I’ve always known I was weird. An entire table of public school kids crowded around me in driving school, peppering me with questions. I was one of two homeschooled kids in the classroom. Elsie, the other girl, and I later became friends. We both felt like outsiders, but I told my mom later that I feltContinueContinue reading “Why the little purple alien in ‘Home’ is me”
Tag Archives: cults
Internalization, boundaries, and me
Communication is amazing, when it actually happens. It’s cliche, but both sides have to be willing to exchange and receive information. I’m trying to talk to my parents again. This is a choice I have made, not out of obligation. I’m told that I’m naïve, but there’s this little flicker of optimism inside me that refuses toContinueContinue reading “Internalization, boundaries, and me”
Deprogramming: documentaries and movies about cults and fundamentalist Christian subculture
Some people asked us what life was like after we left when I posted the UnBoxing Project series, how we handled leaving the sects of fundamentalist Christianity we were raised in. My friends and I went through a period of deprogramming, which is still ongoing. We’d been told what to think our whole lives, what isContinueContinue reading “Deprogramming: documentaries and movies about cults and fundamentalist Christian subculture”
The UnBoxing Project: How you can help (Eleanor’s thoughts)
When we started helping people move out, we learned that getting out and finding freedom is messy, and everyone’s situation is different. When someone contacted us for help, we said that they went “active.” It’s like being on call for an emergency move 24/7. They’ll tell us the situation is deteriorating, but we don’t know it’s goingContinueContinue reading “The UnBoxing Project: How you can help (Eleanor’s thoughts)”
The UnBoxing Project: How you can help (Cynthia’s thoughts)
Here are Cynthia’s concluding thoughts. (Cynthia is now known as Artemis Stardust.) Rescuing people from cults is not an item to check off of a to-do list. It’s a process. While we worked together on the UnBoxing Project, we learned this through our own exhausted time and money. We didn’t just need to free peopleContinueContinue reading “The UnBoxing Project: How you can help (Cynthia’s thoughts)”
Eleanor Skelton 