Are Fundy Children/Teens Protected From Self Esteem Issues?

[luckylassie]

I wonder if fundy girls ever have body image issues like anorexia or other eating disorders. So many girls that I went to school with call themselves fat when they look fine to me. I guess what one person sees as "fat" another sees as perfectly fine.

[Austin]

I don't really think fundies are too worried about their children's self-esteem in general. I'm not sure that many of them even believe it as a legitimate concept.

[emmiedahl]

I don't think they care about self-esteem. If anything, they want to squash it because it supposed to be about JOY and not YOJ.

I don't know if your figure is so important if you are going to be dressing like a Maxwell. Regardless of my actual size, frumpers make me look like the GIANT WALL OF UNIBOOB. It really wouldn't matter what my butt looked like if I were wearing those all the time.

I always feel fat. When I was a size 2, I could go on for days about my thighs or whatever. But I had an eating disorder in high school and I see myself as much bigger than I am. Right now I am within a normal weight range (145 lbs and 5'6") but I am bigger than I have ever been and totally feel like crap about it. I am losing weight, but it is so hard with metabolic issues.

[notsocommon]

Self- esteem is a dirty word in fundyland. It is maing an idol of yourself, you know.

If I had a dime for every speaker I have heard that said something like "I don't care about your self-esteem" I'd be rich.

[gustava]

If self-esteem were a concern, Sarah Maxwell would be married by now.... as would AS & E Robotkins.

[Hane]

I am willing to bet eating disorders are rife among fundie teens of both sexes. I've read a lot of references to the "sin of gluttony" in various blogs, and have noticed that pics of only thin, relatively attractive kids get posted. Add that to the fact that, in one post about "chicken-etti," cheese biscuits were recommended as a side dish--processed starch and fats and sodium FTW!!! No mention of a salad or vegetables.

[fundiefan]

Self-esteem is, by definition, what you feel & think about yourself. To fundies, that is selfish and every kind of wrong. When kids have their will broken by absolute obedience and the following of rules and regulations in every aspect of their lives, they have no sense of themselves to even feel anything about.

[O Latin]

Well, "I'm so fat," does not necessarily equal eating disorder. I knew lots of girls who said that all the time, either so that they could hear everybody else tell them how skinny they were, or just because it was what everyone else was saying, because heaven forbid a teenager actually admitted to being okay with herself.

I don't know about fundies, but I would think think they would develop at least some level of confidence to spend your whole life being so different.

[ElphabaGalinda]

I imagine fundy girls have issues with self esteem when it comes from fitting the image of perfect godly helpmeet. Like if they're not super perfect enough in keeping sweet or whatever, they're bound to get low self esteem about that because it's what they're told their whole lives is their purpose. And I'm sure the longer and longer they wait for prince charming, the more they think there must be something wrong with the way they look. After all, boys and girls aren't allowed to get to know each other, so they must suspect all those godly courtships start because of looks. No matter how much someone's will is broken, i think they will think about themselves...they well just do it in terms that are more acceptable to their culture.

[liltwinstar]

In short, no. That's part of the big lie that they sell you when wooing people into the movement - that your kids will be protected from self esteem issues, from peer pressure, etc. But it's not true.

In terms of eating disorders, I have one (binge eating). It's a whole lot better now, but I have a whole history of really disordered eating, starting when my parents decided that during Lent, Advent, every Wednesday and Friday and many other days during the year we could only eat one fat-free, vegan meal. I was a young teenager at the time, so that was really hard. Add to that the fact that we weren't allowed to express emotions of any kind except the "keeping sweet" variety (although thank goodness that phrase was never used) and it was a perfect breeding ground for an eating disorder. I could see how that could turn into anorexia; for me it turned into binge eating because I became terrified of being hungry.

My eating has normalized to a point over the last 8-10 years, but I still fight the urge to binge from time to time. It's not a pretty thing. I used to wish I was anorexic instead because at least then I'd be thin. :( (I'm not thin)

Some of this is probably my own mother's unique approach, but I felt a *huge* amount of pressure to be perfect. Not to look perfect, not to make other people think I was perfect, but to actually *be* perfect in every way. Imperfection of any kind was basically the same thing as sinning (although really, it's not a sin to have a dirty bathroom). Makeup and hair dye were seen as "not telling the truth" about yourself, becuase you'd just be "fooling" people by your appearance.

Beyond the food and appearance issues, you can only hear about how worthless you are a human being for so long until you just start to believe it. Hearing that in church, over and over and over - that I was a worthless piece of shit and that the only way I could get God's favor/attention (let alone any other human being's attention) was to be perfect - drove me to despair and thoughts of suicide.

Thank goodness I got out. Years of therapy have helped a lot. But those were dark, terrible, bad times.

[Rachel333]

I do think they have slightly better self-esteem, but I don't think they're completely protected.

I developed anorexia as a 12-year-old homeschooler, but that's a biological illness and not just due to a lack of self-esteem. I didn't think I was fat until after I got sick.

Honestly, I do think that fundies, for all their faults, are less looks-driven. There are always going to be issues with that, but they do make a real effort not to be superficial.

I think self-esteem issues with fundies are less about looks and more about issues of personal worthiness and guilt, which they probably get more than other teens.

[bananacat]

Fundie girls have the biggest self-esteem issues. They are in constant fear of going to Hell for any minor transgression. They are in constant fear of causing others to sin. They have absolutely no power to initiate a courtship, so they have to look good enough to attract a man based on their appearance alone all while wearing a frumper, but they also risk "defrauding" men at the same time. They may also be more prone to eating disorders because of food scarcity and because it's the only thing they have control over. And there is even more pressure to conform to a certain look, even if that particular look doesn't mean being size 0.

They spend their entire lives around adults who judge other constantly. They don't live in some idyllic little life where they don't have to worry about how they look. They believe that every minor detail of life is a reward, punishment, or test from God. So if you were a truly Godly young lady, it would glow through you and make you look beautiful. If you don't look pretty, maybe it's an indication that you aren't faithful enough.

[mystweaver]

Bwahahaha.

Sorry. Had to get that out. This former fundie(lite) had (and has) more than fair share of self-esteem issues (and the accompanying eating disorder/body image issues).

I think one of the big differences is that the self-esteem issues look different (but we still have them). Instead of worrying about peer-pressure and our image for friends and family, the self-esteem leans towards the spiritual side. What the 'world' calls self-esteem is intentionally shot (because it's idolatry, self-focused, blah blah blah), and then a godly 'self-esteem' based on the Bible and our spiritual value is built into its place...but between the fundie rules, the shaming/harsh parenting, and the hypocrisy, it really just feels like a never-ending popularity contest with God (as judged by your peers, of course).

[FlorenceHamilton]

I totally disagree with you Rachel. I think physical appearance is HUGE in fundy world. Gothard has specific rules about girls keeping their hair styled in soft curls and wearing "light makeup" to draw attention to their faces. Looking through all of the fundy blogs, the whole thing is devoted to adorable, smiling healthy looking children with bright white teeth.

The standards of beauty are just a bit different than the worldly culture, but are equally artificial. I think the ideal woman in their world is rounder and softer, but they definitely do not look kindly on obesity. In fact, some of the stories that have come out of the escapees of the movement have emphasized that marital problems, poor treatment be husbands and infidelity are often due to the fact that the wives have difficulty losing their baby weight. they are admonished by the community to work on their own failing of not staying fit to please their husbands.

Not only is their an emphasis for women to be physically pleasant to look at, but their homes must be kitschy adorable, organized and neat as a pin. Appearances are crucial to the movement.

[Rachel333]

I know that happens, but I just haven't really experienced that among the fundies I know. The clothing is often hideous, many don't believe in makeup, they have long hair that's stringy on the ends, etc. That doesn't mean they don't have appearance-related issues, but I don't think it's quite as big of a deal. That's going to vary quite a bit, though, depending on what group of fundies you're talking about.

[Seven Severn]

Sarah Mally seemed nearly skeletal to me when she did the Duggar "dating" seminar. The blousy shirt tried to hide it, but she looked really unhealthy to me.

[antifundie]

OMG, for fundies, self-esteem=pride. While perhaps some fundies don't have as many issues with body image (although I seriously doubt that to be the case), for myself and the children I knew, any normal example of self-esteem such as standing up for oneself, being able to say no, to express healthy wishes or desires was completely squashed.

So many people talked about how self-esteem was bad, of the devil, etc., etc.

The pressure to *be* prefect was extreme and excruciating. To always be pleasant, to be kind to pervy men, to confess and repent of the smallest of sins (I'm 16 and got mad at my mom!!), oh, it makes me ill just thinking about it.

This lack of self-esteem makes fundie children (even recovering fundie adults) completely open to abuse and manipulation. I literally wasn't *allowed* to let people be mad at me--that would have been sinful. So, pervy guy thinks he should be able to hang out with and hug teenage girls? Oh you don't say no, (you might tell your dad to get him to back off), somebody wants you to sign a petition and you don't want too? You should anyway. You *should* give people money. There were NO BOUNDARIES of any kind. None. A healthy boundary would have been seen as selfish and prideful.

And in the groups that only wear frumpers and have stringy hair, maybe that does protect *some* girls form feeling like crap about their bodies, but it could make others feel even more dispair--they can't get a haircut to make their day better, or wear a lipstick. The girls who are conventionally pretty (even with stringy hair and no makeup--think Sarah Maxwell+headcovering) would be more likely to be courted, and would likely be looked upon with envy by the other women in the group. The girls who weren't pretty would probably spend hours obsessing about how they *were* ugly, and unlike normal girls, wouldn't have access to basics like pimple cream or conditioner.

[tinuviel]

OMG, for fundies, self-esteem=pride. While perhaps some fundies don't have as many issues with body image (although I seriously doubt that to be the case), for myself and the children I knew, any normal example of self-esteem such as standing up for oneself, being able to say no, to express healthy wishes or desires was completely squashed.

So many people talked about how self-esteem was bad, of the devil, etc., etc.

The pressure to *be* prefect was extreme and excruciating. To always be pleasant, to be kind to pervy men, to confess and repent of the smallest of sins (I'm 16 and got mad at my mom!!), oh, it makes me ill just thinking about it.

This lack of self-esteem makes fundie children (even recovering fundie adults) completely open to abuse and manipulation. I literally wasn't *allowed* to let people be mad at me--that would have been sinful. So, pervy guy thinks he should be able to hang out with and hug teenage girls? Oh you don't say no, (you might tell your dad to get him to back off), somebody wants you to sign a petition and you don't want too? You should anyway. You *should* give people money. There were NO BOUNDARIES of any kind. None. A healthy boundary would have been seen as selfish and prideful.

And in the groups that only wear frumpers and have stringy hair, maybe that does protect *some* girls form feeling like crap about their bodies, but it could make others feel even more dispair--they can't get a haircut to make their day better, or wear a lipstick. The girls who are conventionally pretty (even with stringy hair and no makeup--think Sarah Maxwell+headcovering) would be more likely to be courted, and would likely be looked upon with envy by the other women in the group. The girls who weren't pretty would probably spend hours obsessing about how they *were* ugly, and unlike normal girls, wouldn't have access to basics like pimple cream or conditioner.

Oh man, antifundie, I think you're absolutely right about this. It's been a HUGE deal for me to learn that I don't have to be nice all the time. Anger was a big deal too. If you had asked me two years ago I probably would have said that I just don't get angry, but looking back there was actually a lot of anger and hurt. It just wasn't godly to let myself feel and acknowledge it.

My first boyfriend was a total dick, and I definitely put up with way too much. It was in part because it didn't occur to me that I could deserve anything better, but I think the courtship ideas I had also made me too committed to the relationship. And I had absorbed the whole "woman as helpmeet" model enough that I thought my sole purpose was to take care of all of his needs and whims while ignoring all of my own. That was holier after all...

It absolutely freaked me out when I realized that I had an automatic obedience reflex to the commands of older males. There was a pervy older guy who was always hitting on me at work. I tried to interpret his actions as innocent because I was nice/stupid. But I was still really uncomfortable. Anyway, I was leaving that job and he told me to follow him into a small room so he could tell me something before I left. Felt uncomfortable, went anyway. He closed the door. I wanted to tell him to open it, but I couldn't. Told me to sit down. I didn't want to, but I did it anyway. Then he told me that I was intellectual and attractive (while staring at my boobs), blah blah blah, and I spit out "that's not appropriate for the workplace. I don't want you to comment on my personal appearance." Then I let him talk himself out of taking responsibility.

Well. After that I realized how subject I was to that kind of manipulation, and it scared me and made me extremely angry. I found two of my closer female coworkers, told them everything he did that year that offended me and asked if I was crazy for being upset. It was wonderful to finally talk about it after way too long. At first I was worried about besmirching his reputation, but then I decided that he would have to earn a good reputation if he wanted one. If acting like an asshole made people see that he was an asshole then that certainly wasn't my problem.

The next day I told him off. He was all apologies and propriety, but his smile was looking awfully strained.

And I felt AWESOME! That was a huge turning point for me, and I got a therapist and starting learning to feel and express again. It's like getting in touch with my pre-fundie five-year-old self. :-D

But yeah, fundy conditioning has played a huge and nasty role in my lack of self-esteem up until now.

[keeperrox]

I wonder if fundy girls ever have body image issues like anorexia or other eating disorders. So many girls that I went to school with call themselves fat when they look fine to me. I guess what one person sees as "fat" another sees as perfectly fine.

Self esteem issues and body image issues are not mutual. Those with body image issues typically have self esteem issues, but just because you have self esteem issues that doesn't mean that you have body image issues.

I'd actually imagine that many fundie girls have the potential to develop eating disorders. If you read anything about anorexia or bulimia, one of the most consistent things said by sufferers is that their ED gave them control over one thing in their lives. If you can't control anything in your life other than what you physically consume, I can easily see how an eating disorder can develop. Often times the ED gets worse as everything else spins more and more out of control, because the sufferer is grasping on to the only thing that they have power over. Fundie women, especially SAHDs and wives who are in abusive patriarchal marriages (as in most patriarchal marriages not like the Duggars, where I think Michelle calls many of the shots), aren't going to have many things that they have control over, thus the eating disorder.

[kaetrin]

As usual, I say Amen and +1 to what antifundie and liltwinstar said, especially about the impossible pressure to BE perfect. It can't JUST be your appearance; it has to be deep and genuine perfection.

To add slightly to what others have said, I grew up ATI/Gothard and was relatively uninterested in putting effort into my appearance as a teen, but that doesn't mean I didn't want to look good. I honestly thought that other people just had better skin/nails/hair naturally than I did. ATI women are certainly allowed to wear makeup etc. It was my own issue of wanted to disappear into the background, and not wanting to "compete" on that level that kept me from wearing any until I was 19. The problem is that you aren't supposed to be vain... you're just supposed to look perfect without "trying."

On "self-esteem" generally, I remember being taught that the problem with most people was too MUCH self-esteem, not too little. And to make matters worse, I was also taught that thinking badly of yourself was a sign of excessively HIGH self-esteem, because it meant that you had high expectations of yourself (how prideful!) that you were failing to meet. Never mind that the whole system was an exercise in impossibly high expectations. So you were supposed to be constantly on the lookout for your sins and shortcomings, but if you were disappointed or depressed that you had them, you were sinning by being too self-centered and arrogant.

I'm still dealing with the fallout from that way of thinking. I get tied up in terrible knots over it -- always finding new ways in which I am falling short, and being upset about it, and being upset that I'm upset about it. Because, damn it, I'm just supposed to BE PERFECT ALL THE TIME IN EVERY IMAGINABLE WAY. I honestly think sometimes that I really want to be a robot and not a human being... but then what's the point of being alive? I ask myself. And I reply to myself, well, what's the point of being alive if you aren't perfect? And I don't have an answer to that that makes me happy for more than a day or two at a time.

Sorry! I got a little carried away there.

[tinuviel]

Kaetrin, glad you got carried away with your post. :-) The constant evaluating of whether and how I was prideful was just hell. Such a vicious cycle. Glad you're not trying to be perfect any more!

One of the things I've noticed as I've left the whole perfection cult behind is that it's freed up my mental energy for other people. I might not be as sweet as I used to be, but I think I've becoming more genuinely caring. Take that fundies!

[liltwinstar]

Kaetrin, I hear you on the "trying" thing. Like you, I thought that some women just rolled out of bed looking gorgeous. Like, if I were my 16 year old self looking at pics of the Botkin girls, I would literally not realize that they make good use of hair dye, makeup, and flattering clothes. I would think that the artful hair was just something they threw together and that their thrift store happened to have nice stuff. Now, as an adult, I can look at their pics or the pics of Sarah Mally or others and "see" the effort those women put into their looks, but as a teenager, I couldn't.

And yes, the perfectionism is so far beyond looks it isn't even funny. It has to be absolutely every aspect of your life - and not in a way that makes *you* happy (say, if you're obsessive about your spices being organzied), but in a way that makes your leaders happy. So your house has to be perfect; you have to be the perfect combination of submissive, shy, sweet, and outgoing; you have to love kids but not too much because what if Jesus doesn't want you to have children; you can't have any wishes/desires of your own; you're not supposed to attract attention to yourself; you have to have approved hobbies; and perhaps worst of all, you are not allowed your own thoughts. You are told that your brain is wrong, that your thoughts and feelings are wrong, that you have to confess and repent of every bad thought imaginable, etc etc. You can't even retreat to the safety of your own mind, you know? There is literally no refuge.