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How Do Women Get Sucked Into A.T.I.?


luckylassie

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I wonder this all of the time now from watching Michelle D., Terri Maxwell, and their offspring. How in the world does one go from being "normal" to being a full on fundy, giving up all their individual thoughts to Bill Gothard (or whatever leader they follow)? Gothard not only drains his followers' wallets, he also drains their emotions and individual thoughts. I have to wonder...how do people fall for people like this without digging deep and finding out what they are really about?

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It's what a lot of cults do: find vulnerable people and take advantage of them. I highly doubt any of the ATI women went from mainstream to full-on fundy immediately. Cults don't work like that- they slowly reel you in. Michelle Duggar did go from normal to conservative to fundy, probably because she was a teenager at the time, then married Jim Bob at 17. She didn't go Quiverfull until after she miscarried a child, and dealing with that plus marriage plus baby Smuggar equals vulnerable Michelle. Teri Maxwell has depression. And even if they do want out, they've put far too much into ATI to get out. They'd have to start all over.

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And I think there's an attraction, especially to women with low self esteem, in the whole "men should not look or think about anyone but their wives" frame of mind. On the surface, the lifestyle looks kind of cozy - father takes care of family and loves them unconditionally, mother raises children and keeps the home pretty, children are perfect and obedient, blah blah blah. If you didn't know any better, that's an appealing picture.

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I was interested in ATI but did not join since I'm and individual and have no husband or children and I would have felt weird showing up at their conferences as a single young woman. what pulled me in was how alluring they made it look and I was slowly getting sucked in due to fundie young woman bloggers my age. They made their day to day life look so appealing with having so much free time and getting to bake, sew, and play house all day. I was in college at the time and decided to ask my parents if I could do the SAHD thing and they shut that idea down so fast I didn't know what hit me (thank god for that) and I tried backing up my notions with scripture which they found ridiculous. I got over the SAHD phase pretty fast. The main reason I was drawn to it was because I was suffering from anxiety and depression and SAHD seemed like an easy out from having to deal with the real world.

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One of my friends became deeply involved in a fundie church. She's incredibly smart but undereducated because she had dropped out of school to get married, she's estranged from her family, and the fact that she had kids very young made it difficult for her to socialize with her old friends or find the time to make new ones.

Today, it seems like she's too tired and stretched to the limits of her ability trying to raise a big family on very little income to even entertain the idea of questioning her church community, because it's her only safety net now that her husband left her.

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Its just like people who get sucked into the Wright institute and $cientology. They're searching for something and these people SEEM to have the answers. :(

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gullibility is part of religion the more you believe the more gullible you become. That's the nature of religion and beliefs and people have used that to pray on others through time. If you just believe this or that your life will be so much easier and better.

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The problem with all cults is that they lure you in slowly. Vyckie from NLQ explained this better than I ever could because she experienced. She said that if she had known going in where it would end up, she would have run away screaming. But people like the the Duggars have fake smiles and cutesy voices for a reason. They want you think it's all sunshine and puppies and eternal bliss and you'll never be sad again. They start with something that seems reasonable, but then it just keeps going down that slippery slope until you're nearly dying from pregnancy, so overwhelmed with chores that you cry and get no sleep, watch your kids go without enough food, but you're too far in to drag yourself out.

In Vyckie's case specifically, she accidentally got pregnant with her 3rd daughter just a few months after her second daughter was born. She was surprised to find that people weren't as excited about this one as they were just a year before. So when she found a group that didn't judge her about it and actually praised her for it, that was appealing to her. Since she was already a mainstream Christian, it didn't seem so threatening to hang out with these other people who call themselves the real Christians. She had no idea at the time that in exchange for the social support of having another baby so soon, she would be expected to conform to so many rules and keep having babies to keep getting the praise, which eventually turned into having more babies just to avoid judgment and shaming. It's actually quite similar to how abusive relationships often develop. At first it's about getting some rewards, but eventually it's just about avoiding punishments.

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I read the beginning of Vicki's story and I though that she had little or no self-esteem and embraced QF because it made her feel important.

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Any cult, religious or not, uses a person's hurts and vulnerabilities to draw them in. And various manipulative tactics to keep them there.

And intelligent, well-meaning, reasonably normal people also have hurts and vulnerabilities, and the potential to be suckered by a cult.

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Well, I can only speak for my mom...

But she became a Christian when she was 6 and she grew up in a household that hated Christians. My grandmother hated her and would beat her simply because she became a Christian. So anyway, my mom started attending a local church (with a neighbor) that was very conservative and had lots of ties to Bob Jones University. As my mom was growing up (and because of the church's influence), she began to think that she NEEDED rules and lots of them...to set herself apart from the heathens (her words). She went to BJU, where Gothard was highly respected and she worshiped BJU. They never have and never will do any wrong, so because of that Gothard is right in everything he does or says.

In her head, she thought that this HAD to be right, that it was how God wanted us to live. And you have to admit that Gothard can be compelling to a naive, Christian girl.

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It appears that some of these women were abused and had absent fathers. Not have stability as a child led me to crave stability as an adult.

Also, when you first convert to a new faith, it is like falling in love with a lover. The emotions are very intense. It can be easy to get sucked into a cult when you are first falling in love

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I got sucked in because I was very depressed, and in a really bad place in my marriage. I found a group of women who seemed to have perfect, loving marriages. They claimed the only way to happiness and fulfillment was through their religion. I liked the occasional feeling of purity that I got by following their ideology. Of course, this was undercut by, and eventually replaced by, debilitating and pervading shame. They make outrageous promises to people who are desperately searching for happiness.

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I'm not sure how into ATI/Vision Forum they are at this point, but my stepsister got sucked into the fundie/QF lifestyle by her husband. She was raised in a low key religious household (acknowledged god but never went to church or anything), and when she married him they moved to Oklahoma, and joined a church his family already belonged to. She called her mom a few months later and said she hated it down there, the people were freakin her out and the church was nutso and she wanted to come home, and my stepmom encouraged her to do so. Shortly after that she came up pregnant with their first (of 9), and she decided to stay and work it out. 15 years later now she's a full koolaide drinkin qf fundie.

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Something to think about that always boggles my mind: Michelle and JB were married four years before they had Josh. On purpose. If a SAHD got married and then waited four years to have a baby, we'd think she was in the clear. Just goes to show that a life-altering change in your mindset could come at any age (which in turn still gives me hope for this generation of SAHD).

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Maybe its a gradual thing like those blogs where its all homemaking this and submission that and vision forum has cute stuff. They might not know how deep thye are into it or that they are picking only good bits out. kinda like the vision forum thing makes their choices seem important.

Like the new book they have out called queen of the home

"In past generations, the role of wife and mother was viewed as a sacred calling. The committed homemaker was seen as strong, capable, intelligent, and irreplaceable. She was regarded not only as a crucial part of the home, but as a foundational bulwark of society. She was considered worthy of great honor, appreciation, and respect. Though in recent years feminists have sought to demean this glorious calling, the Bible’s hopeful vision of noble womanhood is one worth reclaiming. Queen of the Home seeks to cast that vision afresh through godly encouragements from writers past and present. This inspiring collection of essays, poetry, and poignant vignettes paints a beautiful picture of what it means for a wife to be a crown to her husband, the monarch of the cradle, and queen of the home, and calls upon daughters to embrace their rewarding role and sacred calling as regal women of God."

Easy to get suckered in.

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They promise you the perfect family if you just do X amount of simple rules.

After a nasty divorce and a marriage to a complete whack job, I think this sort of supposed simplicity held great appeal for my father.

I was on an X-ATI forum where the question was raised about how we came to be involved in ATI.

I would guestimate that 95% of the responses were that the perfect family walked into their church one day...the rest was history.

I know that much of our society sees a fun TV show about an interesting family when the watch the Duggars show. I don't. I see that perfect family, walking into their living rooms in what is Gothard's greatest recruiting effort ever. It sickens and scares me, to be honest.

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One common thread I've noticed with common traits about female bloggers from a more mainstream background who go fundie. They tend to be really low energy (maybe an undiagonosed fatigue/autoimmune problem), unhappy at the notion of having to work for a living, get a higher education or being an indepedent adult. They almost seem terrified of the notion, and seem to assume that any job they'd get would automatically be some high powered exeuctive 90 hour a week job. Instead of recognizing they aren't cut out to be a high powered executive type they look for some institution to justify why they should be at home in tower crocheting doliies and waiting for prince charming.

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I read the beginning of Vicki's story and I though that she had little or no self-esteem and embraced QF because it made her feel important.

I think this is at the center of it for a lot of people. Look at Lina and TT- Lina actually rejected him once and took deliberate steps to avoid him, but then she caved. She always struck me as very lacking in self-esteem, and I think her anxiety issues led her to crave very clear, spelled-out rules and structure, which was where the appeal of the fake Jew stuff came in. As I think I said in another thread, I suspect that if she hadn't gone down that Jewish path, she could have ended up a traditionalist Catholic or something.

I also think the point about a lot of these women having very low energy is right on, too. Everyone has tried to find things to support a decision that they've already made, and these women aren't any different. They don't want to work all day, every day, or go to school, so they search out belief systems that will justify their decisions to stay home. Look at Anna- Judaism is one religion that really doesn't have any traditional impetus for the wife to stay at home, because frequently, the wives had to support their husbands, who were studying Torah and Talmud. I'm sure that intellectually, she knows this. Heck, odds are there are women right in her community getting out there and working to support their husbands in kollel. So she latches onto this ridiculous stay at home daughter/keeper of the home trope and rants away about how evil working women are. Thinking about it, I can't help but suspect that Anna's actually embarrassed or disappointed that her husband isn't in kollel full-time, and so tries to cover that by saying, "See how lucky I am? I don't have to work, because that's my husband's job!"

It's all about finding the right insecurity, which these groups then twist and use to their advantage.

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It's called "lifestyle evangelism" and it's an Amway recruiting tactic as well. Get to know the person. Find their interests and hook them with them. In this case it's usually that "perfect homeschooling family." The kids are so eager and happy to do what they are told, they are always quiet and respectful, the parents are so in love with each other, the house is always perfect. And, a couple struggling with it all sees that and thinks "that's what I want." The "hook" family starts reeling them in little by little. Eventually the "new" family cuts themselves off from everyone they know and hang out only with the other "perfect" families. Then the Us against the World thing kicks in. Scary, but so easy.

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I think ATI, QF, etc is attractive to women becuase it gives a higher purpose to the grunt work of raising kids. Suddenly things like diaper changing and nose wiping and just the general business of raising kids is given a higher meaning - a holy meaning, really. I can see how that would be really attractive to women who are struggling with her day-to-day life. There is a sense of safety and calm that can come with being told what to do with every minute and decision of your life, so I can see how that would attract a woman who already felt overwhelmed.

I think the recruiters for these organizations play on fear and ignorance too. How many times do we read something by Dougie about the evils of feminism? Or from the Pearls about how if you're a "lazy" parent your kid will be out of control and then will go to hell? No one wants to be a bad parent; no one wants their child to go to hell or be an ax murderer. So these cult leaders present a picture that on the one hand is happy and shiny and attractive and on the other hand plays on people's deepest fears and insecurities.

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It's natural to try to find answers to the big questions of our lives. Religion, in general, claims to have answers. The more conservative the religion, the more answers they claim to have on more topics. Extremists like QFers/ATI/Fundies claim to have answers on just about everything. Some people find this very comforting. Perhaps for the first time in their lives, they can feel superior to others, such as those who don't "measure up", and all of the poor, stupid people who "just don't get it". They can feel superior to educated people because the their religion is anti-intellectual. They point to numerous scriptures which back up their views:

Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man—and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things. - Romans 1:22-23 KJV

The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but he who heeds counsel is wise. - Proverbs 12:15 KJV

Do you see a man wise in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him. - Proverbs 26:12 KJV

And there are many others. So they can easily dismiss things like science, research, sociology, psychology, child development, you name it. On another thread where we are discussing Mrs. E and her attitude towards her 12-year-old daughter, others have pointed out that contacting this woman and explaining how detrimental it is to a child to treat them that way is completely futile. For that to have any value, one would have to believe that she accepts research-based child development, which she does not. In fact, she views it as "the enemy", and counts it as holy persecution when she is questioned on their horrible treatment of their children.

This is extremely important to understand when you're dealing with fundies. We might as well be speaking another language, one which they have no intention of learning.

For myself, I had to come out of the evangelical right on my own. Thankfully, I am a naturally curious and somewhat skeptical person (a typical INFJ) and this led me to one discovery and then another and then I finally got to the point where I was able to say, "Good lawd, this is bunch of garbage" and toss it out. Of course, I was never isolated like these women, and am educated and have critical thinking skills, all of which were honed in my growing up years, not submerged. But despite the many differences, I totally get the mindset.

I ran an errand in our old minivan last night (to pick up a chair) and we had a CD in there (the only one I could find in the whole car!) of hymns and so I popped it in. These are very familiar hymns to me, quite beautiful, but I noticed how many of them refer to "assurance". As in we can have "assurance" of salvation, "assurance" of having the answers, "assurance" that the "forumla" will work. Assurance is like a drug to fundies, and many are not interested in kicking the habit.

I will admit it is sometimes disconcerting to dwell in a place where I now know very little. I know love, I know family, I know friendship, but I don't know the universe or understand its purposes, and never will. I have to investigate dilemmas and weed through the latest research and discern what is valid and what is not. Fundies don't have to do any of that, and they like it that way.

So, long story short, I think a lot of women just want answers and ATI/fundy-ism offers a very defined role for them along with all the answers.

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I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that society in general doesn't really look to kindly on stay at home moms anymore. People look at me like I've grown another head when I say that I stay at home and am not doing anything with my poli-sci degree. For our family it just made sense. I plan to go to law school when the kids are all in school, but it's not like the world is dying for another lawyer right now. I decided to have my kids in my 20s and stay home to raise them. Some people (like my mom, for example) find that notion to be absurd.

So if a woman chooses that path, she looks for other likeminded women. While there are a lot of stay at home moms who aren't fundies, I would guess that most of the big SAHM bloggers are. If you're also a pro-life Christain...watch out.

I wouldn't describe our family as fundie at all. We don't even go to church. However, I definitely found myself pulled toward that lifestyle in the early years of my marriage just because it did seem rather idealic. Of course, my husband thought it was all ridiculous and wanted no part of it. Like I said in another post, he likes the way I look in jeans.

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I think some of it comes from the 'feminists are ebil' dogma that persists in the world (fundie and non fundie worlds)

If one doesn't want to be a 'feminist' (because they're bra-burning man-haters) and still be a 'strong' woman, there are only so many ways to embrace your femininity and one of them is through throwing yourself into everything about your kids

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I was interested in ATI but did not join since I'm and individual and have no husband or children and I would have felt weird showing up at their conferences as a single young woman. what pulled me in was how alluring they made it look and I was slowly getting sucked in due to fundie young woman bloggers my age. They made their day to day life look so appealing with having so much free time and getting to bake, sew, and play house all day. I was in college at the time and decided to ask my parents if I could do the SAHD thing and they shut that idea down so fast I didn't know what hit me (thank god for that) and I tried backing up my notions with scripture which they found ridiculous. I got over the SAHD phase pretty fast. The main reason I was drawn to it was because I was suffering from anxiety and depression and SAHD seemed like an easy out from having to deal with the real world.

THIS. It's a big scary world out there and I can understand the lure of "biblical womanhood" and/or SAHD-dom. Basically, the women abdicate all decision-making responsibility and if bad things happen, it's not because of anything they did or omitted, it's "god's will."

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