Originally appeared as a Facebook post on June 4, 2023, two days after the release of Shiny Happy People on Amazon Prime.

Watching Shiny Happy People is observing the first half of my life in what feels like an out of body experience. Internal agony and struggle, mind shifts and identity disruption, loss of people I love, fear and confusion, new experiences and blazing ahead alone, these things have defined my years since becoming aware I had been raised in a cult. It’s what it took for me to leave, learn a new way and forge a life outside the lines of authoritarian control and spiritual abuse.

The Duggar family has long been who I reference when I tell people that I grew up differently from mainstream culture. Dang, even differently from most evangelical culture. “Have you seen the show 19 Kids and Counting? Yes? Well, that’s my background.” It was extreme fundamentalism; we were the radicals.

Now, this isn’t just a story about one family, it’s about all of us, the survivors of IBLP.

Bear with me as today’s hot take is partly my perspective on the show, but also me filling in some of the blanks – the spaces I felt weren’t either super clear or weren’t covered at all or heck, are just me rambling on about my own perspective.

Episode 3 of Shiny Happy People found my husband and myself, once again, sitting in bed. This time, two loads of laundry needed to be folded as the show began. Half way through the 47 minute episode, I reached out for his hand because I needed emotional support.

If you grew up like did, in the IBLP, Christian fundamentalist and evangelical spaces, then mental health was something you probably never learned much about. Often it was mocked or bypassed, passed off as demonic or a lack of faith. The tools I have today, I have had to find and learn myself. And I’m sure, you’re the same. That’s why when we watch something so close to our own lived experience, we can feel small, or like a child again. The triggers are felt inside our body…way inside. Twice in the last two days, I almost threw up. Not from the pain of that headache that started after Episode 1, but it was when a memory hit as I was typing these hot take posts and my gut was twisting from the emotion.

As a mother myself now with a daughter getting close to the age I started becoming active in ATI/IBLP programs, (outside of being taught with Wisdom Booklets at home and attending children’s conferences) I view things differently then when I first joined a website of fellow survivors almost twenty years ago. Then, we didn’t exactly know we were survivors, we just knew we were different and needed one another. Over time, one by one, we started to see our way out. We realized it had been a cult. That website shut down as Facebook became more popular. Then, Recovering Grace started.

We survivors needed each other. We needed to grow up and get out together. We needed someone to confirm that we weren’t crazy. Many of us were experiencing a second wave of trauma as we were ignored, shunned or mocked and misunderstood by counselors and people around us.

Putting on my mom glasses again as I watched Episode 3...hearing the stories that might have been mine, recalling things told to me my heart started to ache. My child is safe from those things – but I wasn’t, they weren’t, all the others I never knew weren’t safe either.

The grooming. The abuses of power. How Bill walked a line so close, so daring…we were brainwashed and didn’t even understand. Yet deep down, those of us being raised in the program, we just knew something was wrong. Yet we were silenced and told we couldn’t question authorities. Coerced into conforming.

The topic of modesty hasn’t been discussed yet in the docu-series, unless I missed something. Our uniforms – navy bottoms and white tops. I too had to change my attire one time. I was in China teaching and the offending item was my skirt…even though it was the accepted length according to the rules, my leader didn’t like how it looked. Also, I remember all the girls would carry safety pins around and the slit in my skirt was too long (6 inches) during a Children’s Institute and I had to borrow a couple pins so I could walk like a penguin while I worked with children.

All of this - the 6-inch rule of no touching between the genders, strict dress and music guidelines, no sex education or home or anywhere including no mention of consent, ultimate focus on authority, the hierarchy of students/staff, exhausted and unpaid student labor to keep the programs and building operating - it was the perfect swirling chaos needed to fester, foster and fuel abuse. All of us “Gothard kids” know someone who was sexually abused, who was the abuser or who protected the abuser while ignoring or blaming the victim.

Gothard created systems that pointed out problems he invented so that he could provide the solutions to those problems. A genius manipulator or was it all accidental?

And in perfect evangelical style, we took our rightness, our correct Biblical approach to help change and aid the world. Back then we didn’t know, but now, let’s just call it what it was, we went to colonize the poor, uneducated, ungodly people in other countries. I remember well traveling to other countries with IBLP and the pious view that we had the truth the world needed to hear.

Global leaders welcomed Gothard with open arms. Businesses donated properties and funding. Prisons opened up and yup, we taught character in public schools. It was huge. We thought it was God’s blessing. We thought the doors were opening because of all the truth.

In Episode 3 I finally felt some life and vibrancy. As a creative, the color matching was totally spot on – the rooms with the interviewee’s looks, visually very appealing. The personalities of each survivor came through more. This episode moved faster and pulled me in.

Again, I found myself filling in the blanks – saying people’s names, recognizing faces. We paused the show a couple times so I could feed my husband more information. It’s probably stuff I’ve told him before, but it was surfacing and verbally processing helped.

A few times in the last two days I’ve seen people saying things like, “This is Christian fundamentalism not evangelicalism,” or, “This doesn’t represent all homeschoolers.” My response is yes it is and yes it does, you just don’t know it. Gothard, in my opinion, is how fundamentalism and evangelicalism got married. He charisma, teachings and connections are what caused the fundy thoughts to ooze into mainstream Christianity.

Gothard does represent all homeschoolers at this point in our country because most of the people who have written the religious curriculums you have available at family conferences, homeschool stores and online were raised or lived under Gothard’s influence or are from fundamentalist backgrounds. (I said most, not all. And remember, I was homeschooled and I am a homeschool mom today. Been in this space for 40 years.) Other well-known Christian ministries, curriculums and programs they’re all connected – it’s a massive web. I can say with confidence that your Christian homeschool experience and philosophy today was influenced by Bill Gothard and the people he approved or trained. Rushdooney and a few others popularized homeschooling, Gothard just capitalized on it and took it to the extreme.

Bill avoided specific theological or doctrinal teachings and instead focused on character and authority, raising the next generation with God’s principles, the commands of Christ and all the things “God” had set up or wanted us to do or not do.

This brought people together from many different Christian backgrounds:

- Mennonite
- Messianic Jew
- Southern Baptist
- Independent Baptist
- Reformed Baptist
- All other kinds of Baptist
- Presbyterian
- Non-denominational
- Bible Church
- Methodist
- Etc.

And this is how the teachings spread. This is how Gothard’s radical, fundamentalist faith became part of evangelical culture part of homeschool culture. One home at a time. One church at a time. One ministry at a time. One new teacher, politician, author, speaker, student at a time.

As I watched (and read) my fellow survivor’s stories, I am again struck with how complicated it is for one documentary to capture it all. There are so many layers. Each person’s experience is the same yet different. We essentially had a secret language and lifestyle. Each training center and program had its own culture. Unless you were in it, you can hardly fathom the complexity.

So, what is the toll, the cost, or the fruit of having been raised inside the homeschooling movement created by Bill Gothard?

- Chronic Illness
- Broken Families
- Trauma Riddled Bodies
- Disrupted Minds and Souls
- C-PTSD
- PTSD
- Anxiety
- Depression
- Eating Disorders
- Sexual Abuse
- Physical Abuse
- Spiritual Abuse
- Psychological Abuse

As survivors, we must guard against carrying on the legacy of being exactly like the people we are trying to expose or run away from. Dogma, listening only to my voice or people who agree with me, shiny happy versus authentic, keeping the charade of performance alive, creating systems of oppression, control and toxicity and building new ways before healing from the old ones.

So how do we, the thousands upon thousands of us who grew up Gothard, how do we move forward?

We heal.

The greatest justice (and I’m craving to say sweetest revenge) is a life that is healed and whole. We must claim justice for ourselves by first seeking restoration for our souls. Heal. Take the time, take the years. Go to therapy. Read the books. Meet new people. Understand trauma and how that looks in your body and mind. Healing is quiet, hurt is super loud.

If through our healing we can also bring reconciliation and peace to our families and communities, this too, is justice! But when we solely seek retribution, as an act of justice, without also putting in the work of healing it will only lead to more unhealth, unbalance and harm.

Shiny Happy People tells our story. Abuse and mind control have been exposed – that’s one aspect of justice that has after what, about 60 years of Gothard’s “ministry,” finally publicly taken place.

You don’t have to be one of the faces in the documentary to make a difference. When you say, “The buck stops here,” to your generational traumas, to abuse, to a toxic system, to twisted theology, you are part of the bigger picture that is demanding healing and truth. When you take control of your personal mental health and begin implementing healthier structures in your own life and family, this is how waves of change are created.

I don’t know where your faith or spirituality is today, and I don’t need to know. (This can certainly be another tier as we deconstruct ideologies and religious beliefs. I’ve worked out my own faith and discovered a bigger, loving God and also respect that you are one your own journey which doesn’t have to reflect mine.)

However, I do want to know – what are you doing right now that is taking you a step closer to mental, emotional or mental wellbeing?

One more episode of Shiny Happy People to go! Are we gonna make it?

Be well. Be healed.💙

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Shiny Happy People - A survivor's hot take on Episode 3.

Rebekah Drumsta