If I had been in a normal high school I would have noticed that other people lived differently. I also would have been around mandatory reporters who would have noticed my Dad’s obvious psychosis and the emotional, spiritual and psychological abuse I lived with. But instead, I didn’t even have a close friend to confide things to. And if anybody ever saw something concerning, nobody ever said a word.
I have never had so many emotions as those that flowed through me when I heard that Josh Duggar had finally been brought to justice. I actually got on the phone with my best friend to rant and celebrate, because I had a situation very similar to the one the Duggars had.
On the one hand, I loved being homeschooled. Being homeschooled saved me from what my experience of school had been up to that point. But looking back, it didn’t help in the long run.
I was born to two very Christian people. When I was born, my father was a Lutheran minister and my mother was a nurse. I was long awaited and I cannot doubt that I was dearly loved. When I was a toddler, my dad left his ministerial job and we left the Lutheran church because he had become convinced that ministers should not accept a salary and had made friends with a local Mennonite pastor. Before long we were wearing long skirts all the time and my mom and I stopped cutting our hair, and she began to wear a head covering.
When the time came for me to enter school, I was put into a private Christian school. It was a good school, but by the time I was in the 3rd grade or so my reading level was far above the normal, so I was regularly bored in class. I also was missing out on all the cultural aspects of being a child since we didn’t have cable anymore, and I wasn’t allowed to read the same book as everyone else, This which meant I was increasingly socially inept.
By 4th grade my parents no longer liked the ‘increasingly worldly’ culture of the school, so I was moved to the church school run by the Mennonite church. That year was a disaster. Even though I had begun to wear the proper long, loose dresses and a head covering, I was still on the outside…before I had been too sheltered, now I was too worldly and not related. I was openly bullied by the girls in my class for a whole year while the teacher watched impassively.
So when my parents suggested we homeschool, I was understandably relieved. Finally I could go at my own speed and not have to worry about other people.
The first years were everything homeschooling should be: fun, challenging, personalized. I had a few friends I’d kept through school and I made some more at the local homeschool group. We didn’t get together often, but when we did it was a blast. But as I went into high school, it got much worse, very quickly. I slammed into Pre-Algebra like a brick wall and couldn’t get past it. I spent 3 years trying to learn Pre-Algebra and Algebra, including about 4 or 5 curriculums. It just didn’t click. Finally, Dad just told us to stop bothering, so technically I had enough Math credits to graduate, but I never actually learned the normal math everyone learns in high school.
Meanwhile, though, I was happily doing high level sciences that didn’t require Math. I did lots of dissections and killed Human Anatomy. I loved Literature and History. When I got tired of Western history, Mom found me an African History book to use in 10th grade, and it was wonderful.
But on a social front, I had no friends at all. Sure, there were people I talked to at the homeschool group, but the couple of times I tried to have a deep conversation, it was met with subject changes or being ghosted. Most of my friends were from big families, and they didn’t really need me anyway. I was just an only child: socially awkward, nerdy even for a homeschooler, and still out of touch with anything really age appropriate. My Dad totally flipped out the few times he realized I had a crush on a boy, telling me that everyone would think I was a slut. Meanwhile, he actively sabotaged few friendships by telling me that my friends were too worldly, too boy crazy, or had the ‘Jezebel’ spirit… because at some point when I was a teenager Dad started reading lots of conspiracy theorists and hardcore Pentecostals. He decided that the whole world was controlled by the Illuminati and that he was a prophet who could sense demons on people and predict what they would do. He occasionally attempted exorcisms on me or my mom when he thought we were being influenced… which mostly just meant we were in a bad mood.
By 11th grade I was done with school and asked to combine the last two years of school, which they, of course, agreed to. It was just as much of a disaster as you might expect, in which I did no official Math or Science and did basically the equivalent of a year’s worth of literature, foreign language, and history. We moved a couple of months in and all schooling basically stopped, until I officially graduated.
Meanwhile, my Dad had become endlessly paranoid and controlling. I had basically no friends, neither did my mom, and home became a nightmare.
If I had been in a normal high school I would have noticed that other people lived differently. I also would have been around mandatory reporters who would have noticed my Dad’s obvious psychosis and the emotional, spiritual and psychological abuse I lived with. But instead, I didn’t even have a close friend to confide things to. And if anybody ever saw something concerning, nobody ever said a word.
Finally, as a young adult I left home and spent almost a year in a cloistered monastery. I thought I was discerning a vocation, but actually I was being directed by something or Someone to the first safe place I had ever lived in. Here, I finally began to tell the sisters what I had experienced, and I got in contact with my grandparents. The nuns gently pushed me towards therapy and eventually taught me what love and stable relationships were. I reconnected with my grandparents, who I had been kept from since I was a small child, and who have become some of my greatest supporters. Eventually, I left the monastery, knowing that I wasn’t called there, but that I owe them the world.
I moved in with mom’s parents about 6 months ago and am finally becoming myself. I cut my hair, started wearing jeans, learned to drive, to make friends. There is a boy in my life who I like very much and in fact likes me back, and we both dream of the day that we’re both in a place, emotionally and practically to be in a proper relationship. Until then, we’re just inseparable friends. Now I’m trying to navigate what to do when your transcript is basically worthless and you are staring at a GED. I don’t know what I want to do with myself long term, but I am confident I can do what needs to be done.
This is why we need increased regulations in homeschooling, increased awareness of what child abuse and mental illness look like, and the destruction of loopholes that makes situations like mine and the Duggars go on so long. All it would have taken would have been one person to see what was happening, just enough to be concerned and report it to the authorities.
I remind myself often: I am a survivor. I am brave. I can do this. And maybe I’m just writing this because I am proud of myself.
Abbey Lancaster was homeschooled in Virginia and Ohio from 2011-2017. For additional thoughts and experiences from other homeschool alumni, see our Community Voices page.
Abbey L.: “If anybody ever saw something concerning, nobody ever said a word.”
If I had been in a normal high school I would have noticed that other people lived differently. I also would have been around mandatory reporters who would have noticed my Dad’s obvious psychosis and the emotional, spiritual and psychological abuse I lived with. But instead, I didn’t even have a close friend to confide things to. And if anybody ever saw something concerning, nobody ever said a word.
I have never had so many emotions as those that flowed through me when I heard that Josh Duggar had finally been brought to justice. I actually got on the phone with my best friend to rant and celebrate, because I had a situation very similar to the one the Duggars had.
On the one hand, I loved being homeschooled. Being homeschooled saved me from what my experience of school had been up to that point. But looking back, it didn’t help in the long run.
I was born to two very Christian people. When I was born, my father was a Lutheran minister and my mother was a nurse. I was long awaited and I cannot doubt that I was dearly loved. When I was a toddler, my dad left his ministerial job and we left the Lutheran church because he had become convinced that ministers should not accept a salary and had made friends with a local Mennonite pastor. Before long we were wearing long skirts all the time and my mom and I stopped cutting our hair, and she began to wear a head covering.
When the time came for me to enter school, I was put into a private Christian school. It was a good school, but by the time I was in the 3rd grade or so my reading level was far above the normal, so I was regularly bored in class. I also was missing out on all the cultural aspects of being a child since we didn’t have cable anymore, and I wasn’t allowed to read the same book as everyone else, This which meant I was increasingly socially inept.
By 4th grade my parents no longer liked the ‘increasingly worldly’ culture of the school, so I was moved to the church school run by the Mennonite church. That year was a disaster. Even though I had begun to wear the proper long, loose dresses and a head covering, I was still on the outside…before I had been too sheltered, now I was too worldly and not related. I was openly bullied by the girls in my class for a whole year while the teacher watched impassively.
So when my parents suggested we homeschool, I was understandably relieved. Finally I could go at my own speed and not have to worry about other people.
The first years were everything homeschooling should be: fun, challenging, personalized. I had a few friends I’d kept through school and I made some more at the local homeschool group. We didn’t get together often, but when we did it was a blast. But as I went into high school, it got much worse, very quickly. I slammed into Pre-Algebra like a brick wall and couldn’t get past it. I spent 3 years trying to learn Pre-Algebra and Algebra, including about 4 or 5 curriculums. It just didn’t click. Finally, Dad just told us to stop bothering, so technically I had enough Math credits to graduate, but I never actually learned the normal math everyone learns in high school.
Meanwhile, though, I was happily doing high level sciences that didn’t require Math. I did lots of dissections and killed Human Anatomy. I loved Literature and History. When I got tired of Western history, Mom found me an African History book to use in 10th grade, and it was wonderful.
But on a social front, I had no friends at all. Sure, there were people I talked to at the homeschool group, but the couple of times I tried to have a deep conversation, it was met with subject changes or being ghosted. Most of my friends were from big families, and they didn’t really need me anyway. I was just an only child: socially awkward, nerdy even for a homeschooler, and still out of touch with anything really age appropriate. My Dad totally flipped out the few times he realized I had a crush on a boy, telling me that everyone would think I was a slut. Meanwhile, he actively sabotaged few friendships by telling me that my friends were too worldly, too boy crazy, or had the ‘Jezebel’ spirit… because at some point when I was a teenager Dad started reading lots of conspiracy theorists and hardcore Pentecostals. He decided that the whole world was controlled by the Illuminati and that he was a prophet who could sense demons on people and predict what they would do. He occasionally attempted exorcisms on me or my mom when he thought we were being influenced… which mostly just meant we were in a bad mood.
By 11th grade I was done with school and asked to combine the last two years of school, which they, of course, agreed to. It was just as much of a disaster as you might expect, in which I did no official Math or Science and did basically the equivalent of a year’s worth of literature, foreign language, and history. We moved a couple of months in and all schooling basically stopped, until I officially graduated.
Meanwhile, my Dad had become endlessly paranoid and controlling. I had basically no friends, neither did my mom, and home became a nightmare.
If I had been in a normal high school I would have noticed that other people lived differently. I also would have been around mandatory reporters who would have noticed my Dad’s obvious psychosis and the emotional, spiritual and psychological abuse I lived with. But instead, I didn’t even have a close friend to confide things to. And if anybody ever saw something concerning, nobody ever said a word.
Finally, as a young adult I left home and spent almost a year in a cloistered monastery. I thought I was discerning a vocation, but actually I was being directed by something or Someone to the first safe place I had ever lived in. Here, I finally began to tell the sisters what I had experienced, and I got in contact with my grandparents. The nuns gently pushed me towards therapy and eventually taught me what love and stable relationships were. I reconnected with my grandparents, who I had been kept from since I was a small child, and who have become some of my greatest supporters. Eventually, I left the monastery, knowing that I wasn’t called there, but that I owe them the world.
I moved in with mom’s parents about 6 months ago and am finally becoming myself. I cut my hair, started wearing jeans, learned to drive, to make friends. There is a boy in my life who I like very much and in fact likes me back, and we both dream of the day that we’re both in a place, emotionally and practically to be in a proper relationship. Until then, we’re just inseparable friends. Now I’m trying to navigate what to do when your transcript is basically worthless and you are staring at a GED. I don’t know what I want to do with myself long term, but I am confident I can do what needs to be done.
This is why we need increased regulations in homeschooling, increased awareness of what child abuse and mental illness look like, and the destruction of loopholes that makes situations like mine and the Duggars go on so long. All it would have taken would have been one person to see what was happening, just enough to be concerned and report it to the authorities.
I remind myself often: I am a survivor. I am brave. I can do this. And maybe I’m just writing this because I am proud of myself.
Abbey Lancaster was homeschooled in Virginia and Ohio from 2011-2017. For additional thoughts and experiences from other homeschool alumni, see our Community Voices page.