Reply to I was raised in a Duggar like family. AMA

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Could you share some everyday happy memories from childhood?

Also, do you identify a particular turning point in your life where your own skepticism started and set you on a path to leave when you got the chance?[/quote]

My parents left when I was 18 and that was my exit, we left as a family. I don't know if I would have left and walked away from my family and friends. It is so insular and isolating and all you know. For us, even churches were a really evil place. There was nowhere good, except in the group. Even though i didn't like lots of aspects of it and the rules, I held the same foundational belief system and I believed that no matter how bad it was it was still a 1000x times better than life outside the group. The non group world was a scary place.[/quote]

Could you explain a bit more what do you mean, your parents left?  You mean they left the sect/religious group and you all went with them? So when they left, where did you all go? And how was adopting to new lifestyle?[/quote]

Yes, left the sect. Being in it was kind of like being Mormon or being Jehovah's Witness. It is a religious connection but also a social, cultural one. It was our whole world. My entire social life existed within that group and those people. Every memory I had of activities, fun times, hanging with friends etc was all within the group context.  They also lived the same way so we were all very normal to each other. We went to group meeting two evenings a week and spent all day Sunday together  and would see other families a couple more times in the week. The group believed that they were the only ones who were right with God, that God was only present with them...so if you left the group you weren't just walking away fr om people or ideas, you were walking away from God. You were leaving the 'truth' and entering a world of sin. So when my father told the group leaders that we were leaving, there were all kinds of meetings to try and convince him to stay. Since we were young adults, the group leaders asked me and my siblings to renounce my father's blasphemy and stay. None of us wanted to! My father was called many horrible things and sent really cruel letters. It was an extremely hard thing for him to do but he stuck to his convictions and after a certain final meeting, we just never went back. We were excommunicated and immediately lost all contact with everyone in the group, including all my friends, and my entire extended family on both sides.

My parents, especially my father had a very difficult time for the next year. They continually wrestled with their own conflicted feelings and whether or not they had done the right thing as it meant we all left. They spent most of the year praying and fasting and reading and trying to come to terms with what it meant to be out of the group, and what it meant to their faith etc. I am pretty sure my father was depressed.

I secretly joined a church youth group as I needed friends. I knew my parents wouldn't approve so I lied and snuck out to attend. It was still a pretty conservative church but to me it was super liberal. That group of teens taught me quickly about life! I loved trying new things and was pretty adventurous. I am forever grateful for those friends, still in touch with many of them.  Now my parents and I can laugh about how they saw me as a rebellious, difficult teen...and of all the things I might have done, I was sneaking out to go to church! 
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