Which fundie change surprised you the most?

[SolomonFundy]

Since everyone here has already covered the big ones, I'll throw a smaller name in the hat. She's not on the radar here much anymore, but Hannah from Cultivating Home has undergone a significant transformation in the past 6 years. Half a decade ago, she was homebirthing a baby every 18 months, living and homeschooling 8 kids in a historic farmhouse in rural upstate NY, growing her own food, and slaughtering her own meat. She would occasionally post about saving "true femininity", the responsibility of women to never, ever wear things that may tempt a man, and the importance of being #sohumble and living a quiet life in the home. They sold a small vacation cabin they had in the mountains (so that they could retreat from their 18th century unimproved farmhouse and live even MORE rustically from time to time) to finance the purchase of a larger plot of land. She implied she would go off-grid for a while, and that they were going to go all in, and be self-sufficient as a family.

Then, her husband had a bad bout with lyme disease, and was so sick for a while, that he got his affairs in order.

When he started recovering, the plan suddenly changed. They bought a modern house in suburban Florida, sold the lovely old farmhouse, and moved the whole family to the beach. Now Hannah has an asymmetrical bob, a nose ring (sometimes), 50 pairs of wild glasses, and dresses like Ms. Frizzle from the Magic School Bus. She paints "artistic landscapes" and lives on social media. They wear modern bathing suits (a rash guard here or there on the girls and boys, but that's it for modesty), and her husband makes leather crafts. I assume they are still living off of the cabin and house money, because I can't fathom that they are bringing in a living with their respective artistic hobbies. At least some of the kids are in public school, and Hannah hasn't had a baby since they sold the house 3-4 years ago.

She seems happy and thrilled with the change of pace, though her "better than thou" attitude hasn't changed much despite her vastly different lifestyle. Still, the change is pretty incredible. Obviously, there's much and more than must have happened that she never mentioned, but it still makes my head spin to think of someone making offers on homesteads and cattle herds in rural New York one day, and just a few months later, being completely settled in Floridian suburbia.

 

[Ms Lucy Fur]

4 hours ago, Georgiana said:

Frankly, I'm a bit peeved we DON'T have a book about what to do when Prince Charming never shows up.  You told me you had all the answers, Botkinettes.  You told me you knew better than me how to live my life.  Well, since we're both unmarried in our 30s, why don't you tell me NOW how much better your lives are than mine?

 

I think Sarah Maxwell has the plot for her next Moody installment. 

[adidas]

Logan and Kris Ante - I’m so happy they escaped. Whilst the agrarian life might seem romantic and wholesome, their leader at the time was a bad egg. 

Kristina Carter (makes the duggars look dirty). I’m happy for her and her children. I never would have imagined the difference in her life now, compared to what we thought her future would be like when she was sitting a ruler length away from her fiancée in Arby’s. 

[Eternalbluepearl]

Erika Shupe's transformation has floored me. And deprived me. I want to continue reading LFOP damn it. I still hear Erika's voice when I declutter. 

I really wish I knew who Doug Phillips is and what happened. It sounds absolutely fascinating. Ditto on the Bradrick story too. 

[fluffy]

2 hours ago, adidas said:

Kristina Carter (makes the duggars look dirty). I’m happy for her and her children. I never would have imagined the difference in her life now, compared to what we thought her future would be like when she was sitting a ruler length away from her fiancée in Arby’s. 

I always had a soft spot for her too and am glad to hear she's doing well. What do you know about her life now? I always felt she was thrown under the bus by her parents and her lack of any education/ pushing her into a young marriage with a guy as clueless as she was. She seemed doomed from the start.  

[meee]

9 hours ago, NakedKnees said:

I'm not surprised Zsu is experiencing mom burnout and is smart enough to not die on that hill. I'll only be really surprised when that bunch rolls back their anti-LGBT rhetoric, and I doubt they ever will.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. The way she's dealing with her mom burnout is to dump her newborns on her little kids and I'd hardly call that smart. Am I misunderstanding?

As for most surprising changes, I'd have to agree with all who have mentioned Erika.  In addition, I know they didn't do this on purpose, but I fully expected every single Bates daughter to be just as quiverfull as their parents and Erin's miscarriages and then Michael and Brandon's infertility have thrown me for a loop.

Oh, and I haven't followed the Maxwells long enough to have known them in their "frumper" days, but from what else I know about them, I'm sort of surprised they updated to the "modern modest" look - they seem to hold themselves apart in just about every other way so I'm not sure why they decided their dress needed to be more relatable.  And I have to admit I kind of like jumpers and wouldn't mind seeing more of them.

[acheronbeach]

2 hours ago, fluffy said:

I always had a soft spot for her too and am glad to hear she's doing well. What do you know about her life now? I always felt she was thrown under the bus by her parents and her lack of any education/ pushing her into a young marriage with a guy as clueless as she was. She seemed doomed from the start.  

She has a FJ account and occasionally posts here.  She also has a Facebook account. 

Her kids are now public schooled and she's totally updated her appearance - no more denim skirts, regular young mom clothes, now she's got a short stylish haircut and very nice makeup.  

[JermajestyDuggar]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the Dixons. Their life is the Jerry Springer show for fundies. Or at least it was a few years ago. They've settled down I think. They are not even close to fundie now. I admit I like looking at Jackie's Facebook page to see the religious posts from way back compared to their super liberal feminist posts of today. It kind of cracks me up.

[Jana814]

I'm happy that Kristina Carter seems to be more mainstream. I follow her Facebook page and was thrilled when she posted that she put her kids in regular school. 

[HermioneSparrow]

I have to agree with all of you... The Shupes changing their lifestyle which I think it was all because of Karen growing up... I'm so happy for her.

[JermajestyDuggar]

5 minutes ago, HermioneSparrow said:

I have to agree with all of you... The Shupes changing their lifestyle which I think it was all because of Karen growing up... I'm so happy for her.

I keep hoping I will see a post on FB about how Melanie is moving in with Karen. But it hasn't come yet.

[HarleyQuinn]

VF happened before I joined FJ and I never followed the Shupes, so my fundie change is quite boring, but it is definitely the trainwreck that is the Dillards. I wasn't expecting him to spirit her away, I thought it was weird that he sought out JB of all people as a prayer partner. But I did expect them to be that sterotypical fundie family that shot out a baby every other year. They were already insufferable but I didn't expect them to turn into the horrible people they are today. 

 

I went down Emily and Dna's rabbit hole when I joined and for some reason it always surprised me that they liked Star Trek. That seemed so un-fundie. 

[Howl]

55 minutes ago, HarleyQuinn said:

but it is definitely the trainwreck that is the Dillards

I don't follow the Duggars (fj blasphemy, I know!).  Could you give me a one or two sentence summary on the horribleness that is the Dillards? 

[jerkit]

13 minutes ago, Howl said:

I don't follow the Duggars (fj blasphemy, I know!).  Could you give me a one or two sentence summary on the horribleness that is the Dillards? 

I'm not Harleyquinn, but Derrick is a disgusting, homophobic bigot that spouts his mouth off on Twitter on the regular.

[ILoveJellybeans]

The Shupes were the most unexpected change. They seemed very Maxwell like with the extreme scheduling and how boring and organised their lives were, but now the kids are in school, theyre enjoying mainstream things, Karen moved out and has her own opinions on things, they dress less modestly, and it all came out of nowhere.

I am also surprised that, when Jill and Derick and Jessa and Ben were first courting, I thought that Derick would be the better husband. I saw him as more mature and worldly, compared to Ben being barely even an adult. Jill seemed like she would be a great mum because she was always looking after her siblings, but Jessa didn't seem to enjoy the whole sister-mum thing and I thought that she just wanted to marry Ben because sex. Nowadays I think Jessa and Ben are the better couple of the two and seem to be much better parents and their kids seem happier. Also Derick is a total dick, I know his beliefs are the same as the rest of the Duggar family, but he just seems like more of an obnoxious douche about it.

[JermajestyDuggar]

My personal theory and major speculation on Derick is that the sudden loss of his dad is where this all started. I think it was traumatic and he never really dealt with the loss. I think he threw himself into religion as a way to deal with the loss. He probably sought out JB as a fatherly figure. What a disappointment JB would be. He gets together with Jill and everything seems wonderful. Religion brought them together and religion will fix his life. But his mom gets sicker and sicker with cancer and he fears losing yet another parent. All the trauma of his father dying comes back all while he and Jill are supposed to have this perfect wedding and honeymoon. Thankfully Cathy gets better because if she died, I think Derick would hAve completely lost it. Jill has a difficult birth and the baby is harder than Derick imagined. He also had major surgery right after the birth with aftercare that makes him look odd and affects his speech. Jill can't handle mission trips and doing a mission trip with a sheltered and scared wife and new baby is different from doing it alone. It's a huge disappointment for him. He's bitter and angry. He lashes out on twitter. He never dealt with his dad's death and his religion was supposed to fix everything. But he is dealing with one disappointment after another. He's one of the fundies I think needs major therapy. But he will just stick with some "Christian counselor" that had weekend of training. 

[HarleyQuinn]

1 hour ago, Howl said:

I don't follow the Duggars (fj blasphemy, I know!).  Could you give me a one or two sentence summary on the horribleness that is the Dillards? 

@jerkit summed it up nice. I find them to be vile, hateful bigots who judge everyone that isn't a white conservative Christian. I particularly find their homophobia (dWRECK bulling a teenage transgender girl on Twitter) and their desire to convert brown people disgusting.  

I also don't believe the death of his father triggered this. Judging from his mother Cathy's twitter account, dWRECK was raised with these vile beliefs. I think he's just upset because he bought a wife and expected to grift his way around the world, but people didn't like him and his wife can't have eleventy babies like they all thought. Plus, she's a stage 5 clinger, which he likely didn't anticipate. 

[quiversR4hunting]

7 minutes ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

He's one of the fundies I think needs major therapy. But he will just stick with some "Christian counselor" that had weekend of training

The sad thing is there are real educated Christian counselors. In my area there is an entire practice that is advertised about how Christian they are, in fact the counselor bios on the website even say where they attend church. It is sad that there are fundies so far right that they don't even seek out the educated Christians for help.

With a quick google search there is this company in Fayetteville. All the counselors mention their church http://www.stillwatersfamilycounseling.com/staff.htm then there are other places like Joshua counseling, which doesn't out right say it is Christian but if you read the website it has that vibe.

[Anonymousguest]

2 hours ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

I keep hoping I will see a post on FB about how Melanie is moving in with Karen. But it hasn't come yet.

I wouldn't expect that to happen at least until Melanie graduated from highschool and turns 18. I'm not sure if that's this year? Maybe next? I've lost track of time, lol.

[Georgiana]

11 minutes ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

My personal theory and major speculation on Derick is that the sudden loss of his dad is where this all started. I think it was traumatic and he never really dealt with the loss. I think he threw himself into religion as a way to deal with the loss. He probably sought out JB as a fatherly figure. What a disappointment JB would be. He gets together with Jill and everything seems wonderful. Religion brought them together and religion will fix his life. But his mom gets sicker and sicker with cancer and he fears losing yet another parent. All the trauma of his father dying comes back all while he and Jill are supposed to have this perfect wedding and honeymoon. Thankfully Cathy gets better because if she died, I think Derick would hAve completely lost it. Jill has a difficult birth and the baby is harder than Derick imagined. He also had major surgery right after the birth with aftercare that makes him look odd and affects his speech. Jill can't handle mission trips and doing a mission trip with a sheltered and scared wife and new baby is different from doing it alone. It's a huge disappointment for him. He's bitter and angry. He lashes out on twitter. He never dealt with his dad's death and his religion was supposed to fix everything. But he is dealing with one disappointment after another. He's one of the fundies I think needs major therapy. But he will just stick with some "Christian counselor" that had weekend of training. 

I agree, and I'm happy to hear someone else say this!  Derick made a LOT of very sudden, major life choices during a crisis, which is a recipe for disaster.  I've watched friends go through the loss of a parent or a health scare with a parent, and many of them also made decisions they would later regret to some extent during this process.  You're just not in a very good state of mind when you are coping with the potential loss of a parent, especially when you are young and this is the second parent you will be losing.

I honestly think to some extent Derick rushed his marriage with Jill because he wanted to make sure he got married before his mother passed.  At the time, she was SERIOUSLY ill, and it's probably a miracle she survived.  Now, I don't think this is the whole reason he was WITH Jill, but I think it made him want to move things faster than he otherwise might have.  I also think that Jill was really a rock for Derick during this time.  I don't like Jill very much from what I've seen of her, but she really does seem like the sort of person who would be excellent support in an emotional crisis.  I think Derick needed Jill to help him deal with Cathy's cancer, I think he maybe confused that emotional need with love, and I think he rushed marriage in order to have his mom there.  

But I think Cathy's recovery is actually what set Derick off.  He was bracing for a blow and was leaning on Jill to help, but when that blow never came and when the crisis ended, I don't think he really needed Jill emotionally the way he had before.  Suddenly, he is looking for something COMPLETELY DIFFERENT in a partner than he was before, and I think suddenly he started seeing Jill as a disappointment.  He just married the wrong person because he chose to get married while in a very unique and temporary mental state.  When things went back to normal, I think it started to become clear that Jill is unable to meet Derick's needs in the relationship and vice versa.  

I also agree that he needs therapy.  Real therapy.  And I think this is another issue in their marriage because emotionally stunted and child-like Jill may not have the adult emotional depth and processing needed to understand Derick's emotional needs...especially as Jill has hardly been exposed to adversity, let alone experienced a major personal tragedy.  

[NakedKnees]

5 hours ago, meee said:

I'm not sure what you mean by this. The way she's dealing with her mom burnout is to dump her newborns on her little kids and I'd hardly call that smart. Am I misunderstanding?

My apologies, I was not very clear. I thought it was an intelligent choice for her to have a medicated hospital birth this most recent time around, and as far as I know, that's the only big shift away from  previous fundie ideology we've seen from her. I was also attempting to refer to how she's often viewed as more booksmart than most other fundies we follow. To be clear, I don't think it's an intelligent nor a surprising change to see a fundie pawn her newborns onto her other children to raise.

[MrsFoxx]

21 hours ago, Teaistheway said:

I also think the Shupes' change seems to have been the most dramatic.  I think that Bob's heart wasn't in it and he eventually stopped indulging Erika and put his foot down; maybe as a result of a bit of rebellion/feistiness from Karen. I'm sure they are still conservative Christians but I'm very glad to see the kids being allowed to live more normal lives.  I just wish that she had continued to blog, seeing it from her viewpoint would interest me.

As an escapee of a mild fundie life, it's really hard to be public during a faith transition. You are dealing with fallout in your marriage and extended family, likely. It hurts. And then, if you have been leaning on the will of God to explain trauma in your life you have to tear big wounds open and deal with them all over again.

It can feel impossible to be 100% real with ANYONE as you relearn what it means to be human, but this time with no safety net. 

[Georgiana]

38 minutes ago, NakedKnees said:

My apologies, I was not very clear. I thought it was an intelligent choice for her to have a medicated hospital birth this most recent time around, and as far as I know, that's the only big shift away from  previous fundie ideology we've seen from her. I was also attempting to refer to how she's often viewed as more booksmart than most other fundies we follow. To be clear, I don't think it's an intelligent nor a surprising change to see a fundie pawn her newborns onto her other children to raise.

Actually, Zsu has a long record of doing what works best for her, ideology be damned.  Zsu's only REAL ideology seems to be that rules are for OTHER PEOPLE.  SHE can do whatever she wants.

For example, she used to be VERY anti-male OBGYN.  She wrote many rants calling them "perverts" and at one point said that going to a make OBGYN and allowing him to examine you was cheating on your husband.  You should NEVER do it.  Boaz was saved by a male OBGYN.  She scrubbed her blog, but naturally failed to address her shift in ideology and admit she was wrong.  

She used to be very anti-health insurance and repeatedly told her followers NOT to buy it or accept it from the state.  Guess who has had state health insurance for the last couple years?

And while she didn't come right out and condemn sister-momming, during the Duggar scandals she blamed Michelle because Michelle didn't directly supervise her children enough, passed them off to the girls, and didn't get the boys involved with baby-care.  Yet here we are with babies being passed to 9 year olds, despite older kids in the house, because that is the next girl child up.  

There's more, but it's early here and I need caffeine.  But honestly, the only thing she hasn't repudiated at this point is her love of butter, skirts, and overwhelming sense of moral superiority.  

[JermajestyDuggar]

That's why Zoo doesn't surprise me anymore. She constantly contradicts herself and the narrative changes by the day. The funniest recent lie is definitely the mysterious ghost filter on her phone. 

[hoipolloi]

2 hours ago, quiversR4hunting said:

With a quick google search there is this company in Fayetteville. All the counselors mention their church http://www.stillwatersfamilycounseling.com/staff.htm then there are other places like Joshua counseling, which doesn't out right say it is Christian but if you read the website it has that vibe.

Putting aside the issue of whether Derrick can or would pay for such services, he'd first have to admit he needs the counseling, and that doesn't seem very likely.