My family joined IBLP when I was 8 years old, and it changed our lives for the worst…though, that’s not how my parents would put it. IBLP raised me to be a bigoted self-righteous girl believing that our group of people were the only real Christians going to Heaven. I generously gave religious advice to all of my non-IBLP friends out of pity, while simultaneously experiencing a traumatic upbringing fraught with spiritual and emotional abuse. I was a poster-child for IBLP on the outside, and suicidal on the inside. Were it not for the seed of doubt that was planted in me at my last ever ATI conference, I might still be entrenched in that misery now, a decade later. That seed changed everything for me; it was a horrible experience to go through at the time, but I really believe that it’s what allowed me to get out, so I look back now with gratitude.
This story starts on the first day of IBLP’s annual four-day homeschool conference called the Advanced Training Institute International, in Sacramento CA, in 2013.
Some quick backstory for those who don’t know: IBLP is the overall organization that Bill Gothard and families like the Duggar’s are affiliated with, and ATI is IBLP’s homeschool program that hosts annual conferences in multiple places in America.
ATI loves to tout its family togetherness, but there is actually very little family time spent at these conferences. Everyone is segregated by age and gender; the parents attend their own sessions, kids 4-7 go to the Children’s Institute, girls 8-11 go to Pre-Excel, girls 12-16 go to Commit, and boys 8-16 go to Alert Cadets. Young adults attend Student Sessions designated for them but can technically attend the parent sessions if they want. In the evenings, all the groups come together and attend a massive family session after dinner.
Because everyone gets separated by gender and age, it’s easy to assume that we all got our age- and gender-appropriate versions of the same doctrine, but looking back it’s hard to tell. My parents would buy books at the conference that were promoted for young girls and would give them to me without so much as flipping through them first. I assumed that the things being taught to me at the conferences and in these books were all things that my parents knew about and agreed with, but I know now that’s not the case. I haven’t spoken to my parents about my experiences in ATI for years now because you can only listen to your folks tell you that what you remember never happened or that what was said wasn’t meant in the way that you heard it so many times before you feel like you’re going crazy. Was I exaggerating? Maybe I took all those lessons out of context? Those late-night couch conversations that required so much vulnerability from me turned into gaslighting mindfucks that left me speechless. Eventually, I gave up trying to unpack my childhood with my parents.
…Anyways.
Everyone had uniforms. I wore navy blue, black or khaki skirts that reached mid-calf or longer, with either red or navy-blue polo shirts, or white blouses. My brothers wore khaki cargo pants, and green polos shirts or white button ups. The young kids and the adults could wear whatever colors they wanted, so long as girls wore skirts or dresses and the boys were in semi-formal attire. In this way, it was easy to know what group every person belonged to based on the colors they wore.
My brothers and I grew up attending these conferences and experienced each age group and uniform. As we got older, we had the option to be leaders of the younger groups if we wanted. I was about to turn eighteen and opted to be a Pre-Excel leader, co-leading with a friend I knew outside of this particular ATI conference, Mary. I wore a navy-blue Pre-Excel leadership polo shirt with a khaki skirt. I had recently begun learning to play the guitar and I brought it, thinking I might have time to play it during downtime at the conference.
I was involved in competitive speech and debate in high school, and that year I had written a speech about the terribleness of feminism and how it was killing chivalry. In the speech I even quoted a book that was sold at the conference! My parents thought that this would be a great speech to give during one of the Student Sessions, and having friends in high places in IBLP, they were able to convince the staff to make this happen. I was introduced by Bill Gothard himself, who remembered me from my time volunteering at IBLP’s headquarters in my younger years (yes, I volunteered when I was 13. Wow! So devoted!)
I gave my speech the second to last day of the conference, everyone thought it was wonderful, and many students approached me afterwards to tell me so. As someone who was a leader in a small group and a speaker at the conference, I felt like a cog in the IBLP machine. I belonged there; I knew Bill! I was seen and at home.
Or so I thought.
A week or so before the conference, I developed some stomach problems that suddenly limited my diet to fruits and veggies, some kombucha, and a few other boring health foods. Being the crunchy raw organic folks that we were, we said, “No problem, we’ll bring our juicer to our hotel room”, and I lived on juice for that conference and carried on.
Now, in previous years, we had signed up for ATI’s meal plan which pays for a lunch and dinner for each person each day of the conference. While I always enjoyed those, they were very bread-heavy, and my stomach couldn’t–well–stomach bread this year. Instead, I brought my own lunch to ensure I didn’t experience stomach pain, fatigue, or any of the other debilitating symptoms I’d been suffering mysteriously from the past week.
Volunteering as a leader for the Pre-Excel girls was so special for me. Mary and I oversaw leading ten girls who were between the ages of eight and eleven, and we quickly bonded with each of them. The girls liked to call me Leo, and one of them in particular, Anna, became extremely attached to me. As someone who felt so powerless and insignificant at home, it was refreshing and confidence-building for me to have the responsibility of teaching my girls about God and the curriculum that ATI handed all of us leaders that week.
Sara, Rachel, and Emily, who were only a few years older than me, were the large-group leaders overseeing each small-group. They led large-group worship, lessons, lunch, and afternoon games for this conference as well as the other ATI conferences that IBLP put on, traveling with Bill Gothard and his team.
One of these women shared her testimony in large group of how God changed her life by helping her recover from an eating disorder. Right off the bat, she took an interest in my lunches, asking questions about why I wasn’t eating the lunches provided by the conference, to which I answered honestly about my health. It never occurred to me that she was concerned that I was eating this way because I had an eating disorder. It didn’t help my case that I was very skinny, the kind of skinny that often compelled people to pinch my shoulder and say, “Eat a burger!” First of all, I DID eat, okay? Second of all, you’re hurting my feelings.
Do you know what it’s like for your mom to coach you as a ten-year-old to hold your pee and avoid going to the bathroom after eating dinner at a family gathering? My mom told me that if I went to the bathroom right after eating, people would assume I was throwing up. “Just wait thirty minutes before going pee so that no one talks.” I diligently obeyed, though I wondered why our family wouldn’t just take our word for it when we told them that we had fast metabolisms. My mom explained that this was inconceivable to them. Even today I catch myself avoiding the bathroom right after I eat just to prove to people that I don’t have an eating disorder.
It was common to play the piano if you were an ATI student. Some played violin, some played the cello or harp, but I would say that the majority at least also played the piano. I had taken lessons on and off for about five years and found it therapeutic and relaxing to play. On the third evening of the conference, after spending two whole days leading Pre-Excel, speaking in the Student Sessions, and doing my best to manage my health, I was tired and in need of some piano therapy. I got permission from my mom to go to the Pre-Excel room where there was a piano, and sat down and began to play classical music.
No one else was in the room. At first.
A moment or so into my playing, a girl I’d seen in passing sat down in the room, asking to listen. Her name was Maggie, and she had also come to unwind with some piano therapy. After I finished my song I let her take her turn, chatting while she played. She began a second song that I was familiar with, and remembering my guitar that I’d stashed in my Pre-Excel booth in that room, I jumped up, saying, “Play that again and I’ll accompany you!”
I had never actually accompanied someone on the guitar before, especially not while they played a different instrument, so my efforts to match the key Maggie played in were mediocre at best.
A few moments into our playing, one of the Pre-Excel leaders, Sara, popped in. Immediately, the mood in the room shifted.
“Hi Leona,” Sara said with some surprise. “What are you both doing?”
“This is Maggie,” I introduced. “We have permission from our parents to play the piano in here for a bit.”
“Oh,” Sara looked uncomfortable. “Well…what are you playing?”
It seemed an odd question, but I explained, “Maggie was playing Fur Elise while I was trying to accompany her on my guitar.”
“You know, Mr. Gothard says we’re only allowed to play hymns,” Sara put a hand on her hip, staring at my guitar.
“Oh…well, I thought we were also allowed to play classical music. I mean, tons of classical music is sold at the conference,” I pointed out.
“All I know is that Mr. Gothard says that we are only allowed to play hymns. Anything else isn’t allowed,” Sara was firm.
I thought of all the classical music CDs that my parents had purchased over a decade of ATI conferences. Yes, any music besides hymns or classical music was considered demonic…but classical WAS okay. I knew that Sara’s “rule” was inconsistent with IBLP’s music philosophy, but I was not a conflict person and I didn’t want to lose the privilege of playing the piano, so I conceded. “Okay, sorry about that. We’ll just play hymns now if that’s alright.”
Maggie chimed in, “Yeah, I know Amazing Grace on the piano too, we can play that.”
“Okay,” Sara sighed, then grabbed some papers and disappeared.
“So…what key do you play Amazing Grace in?” I wondered to Maggie.
“Uhh, I think the key of D?” she guessed, so we tried it. This time the results were even worse than before, and we were making all sorts of adjustments to make it sound better when Sara popped back into the room, this time with Rachel, the leader who had been asking about my unique lunches.
Startled, we stopped as soon as they came back in, mostly due to embarrassment over how terrible we had sounded.
“What were you playing?” Sara accused suspiciously, and Maggie and I both burst into laughter. When we managed to pull ourselves together, Maggie giggled, “Well we were trying to play Amazing Grace—”
“—But it sounded—” I chimed in—
“–Like…like–” Maggie breathed–
“I think you both should leave,” Sara was stern now, and she and Rachel exchanged a serious glance of agreement.
“Uh, okay…” Maggie stood up from the piano, rolling her eyes as she looked my way.
“We were actually playing hymns though, we aren’t lying,” I gently protested, feeling that this was extremely unfair.
“Okay,” Rachel said dismissively, “but we still think it’s time for you both to go back to the family sessions. We’ll see you tomorrow, Leona,” and they sent us away.
We left the room and once we were out of earshot Maggie complained, “That was annoying.”
“Yeah,” I whispered. “I don’t know why they felt like that was such a big deal.” Then I let the situation drift out of my mind as I rejoined the family sessions, unaware of just how much of a big deal this was all about to become.
Read Part 2 here.
Header Photo Credit: James Staddon
Leona Left Fundamentalism 
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