Eleanor Skelton

The UnBoxing Project: Self-care during activism

Disability rights activist Cynthia Barram with her cat Dita in 2014. | Photo: James Sibert Content note: suicidal ideation, self-harm Cynthia Barram was the first friend I met in college who helped me start my own moving out process before helping our other friends leave Christian fundamentalist, Quiverfull households. Here’s her perspective on what happened,ContinueContinue reading “The UnBoxing Project: Self-care during activism”

The UnBoxing Project: Homeschool, the perfect hiding place

I met our friend Shelby Shively while working for the campus newspaper, The Scribe. Shelby was earning a master’s degree in sociology, and she mentioned that the homeschooling population seemed to be understudied in academic literature. Here is her perspective on Christian fundamentalist, Quiverfull children we were helping to leave their abusive households, in herContinueContinue reading “The UnBoxing Project: Homeschool, the perfect hiding place”

The UnBoxing Project: Gissel’s story

Gissel dyed her hair red for the first time during the week after she left home. | Photo: Ashley Kavanaugh In July 2014, Ashley came over to my apartment to visit one Saturday morning. While we were talking, Ashley got a text message from Gissel, one of her friends from the First United Pentecostal ChurchContinueContinue reading “The UnBoxing Project: Gissel’s story”

The UnBoxing Project: Options, not ultimatums

Several friends were part of our network that helped Ashley move out of her parents’ house. This is another person’s part of the story, in their own words. It’s hard when someone you care about is stuck in an abusive environment. It’s worse when you feel like you could and should be helping them toContinueContinue reading “The UnBoxing Project: Options, not ultimatums”

The UnBoxing Project: Cynthia Jeub’s story

I introduced Racquel and Ashley to Cynthia Jeub (now known as Artemis Stardust) shortly before they left their church, the First United Pentecostal Church of Colorado Springs. We had both been homeschooled and raised in a Christian fundamentalist, Quiverfull environment. We went to college together and were both editors for our college’s newspaper. Here is theirContinueContinue reading “The UnBoxing Project: Cynthia Jeub’s story”