Shiny Happy People: A Duggar and IBLP Documentary

[llucie]

Jill also has seen first hand how being in tv worked for the Plaths, for that reason alone i can see her being wary of it.

[KWLand]

5 hours ago, llucie said:

She also said Jill Rodrigues was asked to participate in the documentary and she declined.

She said “I’m pretty sure Jill Rodrigues passed.”  To me that sounds like she can’t  remember.  
 

[CTRLZero]

19 minutes ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

They are self aware enough to know that if they have less control over their family image through a tv show or documentary, they will be even more scrutinized. 

Even without formally appearing on a documentary, Jill has posted such a huge volume of their everyday life that, just using her own media, documentarians could piece together the story of the Rodriguii.

To start, I can just picture a photo montage of bored, tired looking children, being dragged around the country to promote mama and daddy’s narrow version of religion.   Lack of education, sketchy nutrition, and a sprinkling of trumpism would round out a segment on how the next generation is being raised. 

[viii]

I watched the first two episodes last night before I had to stop. It's a lot to take in, especially when you were raised in that culture. Blanket training, 'encouragement', the complete shaming of women's sexuality... all of that was my childhood and this was a very difficult watch. 

Proud of those women who participated in this important documentary. 

[llucie]

53 minutes ago, KWLand said:

She said “I’m pretty sure Jill Rodrigues passed.”  To me that sounds like she can’t  remember.  
 

In another reply after she said:

"I think it's safe to say I'm highly highly aware of Jill Rodrigues. If I ever did a scripted version of this world, I'd dive into that source material as inspiration in one swift heartbeat. C'mon! Jill passed, as I've said elsewhere."

 

[KWLand]

19 minutes ago, llucie said:

In another reply after she said:

"I think it's safe to say I'm highly highly aware of Jill Rodrigues. If I ever did a scripted version of this world, I'd dive into that source material as inspiration in one swift heartbeat. C'mon! Jill passed, as I've said elsewhere."

 

Thanks.  I didn’t get the whole thread read.  Glad she did clarify.  

[Howl]

1 hour ago, viii said:

I watched the first two episodes last night before I had to stop. It's a lot to take in, especially when you were raised in that culture. Blanket training, 'encouragement', the complete shaming of women's sexuality... all of that was my childhood and this was a very difficult watch. 

Proud of those women who participated in this important documentary. 

Comfort and hugs to you.  A woman who posts under My Reading Pets: The Learning Adventures of Ellie and Isabelle on facebook  grew up in the dank heart of IBLP and and then served in Gothard headquarters.  It's a compilation of the damage done. Heartbreaking.  Behind a spoiler, because trigger warning -- longish read. 

Spoiler

When I think of the religious cult we grew up in, the first thing I remember were the elevators - three of them, and always requiring some calculations because you worried constantly about punishment - about solitary confinement - being locked into a room with only a Bible and two meals per day, maybe for weeks and weeks on end.

If you were seen in the elevator with a boy, or sat together at the dinner table too often, if they thought you "gave your heart away" without your father's permission, the risk was a "prayer room" - solitary confinement, or at least so we were told, and we knew people here and there who were put into those rooms. We couldn't visit them, even though they were down the hall.

We were told the walls of the 13-story hotel-turned-training-center had eyes, and we even worried there were cameras in our rooms.

I was 16, and had volunteered to teach inner-city children, little ones from broken families. (This is where I learned how to teach reading.) I moved to a training center in Indianapolis.

We wore long A-line skirts (straight skirts were immodest). Our shirts were formless, to save the men around us from sinning.

We were instructed repeatedly that if we caused our brothers in Christ to stumble, it is our own sin in every way - if we are sexually assaulted, we must ask ourselves: what were we wearing? how did we cause the rape?

Even as my family was crumbling, and as a little child I prayed and fasted every Sunday that God would save them, I awakened at 4:30am each day to spend hours in prayer for my family -

the dysfunction so great and so painful for my siblings that eventually when I grew up, I asked my dad to leave

It is a cruelty to me that God supposedly cares infinitely more about every girls' purity for marriage than the anguish and pain of little children -

Anguish that even now brings screaming nightmares every few weeks, and I think I will have them forever.

But in the cult, everyone looks happy (we are counseled to look happy and have bright countenances), so you think they must have the rule-book on happiness.

You'll do anything - *anything* - to be as happy as they are, because all you know is that your insides are cold and you are afraid and hate yourself and every single thing about yourself - and you are still only a child, but these feelings are all the time, and if you have a break from them, it is a rare solace.

The night terrors began at the cult center, nightmares, and then you are awake but paralyzed, you can't move, and they became a feature of my life for two decades.

We were told of miracles, yes (miracles that happened to everyone else but not you, not ever, not no matter how much you fasted and prayed and were obedient to God and your authorities)

And we were told of demons, who were everywhere - in every corner, perhaps wanting to inhabit your body even now - so you were terrified, too, all the time of demons that you couldn't see, but incantations could maybe keep away.

I was *terrified* of demons, and it is **inexpressibly** freeing and relieving and... - I don't even know how to describe how happy and safe it is to know they are not true, to not believe in them now. It is a thing you think a lot: "I am so glad they are not true, I am so glad to know they are not true." You think this all the time and it's been decades.

Deprecation of women was a drip, constant and all around, a drip as though you are in a cave surrounded by moisture and mold that tells you your only worth is child-birth and obedience.

I will always remember the gathering when Mr. Gothard said of the Hebrews, "You know if God needed a woman, Deborah, to lead - the Israelites were in trouble!!!" and everyone laughed.

Women could never be leaders, and even men in the group who worked 'outside jobs' spoke of women bosses, "They are terrible leaders. They are terrible bosses.... I cannot work under a woman, it is against nature and against God's will."

And every time they said these things my chest hurt and my eyes stung because I didn't want to only bear children (all of the mothers I saw were so tired, and so often their husbands cheated on them), I had big dreams to bring kindness into the world in some way - but women had no voice, really, we were to be submissive always...

These dreams protected me, I think. Mr. Gothard is the disgraced cult leader in the new Duggar documentary Shiny Happy People - and he adopted me as his own mentee, I cared for his mother, shadowed him for months, learning and learning - he picked me as a prodigee of some sort

Even as I was accused of being a mistress, at 17 years old - phone calls coming in, and when I answered, the most horrible accusations that I was his mistress, I feared answering phones.

My dreams were too big, and my soul maybe untamable - he shuffled me off to other places after a while, although nearly 40 women came forward and accused him of sexual abuse later.

My dad brought me home from the cult when I was 18, it all got to be too much, and sent me back to college, encouraged me to get my doctorate even against the cult wishes (and got letters of shame and disapproval from Mr. Gothard)

But it was James Braun, a professor from UCLA I randomly befriended on AIM who helped me with my college homework who some months into our friendship said, "I am not sure you know this, but you seem as one who has been pervasively abused"

and Shaun Hately, another friend I met online - who altered the course of my whole life - by earning my trust, and gently debunking and deprogramming Fundamentalism for me, becoming one of the most important persons in my whole life

(I left Christianity behind, even as I fell into a violent marriage, I was easy prey after so much programming to be obedient, so shattered and broken from abuse - and when I left, my little pets died and I had to go into hiding for my life...)

And then Joe found me

But trauma grows deep, as deep as your bones, a rooted vine that threads through your whole body - sometimes the things that hurt you do stay with you, even no matter what.

Even now, I don't have a television (a cult rule), and have sensory challenges with tight clothing and jeans -

The tendrils so imperceptible but poison and everywhere everywhere in your body -

I was in my 30s and every winter nearly suicidal with depression and distress when Joe found Elizabeth, a hypnosis and NLP practitioner - when so many counselors had failed at this point.

Within the hour she realized that every winter, when I have to cover up, when I have to wear clothing from neck to ankle again - the memories return to my body, the cult and the horror - every winter I relive it again, and she worked and worked to root it all out. I never thought I could be ok in winter, and now each winter day is as normal as every other day

She spent time and more time deprogramming me for technology - aversion to technology was as tight as my muscles constricting and my breath catching every time I used social media or watched movies. IBLP had such rules about technology - it just lives inside of you, beyond touching or talking through - thorns of poison all inside.

Several of my IBLP friends have committed suicide.

Many are no longer Christian - some are happy witches or atheists, or Buddhist, or whatever. A lot of us are divorced, were also abused by the hands of our husbands. Some were abused by fathers and brothers...

They told us non-Christians hate God and love sin, that we would be miserable and depressed and live horrible lives without God, but those aren't true things either Not at all.

And also it's so very possible to heal and to find joy and be ok after trauma. Minus the nightmares (which are annoying but a bit normalized in my life now, so ok), well...

Joe found a broken girl barely clinging to life, and he did everything in his power to put her back together, and bring her every goodness in the whole world

Once upon a time, I couldn't imagine my life without the coldness and chill of depression, the constant terror of anxiety, all the tendrils of trauma so deep everywhere in my chest and body.

But all those things are memories, like in the summer when you remember winter was cold but you don't remember what it felt like, not in a way that hurts

Not having a voice - well, I think it is why I'm so passionate about giving voice to my little girls, for creating ways for voice for little animals everywhere, so they can communicate with their families, too. I know what it feels like to have no voice, and so much to say...

I wish for my girls and for little animals voice and voice and voice.

It is why I'm obsessively passionate about women's rights and feminism, because our rights are absolutely fragile, and many, many wish them gone. Mostly, women have had no rights at all, and we didn't either in the cult, we were born to bear children and without agency.

Thank you, Joe, for this beautiful life. Thank you, Jim, for alerting me to abuse when I was so young still. And thank you Shaun for your friendship, and for the way you plucked me off a dark path and started me on a better one

So anyway, that's Shiny Happy People coming out on Amazon Prime next week. It goes without saying that I **hate** religion, and smiles can hide so, so much. It's a good rule of thumb to not be deceived by happy-looking families with women in long skirts. They are so often coached to smile and keep bright countenances, even when they are breaking inside.

Then this, from twitter, @JoshuaPease detailing how working at the Gothard headquarters broke, utterly broke so many young people. Even having read a bit about it, the damage to young humans was staggering. 

Link to unroll of twitter thread here: "Shiny Happy People" did a great job linking the Duggar family to the Industrial Gothard Complex, but you can't unpack everything about that world in 4 eps. I'm still haunted by one specific aspect of IBLP I covered in my reporting that got briefly mentioned in the doc [thread]:  The damage done at IBLP campuses is unlike anything I've personally encountered.

[ElizaB]

My thoughts on the documentary 

1.) I am so glad the holts are broken up now! Also, I don’t really blame Bobye for not saying something about josh all those years ago. It seemed that she was being told that the authorities had been involved and that josh was being sent away for treatment. Had those things actually happened there wouldn’t be much else to be done. Also, she was still heavily indoctrinated into this world where as a woman she didn’t have much of a voice.

2.) towards the end Jill talked about “puzzle pieces” coming together in her life. I think this is a good way to think about her. She isn’t a completed puzzle yet but she definitely has some correct pieces being put together. She is on the right track- just not there yet. 
 

3.) this made me really mad at amy. She knew how dangerous their ideas were. She knew the kids were being punished violently. She knew all the things Jim bob was teaching and the dangers of iblp. She had a choice. She had a voice. Yet still, she chose to be on their show and continue to spread their message and make their beliefs seem ok. 
 

4.) I can totally see why the bates were not mentioned. Their family is too similar to the duggars but without the horrible josh events and without a kid willing to spill. Adding them would have just taken up time without adding anything different. 
 

5.) hoping their are more episodes! Wouldn’t that be nice!

Edited June 7, 2023 by ElizaB
There vs their

[CTRLZero]

56 minutes ago, Howl said:

Heartbreaking.  Behind a spoiler, because trigger warning -- longish read.

Thank you for posting this powerful piece.  I’ve recently listened to a couple interviews of women who had left their high demand religion and had a terrible, dark time recovering their sense of self.  Both of them went into therapy, and both were informed that they were brought up in a “family cult” - a cult within a cult.  In thinking about IBLP and its patriarchal framework, I bet this is a fairly common occurrence.  Mom and kids basically isolated at home, socializing only with other strict followers, with individual cult leader dad calling the shots.  Scary stuff.  Glad it’s being brought to light.  

Edited June 7, 2023 by CTRLZero
Darn autocorrect.

[nolongerIFBx]

On 6/1/2023 at 10:35 PM, Cheetah said:

Okay, 3 episodes, down, 1 to go.  So far for me there's really nothing actually new except a bit about wives having an actual contract about their husbands being able to beat them for 'disobedience'.  The only other newish stuff is just more detail from people who were in it but nothing that hadn't been guessed or assumed by this group already.  Do you guys follow Emily Elizabeth Anderson on FB (Thriving Forward)?  Her segment was especially sad.  

 

I'm a week behind so possibly this is mentioned later: I'm in some survivor groups and some thought that Amazon included the spousal discipline (and a few other things) for shock value. As bad as it was, wife beating was not the norm. Not saying it doesn't happen or invalidating this individual's experience but it is not considered normal even in IBLP culture.

[nolongerIFBx]

On 6/2/2023 at 4:05 PM, Jackie3 said:

The documentary made me think even less of Michelle Duggar. Because of what Amy said.

Apparently, she "corrected" those kids often enough that even young Amy noticed. Even if it was once  a day, that's hundreds of times per year and thousands of times over her parenting years.

What kind of person hurts small kids over and over again, for years? Listens to them scream in pain. I'd scream in pain if I were hit with PVC piping or a glue stick. What kind of person sees welts form on their 4 year olds legs, then goes and does it again the next day to her 6-year old?

S had 19 kids and has been a parent for 35 kids. She beat little kids every day, for years. 

She must be a sociopath. I don't use that term lightly, but beating and terrifying little kids is one of the worst thing you can do in my book. And I hope it was just little kids, I hope she didn't "encourage" the ones over 8 or 10 years. It' s possible, though. 

I can answer that one. Because the Man of God convinced her that if she really loved her kids she would punish them and that spanking is the correct form of punishment. How many times I heard, "I am doing this because I love you and I want you to turn out right" from my mother trying to convince both of us that she HAD to do this.

[Howl]

R.L. Stollar (founder of the Homeschoolers Anonymous website) posted this on his Twitter page: The following is reprinted with permission from Libby Anne’s blog Love Joy Feminism. It was originally published on Patheos on February 13, 2014.

Bill Gothard: When People Know… and Do Nothing

For those new to this story, Bill Gothard was (is) a pedophile whose target victims were young to mid teen girls with a certain appearance and hairstyle. Bill Gothard, who set himself up as a Xtian guru of all things marriage and family, NEVER MARRIED.  An unending stream of young women were sent to headquarters to work with him and he singled out as victims those who most resembled his physical ideal.  He seemed to have some kind of weird foot fetish as well. 

Bill Gothard has multiple siblings, but two of the brothers are standouts. 

David spent time in prison for racketeering and fraud (conning the elderly via investment scams IIRC).  

Steve was dismissed/resigned  from the organization. From Recovering Grace: "Steve began to actively pursue sexual relationships with the secretaries who were sent by Bill to the Northwoods to work with him. Within four years, Steve had ongoing and overlapping relationships with no less than seven women. Their activities included in part explicit conversations, sexual activities which many churches teach are unnatural, pornographic movies and books, and other psychological grooming. His exploits were so indiscreet that others on staff stumbled across him in the act, more than once, with different women. One woman was observed living in the Northwoods’ Crazy Bear Lodge with him unchaperoned." 

So anyway, a LOT of crazy dysfunction in that family.  I also came across this tidbit: 

Also came across this tidbit: Jim Leininger, who was a big back of Vision Forum and Doug Phillips personally and a major GOP megadonor, also sat on the IBLP advisory board. 

 

 

Edited June 7, 2023 by Howl

[byzant]

Discovered the cult of the kitchen table podcast while researching the participants in the doc. Would highly recommend am insiders deconstruction of the various beliefs and very entertaining 

[noseybutt]

2 hours ago, nolongerIFBx said:

I'm a week behind so possibly this is mentioned later: I'm in some survivor groups and some thought that Amazon included the spousal discipline (and a few other things) for shock value. As bad as it was, wife beating was not the norm. Not saying it doesn't happen or invalidating this individual's experience but it is not considered normal even in IBLP culture.

I agree with this and yet....The bottom line with IBLP is that every husband/father made his own rules and I think including some of the more extreme examples is appropriate because the whole set-up created an environment where shocking things could happen without impunity.

[hoipolloi]

1 hour ago, Howl said:

Jim Leininger, who was a big back of Vision Forum and Doug Phillips personally and a major GOP megadonor, also sat on the IBLP advisory board. 

Makes me think of something my Dad used to say: "A fool and his money are soon parted." 

More seriously, if Leininger hadn't bankrolled these assholes maybe they would not have harmed so many people.

[Columbia]

One of Doug Wilson’s flunkies/CREC pastors would like everyone to know that only they have the good patriarchy. Much like brave Michael Farris, it’s so noble that he’s talking about this now. 

 

ETA: I would pay good money to see this creep go up against the VF bord pre-ToolO’Weeen to battle out who has the real patriarchy. They’d probably all talk themselves into a coma. 

Edited June 7, 2023 by Columbia
ETA

[hoipolloi]

While it seems that a VF documentary is unlikely, especially since VF has been defunct for nearly 10 years, I would absolutely watch it if they made one. 

I wonder how many of Dougie's erstwhile BFFs -- Scotty Brown, Voddie Baucham, Geoff Botkin,  and Joe Morecraft, to name a few -- would be willing to speak on camera. 

[JermajestyDuggar]

10 minutes ago, hoipolloi said:

While it seems that a VF documentary is unlikely, especially since VF has been defunct for nearly 10 years, I would absolutely watch it if they made one. 

I wonder how many of Dougie's erstwhile BFFs -- Scotty Brown, Voddie Baucham, Geoff Botkin,  and Joe Morecraft, to name a few -- would be willing to speak on camera. 

What would be interesting would be a documentary like fundie Fridays. They would have each episode focus on one fundie leader. So one week it would be Doug Phillips, the next it’s Mike Pearl, the next is Nancy Campbell, and so on.

[JermajestyDuggar]

This was in InTouch reporting on what Jed has been up to. He’s a little Jim Bob so it’s not surprising. 
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/jed-katey-duggar-think-jill-183104363.html

[refugee]

On 6/2/2023 at 3:39 PM, FleeJanaFree said:

krista gay (ex fundie, has been in some Duggar shows,  who is now a lawyer in New York) addresses the doc on her instagram. I really really like her and enjoy reading her opinions on religion. She is very balanced and open minded. 

How would one find her on IG, please? I looked but didn’t find anyone fitting the description you gave.

[refugee]

5 hours ago, noseybutt said:

I agree with this and yet....The bottom line with IBLP is that every husband/father made his own rules and I think including some of the more extreme examples is appropriate because the whole set-up created an environment where shocking things could happen without impunity.

Authoritarianism runs like a thread through  all these fundie groups, a common theme of sorts. I don’t even know why I’m making this observation, except that I found the wife-beating in IBLP “new” (at least with regard to IBLP), and it triggered memories of reading here of Sproul Jr’s treatment of his first wife. And he wasn’t VF or IBLP, as I recall, but represented his own flavor of pride, hubris, and abuse with a little Doug Wilson (and a few others of that ilk) mixed in.

Edited June 8, 2023 by refugee
Can’t do acronyms

[molecule]

I just finished watching all four episodes back-to-back. As much as I always thought Derick was kind of a dweeb, I love how supportive he is of Jill here. He speaks when necessary but mostly is just present with her so she isn't alone. Dillon King, on the other hand, strikes me as an arrogant dick who wants his share of attention.

I once had a client who had been part of IBLP early in her marriage. She told me that after some childhood trauma and wayward teen years, she and her husband both found  comfort in the structure offered by Gothard.  This show helped me understand how it could be so appealing. When you've grown up with a sense of chaos and dysfunction, seeing all these people speaking so calmly and reasonably about their lives must seem like an oasis of peace.

I'm a little sad that the Holts are separated. They came across as genuinely supportive of each other and I got the impression that they had successfully weathered this Duggard crisis together.

[molecule]

8 hours ago, molecule said:

I'm a little sad that the Holts are separated. They came across as genuinely supportive of each other and I got the impression that they had successfully weathered this Duggar  crisis together.

I changed my mind about this. I just saw on InTouch that Bobye has an order of protection from Jim. I hadn't realized that, and i didn't want anyone here thinking that I wanted her to stay in an unsafe situation. 

[hoipolloi]

16 minutes ago, molecule said:

I just saw on InTouch that Bobye has an order of protection from Jim.

As of last month, the court has granted her a 10-year order of protection until 2033, the longest allowed by Arkansas state law.

[JermajestyDuggar]

I think Jim and Bobye are a good example of how you never really know what is going on inside a marriage. I definitely think the more you watch a couple, the more you see them interact, the better you can see their relationship. However you never truly know because you can’t be there 24/7. Jim and Bobye were only interviewed for a short amount of time. It’s a tiny view into their marriage. The restraining order tells us much more. 

Edited June 8, 2023 by JermajestyDuggar