The UnBoxing Project: Being an angel with a shotgun

Content Note: domestic abuse, suicidal ideation, disordered eating

Get out your guns, battle’s begun,
are you a saint, or a sinner?
If love’s a fight, then I shall die,
with my heart on a trigger.  – The Cab, Angel with a Shotgun (Nightcore remix)

“Eleanor, my best friend’s parents told her she can’t drive the car unless she loses weight consistently every week.

These are the stories they told me.

“I’m really worried about her. Yeah, she could lose some weight, but it’s not that bad, and I don’t think that’s healthy. What do you think I should do?”

My insides went cold, feeling the familiar rigidity and control I knew so well, but this time for someone else.

They say before you start a war,
you better know what you’re fighting for…
if love is what you need, a soldier I will be.

“Eleanor, I’m 26 years old and my mom wants me to get married. She says she’ll send out the word among the community to find a man for me. But I don’t want an arranged marriage.”

My friend already had a bachelor’s degree from an ivy league college, wasn’t enjoying her post-baccalaureate pre-med classes, and knew her parents wouldn’t understand her adoption of American culture.

She asked for help in moving her things out of her parents’ house. I texted a few friends and we organized a plan to help.

I’m an angel with a shotgun,
fighting ’til the war’s won,
I don’t care if heaven won’t take me back.
I’ll throw away my faith…  just to keep you safe…
and I wanna live not just survive tonight.

“Did you know Mike died?”

“No, I just talked to him last week. He was trying to start a chapter of the F.A.S.T. club at his graduate school.”

Mike’s family was well-known in the Colorado Springs homeschool community, although I didn’t meet him until college when we worked together in a club that focused on mass shooting prevention and survival skills.

The coroner ruled Mike’s death a suicide, although his family told us it was an accidental death caused by a head injury.

Questions about his death still linger among my friends and I.

Sometimes to win, you’ve got to sin,
don’t mean I’m not a believer...
Yeah, they still say I’m a dreamer.

Text messages from Cynthia Jeub (now known as Artemis Stardust), September 2, 2013:

“I need help. My dad is angry because he’s not making enough money. Can you help Lydia and me get out and find a place to sleep until our apartment paperwork goes through?”

“Dad was yelling at me when you tried to call. I never thought this would happen. We have a friend who will help, we might need help from you when we get back.”

“Dad says he might turn off my phone and Internet. Tell [a friend] to come if you don’t hear back again.”

I was five hours away up in the mountains and couldn’t come get them on the day that they were kicked out.

They say before you start a war,
you better know what you’re fighting for…
if love is what you need, a soldier I will be.

Google chat conversation, June 2013:

“I just want to go Home and be with Him. It’d be so easy… one bullet, one noose, two cuts, but I can’t bear to think of facing Him when I got there… For being a coward. For not trusting him enough… I really just want to escape. Wouldn’t you eventually get over it [grieving for me]. Death is a natural part of this life.”

A younger friend was suicidal again. She’d done this off and on since she was 13, and a couple of friends and I had talked her out of it, over and over.

“As long as I’m in class, getting A’s and studying all the time without a boyfriend or any other distractions, no one really pays me much mind. A fight’s brewing. So I’ll let you know after it happens if it does happen.”

Once again, her parents crushed her with unrealistic expectations.

I’m an angel with a shotgun,
fighting ’til the war’s won,
I don’t care if heaven won’t take me back
...and I wanna live not just survive tonight.

Friends came to me with their wounds, their struggles. And I couldn’t just let them keep bleeding.

This is a blog series about helping isolated homeschoolers and religiously oppressed young adults escape cults and abusive households.

These are the ones I fight for.

…and I’m gonna hide, hide, hide my wings tonight.

// // //

The UnBoxing Project: Being an angel with a shotgun
The UnBoxing Project: The trouble with freeing people
Why did you call it the UnBoxing Project?
The UnBoxing Project: Racquel’s story
The UnBoxing Project: Defecting from a cult
The UnBoxing Project: Ashley’s story
The UnBoxing Project: Cynthia Jeub’s story
The UnBoxing Project: Options, not ultimatums
The UnBoxing Project: Gissel’s story
The UnBoxing Project: Homeschool, the perfect hiding place
The UnBoxing Project: Self-care during activism
The UnBoxing Project: How you can help (Cynthia’s thoughts)
The UnBoxing Project: How you can help (Eleanor’s thoughts)
The UnBoxing Project: Surviving and thriving on the outside