Although I had very little when I was kicked out of the cult and moved out of my family’s house, I came from an upper middle class, well-educated family. I grew up privileged. I moved out as a college student with a couple of on-campus jobs after my parents emptied my savings account. Many ofContinueContinue reading “The UnBoxing Project: Surviving and thriving on the outside”
Tag Archives: moving out
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)”
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: 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”
Eleanor Skelton 