. They believed that “the government” used those tests as a means to “track” individuals and “come after them.” Think extremist and conspiracy theorist paranoia. That was who they were and that was Mom and Candi’s reason for not allowing us kids to take the exam. And there was no convincing otherwise, not by us girls or by our dads, because we all knew who really wore the pants in the family. Their idea of biblical submission was all for show.

So I knew that I would be left with very little options, other than to marry. My parents were all over arranged marriages, courtship, and betrothals. Richard “Little Bear” Wheeler and Norm Wakefield were frequent visitors at our homeschooling conferences. With as dysfunctional as my family was, that concept caused me great cause for anxiety. I knew that if they were to spend any amount of time with my family that my chances of securing a courtship-proposal were as good as over. While for some girls, this concept may- and I emphatically stress, may- have worked to their benefit, I knew that this simply would not work for me. I knew that I was going to have to take those matters into my own hands.

Dispelled ~ One Girl’s Journey in a Home School Cult ~ Part 4 : The Darkness Sets In

November 18, 2010
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by Chandra

The next morning was back to business as usual in our home. There would be no mention of my suicide attempt until I would bring it up, nearly ten years later. I knew waking that morning that Christ himself had pulled me through last night, even at fourteen. I didn’t know though, how I would get through the days and years ahead of me, that I had yet to live.

Emotionally I was spent. Going through puberty was difficult enough, and even more difficult because that also was a topic off limits to discuss. Sexual “things” were just not dealt with in our home, and like everything else that my mom and dad wanted to hide from, was swept under the rug. I had been on an emotional roller coaster in the last several months, ranging in emotions from being openly rejected to wishful hoping that somehow this scandal could be reversed: and I would once again be welcomed into loving arms by the only community that I knew.

Once everyone’s positions and the issues had been exposed, I was left alone. Alone. I hate that word…what I had remaining in my life were three things: my journal, my Bible, and my cat. I sank into a deep, deep depression.

Oh, I covered it well. I had to. But deep down there was a daily nagging, a restless wondering of, I have no one. I have no friends and no one to confide in. No one to talk to. Nightly for years, I would cry myself to sleep on my pillow, silently praying out to God “to just give me one friend, any friend, someone that I can talk to.” Those are still painful moments for me to remember and recall.

Dispelled ~ One Girl’s Journey in a Home School Cult ~ Part 3: Drinking the Kool-aid

November 12, 2010
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by Chandra

I was a tender fourteen when my world fell apart. My parents had become entrenched and enmeshed with The Movement and because of this, The Movement had become everything in our life. The Movement had become a feudal lord, demanding everything from us: time, money, and resources. My family felt that The Movement WAS our family and it was The Movement that we served- from the rising of the sun to the setting of it.

John and Candi, and their four children, had become to us closer than blood. It was The Movement that joined us- heart, body, mind, and spirit. We lived and breathed for The Movement, and followed John and Candi’s every lead. My mom and dad were John and Candi’s devoted second-in-command leaders. Our two families were a potent force, having climbed The Movement’s social ladder to the head of the State of Missouri’s homeschool organization in just a few short years.

But through all of cult-like demands of The Movement, and my family’s worship of it, there was a teenage girl who longed to be free, understood, and accepted.

Dispelled ~ One Girl’s Journey in a Home School Cult ~ Part 2: The Early Years

September 9, 2010
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Grade school. A time of innocence, that captures the magical essence of childhood. A time of wonder, excitement, and joy; unadulterated by social concerns and pressures of adolescence. My grade school years were different.

Most homeschool mothers are proponents of making learning enjoyable, easy, and memorable for their students, using “real-life” experiences and hands-on activities to reinforce concepts. My mother was no exception. Using a combination approach, she adored and followed Charlotte Mason and loosely implemented Konos unit studies. In her mind, and in her heart, she believed that she was teaching my younger brother and myself. She had read the books by Charlotte Mason, and had underlined nearly every page in For the Children’s Sake by Susan Schaeffer McCaulley. Better Late Than Early by Raymond and Dorothy Moore and Honey for a Child’s Heart by Gladys Hunt were books she recommended relentlessly to new homeschool moms in years to come. She swore by these methods.

Practically speaking however these concepts took root in a very different form. My mother had no formal training in education and had no idea what a child needed socially, physically, or mentally, apart from what these select authors were telling her. Practically, what she took away from these methods was “Don’t push your kids. They will pick up on what they need to know academically if you allow them to play and read.” Teach them to read is all they need, is a main tenet of the homeschool religion.

And so, my brother and I did nothing. We did one unit study on Jewish feasts and Old Testament history while I was in grade school. We did another when I was in seventh grade on Medieval history that Beautiful Feet books had published. My math was shameful. Between kindergarten and twelfth grade I completed A Beka’s 3, 5, 7, Algebra ½ curriculum. My younger brother completed half as many as I did. The thesis behind this was, “Don’t push your kids. If you teach them to read, they will be able to teach themselves anything. Workbooks are boring and not the way to foster a love of learning. They are tedious. Your children do not need repetition. As the parent you know whether your child has gotten the concept or not.”