Not So Shiny Or Happy

 

One of my big frustrations about blogging is how easily I’m distracted from the subject I want to write about. In this case, I’ve been wanting to write about Bobby Kennedy, the REAL RFK, and not the very pale copy, Junior. Instead, life and the news keep happening. I still intend to write about Bobby and maybe the delay is okay because I have still been processing my memory of him and how much I wanted him to live.

Ok, so the whole world is all about tRump being indicted on 37 different charges related to obstruction, careless care of documents he wasn’t supposed to keep, and possible espionage because he showed sensitive documents to people he ought not to have. I don’t want to write about that because, frankly, I’m tired. Even after reading the indictment and seeing pictures, most of the Rethugs in Congress still support him and want to go after the DOJ/FBI.

In fact, one clown from Louisiana sent out a coded message which was interpreted to mean: get ready, insurrectionists, we move on Tuesday (when tRump has to appear in court) and we block bridges and hey, let’s have a civil war. 45 supporters on craven social media sites are drooling over the idea of civil war.

It's the Upside Down, that reality. Truly. And it’s exhausting.

But that doesn’t mean I don’t care and that I’m giving up.

As rumors of the indictment began flying last week, I saw a FB message from someone close to me about a series called “Happy Shiny People”. She was going to watch it with a glass of wine and a box of tissues. A couple of people responded by saying they had no idea things were that bad for her, and she replied no one did. You could never tell in her church who was following IBLP and who were just regular parishioners.

IBLP? Ted was familiar with it but didn’t know much about it, and so we decided to watch it.  If you’ve seen the 4 part series, then you know how insidious it is. If you haven’t, pull up a chair.

IBLP is an acronym for Institute in Basic Life Principles. It’s a non-denominational evangelical Christian hydra of ministries once headed by a minister named Bill Gothard. Gothard, who never married and never had children, gave sermons on how families were to behave. The father in the family was the absolute ruler and had to be obeyed by everyone. The mother also had to be obeyed but was subordinate. The children in the family had to be perfectly obedient, no questions asked. The children were to be home-schooled.

There were all kinds of rules restricting sexuality and it was applied most to the girls. They were expected to dress and behave modestly, wearing long-length dresses with bloomers underneath. The mothers were supposed to produce as many babies as their tired bodies could give.

Teenage dating was restricted because the belief was not to even kiss until after marriage. There was no hand holding, no necking. When a boy and a girl were of age, the boy would ask the father’s permission to court the girl. A lot of the marriages were prearranged.

The homeschooling materials lacked substance and only reinforced the ideas and rules behind IBLP.

Does this sound cultish? It did to us, especially when the rampant sexual abuse of women and girls was uncovered.

It started with the Duggar family. I remembered them, vaguely. There were on the Discovery Channel, a gazillion children and counting. Because they were presented in a sweet, loving way, viewers learned about IBLP. It looked appealing. Look at how the Duggar parents love each other. Look at how well-behaved those children were. But there were moments when I saw a blankness of expression or sadness in the eyes. I've been in a position, too, of having to pretend everything was fine when it wasn't.

Unbeknownst to Discovery and the viewers, the eldest Duggar son was molesting his younger sisters. That’s what happens when sexuality is taboo. Curiosity blooms. Ugh, it was disgusting. The girls admitted later that they knew it was weird, but they didn’t really understand that it was wrong.

Perhaps that’s because the abuse was so widespread throughout the movement. Even Jim Gothard was a predator.  Women survivors talked about how they were fondled, groped and raped. They couldn't protest because of the rule that men were sovereign. One woman said when she read The Handmaid's Tale, she thought: this is my story.

When the ugly stories came out, the Duggars’ show was canceled and Gothard was removed from IBLP.

IBLP continued, and there was another really disturbing part of their mission. There was a reason the wives were counseled to have a gazillion children. These kids are part of what is called the “Joshua generation”.  These kids are indoctrinated with IBLP principles through isolation and homeschooling.

As adults, they move quietly into the mainstream. They infiltrate churches, school boards, and local and state offices. From there, they move into the FBI, Department of Justice, Homeland Security, and Congress too. Former Representative Madison Cawthorn is an example of the Joshua Generation and how it’s spreading.

In addition, IBLP principles are showing up in military and police training.

A former member of IBLP’s Joshua Generation said in an interview that the idea was for the organization to grow to the point that it could take over the country and then the world.

Does this sound too fantastic?

Maybe, maybe not.

These cults and violent militias do exist, however. Staying ignorant of them is dangerous. That’s how one gets sucked in … or run over.

Want to see for yourself? It’s airing on Amazon Prime. There’s also a lot of information from various sources if you google IBLP.

 

This Book Triggered Me

 I saw Meredith, Alone by Claire Alexander on display as I walked into the library. I was drawn not only to the interesting title but to the cat looking out the window with Meredith.  I looked at the back cover and read that it was “sweet”, “touching”, “funny”, “charming”, and “hopeful.” Just the ticket for me because I’d just read a sad book.

After I got home, I took a look at the inside cover and felt some concern. It mentioned the positive things in Meredith’s life but then said she was also suffering “treacherous memories of an unstable childhood.” Oh, dear, I thought. Me too. I decided to read the book anyway.

The book is sweet in many places. It has uplifting scenes of hope. It does have its charm. It touched me in a way I didn’t expect, triggering memories. I didn’t find it very funny at all.

From the very first page, I recognized why Meredith was alone. Anxiety and depression is prevalent on my dad’s side of the family; my mother suffered from an undiagnosed mood disorder.  I remember answering my phone just before my marriage to Rich.

One of my cousins was on the phone. Her voice was barely audible and husky. “I’m so sorry I can’t come to your wedding,” she whispered to me. “I can’t leave my apartment.”  She added she hadn’t left her apartment in over 5 years. I assured her that it was OK. I understood and wasn’t offended. She was grateful.

I didn’t know she had agoraphobia. I did know that I had panic attack disorder and so I did very much understand the need to avoid things that provoked anxiety.  About a year or so after our wedding, my cousin said proudly that she’d walked down to the corner grocer. I was delighted. She added, somewhat shamefacedly, that she was only able to get there by carrying a cane. It wasn’t for her protection she assured me. It was like her security blanket.  I didn’t care. The point was she could leave her apartment again.

So, Meredith and her older sister Fiona grew up in an unstable environment. Their dad left when they were very small. Their mother seemed to be uncaring and neglectful; perhaps she had a mood disorder similar to my mother’s. She would be a kind mom one moment and a violent or verbally cruel witch the next. That surely triggered me.

This is what really got me: how did the author know so well about these symptoms and issues? I wondered if she was disguising herself as Meredith. I can’t really tell from the articles and biographies I’ve read about her.  She is so spot-on about what it’s like to have these mental illnesses and yet still function.

Trauma can cause or exacerbate depression and anxiety. Meredith had one other trauma that I didn’t experience, and I thought it might be why she was too anxious to leave her home and I don’t give it a second thought. In spite of what I experienced as a child, I never became as reclusive and afraid to leave home as my cousin did.

The hopeful ideas in the book were that having a mental illness doesn’t and shouldn’t define you. The other idea is you can always get better.

I went back and forth between giving Meredith, Alone three stars (because it hit me so hard) or four stars because Claire Alexander made it all so real. I finally decided not to punish the book for triggering me.

I recommend this book with the caveat that it could trigger memories in the reader.

The Attic Child

 The rest of my writings for the American Cancer Society's write 30 minutes a day in May were offline. I worked on the memoir I've been writing.

I just finished a really good book but it's not for everyone. It can be gut-wrenching.

The cover of The Attic Child by Lola Jaye caught my eye, a profile of an African child wearing a clawed necklace. I read the inside jacket and was intrigued. What an emotionally riveting story it was!  My gut was twisted with anger in some places, my heart felt like it might break in others, and yet I was also filled with hope and joy.

The story is about two children imprisoned in the same attic but decades apart.

The first child, 9-year-old Dikembe, was born in the Congo and had a loving family. Unfortunately, the Congo was occupied by Belgians, and, under the leadership of King Leopold, they were burning villages and committing acts of atrocity. Dikembe’s father was killed by Belgian soldiers. To save her youngest son, the boy’s mother sent him away with a British explorer circa 1901.

Dikembe believed his situation was temporary and that he would soon return to the Congo. Meanwhile, his benefactor, Sir Richard Babbington, treated him as a son. Sir Richard clothed, fed, and educated the boy, and Dikembe lived a life of luxury. However, there were drawbacks. The first was that Babbington changed Dikembe’s name to Celestine. As Dikembe slowly began to realize this might not be a temporary situation, there were other troubling signs about Sir Richard. The man drank like a fish, and he seemed to develop an emotional dependence on Dikembe/Celestine.

Everything changed when Sir Richard suddenly passed away. The will was read, and the house went to Sir Richard’s relatives, the Mayhews. As nothing was specified (then) about Dikembe/Celestine, the Mayhews decided to keep him as a servant. Now, instead of being a pampered son, the boy found himself an overworked servant. Worse, Agatha Mayhew evicted him from his bedroom and locked him in the attic. The attic was bare of anything other than a few trunks and a blanket. The windows were boarded so there was no light. There was no bed and no toilet. It became a barbaric prison.

In the 1960s, Lowra was a happy child with loving parents. They often visited Spain on vacations, and Lowra believed it was because her mother was of Spanish descent. When she was still young, her mother died. She and her father made the best of it and were happy. They were very wealthy, and she was a pampered little girl. Her tutor was Nina, and it was a shock when her father married Nina. Her father mysteriously disappeared while on his honeymoon with Nina.

Nina returned alone and took custody of the grieving Lowra. They didn’t get along very well, and Nina’s moods were unbalanced. One day, Nina was so angry that she dragged Lowra into the attic and locked her in. Until she was 15, Nina only allowed Lowra out for visits with social workers and her grandmother. Nina bullied and abused Lowra so that the child would either say nothing or say she was fine.  She finally managed to escape when she was 15 and was placed in a shelter.

All of this is emotionally wrenching. Both children suffered intolerable abuse and somehow survived after they escaped. The road to healing was long and hard. It began when Lowra visited a museum and saw pictures of Dikembe/Celestine forced to pose with his benefactor Sir Richard. With the help of a historian, Lowra set to work trying to track down the unnamed boy.

In spite of the barbaric way the children were treated, there is still love and hope throughout their lives after their escape.

In the afterword, the author wrote about the inspiration for the book. It is based on a real picture of a child with despairing eyes she saw in a museum exhibit. The picture stayed with her even as she wrote other stories. During the pandemic, she said that the child’s voice demanded to be heard and she wrote this story.

It's a painful read but the author tells Dikembe’s story in a way that is so engrossing, I could hardly bear to put it down and go about my day or to sleep. There is one non-explicit incident of child sexual abuse. In addition to the awful abuse, the story also covers racial and class issues. I thought it was an excellent book and will look for others by this author.