Please Help Ex-Fundamentalist Writer Vyckie Garrison Keep Her Home

Back in 2009, there were few people openly talking about the most extreme corners of Protestant Christianity, the "ex-fundie" world in the blogosphere and places like Facebook hardly existed. Into this gap stepped writer Vyckie Garrison with her site No Longer Quivering as a voice speaking out against the Quiverfull movement, which rejects all forms of birth control, and feels that every Christian has a divine mandate to have as many children as possible.

No Longer Quivering served as a community for the wives and daughters who left fundamentalism, and gave them a voice. It grew in influence and size, and she started getting more attention from the media and going on speaking tours, raising awareness.

Recently, she has been interviewed by sites as big as Alternet, and has been a speaker at conferences for Center for Inquiry and American Atheists. Her influence on the ex fundamentalist world can not be underestimated, she has inspired many bloggers, and contributed greatly to the campaign to get M. Dolon Hickmon's book 13:24, off to a running start.

2 Weeks of Struggles and Victories

It's been a long two weeks since I last posted here, and much has happened.

The week before Easter, I was informed by my doctor that my constant fatigue could be the result of sleep apnea, I will have a sleep study Monday night, and he said that if this is sleep apnea, I need to lose close to 100 pounds in order to get the symptoms to possibly die down enough to no longer need a machine like a C-PAP machine.

Easter Sunday, I went to leave my house to go to the Unitarian church I am a part of, and heard a constant thumping sound, and quickly turned around after about a block to go back home, realized I had a flat tire, both front tires were too far gone to be driving on anyway, so I replaced them both.

Then this past Tuesday, the Psychos returned. Yes, the two from The Confrontation that I can't even bring myself to call my parents, because they don't deserve it. I was setting up a new lawnmower I bought in my garage when I heard "Happy Horse", my Black Lab/hound mix barking for a few minutes as though there was something he saw at the front of the house.

I heard a woman later at the back fence talking to Happy Horse and petting him, I looked out, and it's Mrs. Sociopath. I close the door to the garage and lock it. I called Granite City's police dispatch, and told the officers about The Confrontation, and that because of their attempted assault back in December, I would not come out of the garage until the officer arrived.

Despite telling the officers that showed up about how disappointed I was that the officer from The Confrontation didn't even ask me if I wanted them arrested, one of the two officers simply told them to leave and not show up or contact me again, took down my information, and had asked what had been going on before, then left filing no police report, and no arrests.

I was frustrated with the lack of response from the police department, and I knew how much good an internal complaint would do (none), so I went to Madison County's courthouse to try to file a restraining order. I was referred to a case worker for a local legal aid group that helps file the order.

She told me to fill out everything that had happened, all abuse and harassment, on the record or not. Despite listing this incident and The Confrontation (which both had law enforcement as witnesses to them), being forced off medication for depression, and being barricaded in the house and threatened with violence if I tried to leave, the judge sent a deputy to tell me (they don't even let people filing for restraining orders sit in the court room), that they felt there "wasn't enough grounds" for a restraining order.

I felt so defeated and frustrated that for a while, I considered going public with my story, under my name, trying to contact local media if any outlet would pick it up and embarrass either Granite City or Madison County into doing the right thing. I was talking to some online friends about it, and I was shocked at the response I got from the author and activist M. Dolon Hickmon, the writer of 13:24.

He went first to Granite City's mayor, then their police chief, demanding answers from them as to why nothing had been done, telling them that he would start making complaints to Madison County's state attorney's office (a state attorney is Illinois' equivalent of a county prosecutor/District Attorney), and Illinois State Police about their failure to do their job.

A Sunday of Self Reflection

It's been a long two weeks for me recently, hence why the blog has been silent. A lot of hassles with trying to get my home loan, which is being resolved right now, and I have had more fatigue and pain than I have had in years. Add to that a lot of emotional whiplash from a book that is an absolutely great and profound book, but highly triggering for anyone who grew up in a fundamentalist background, and it's been a mess.

The book is the brilliant work 13:24 by M. Dolon Hickmon. An investigation into a brutal string of murders in a small town leads to all the town's dark secrets spilling out. One of the biggest secrets is a minister who openly advocates child abuse from the pulpit, and whose ideology is remarkably similar to real life fundamentalist leaders.

There were scenes were the minister's son, Josh (who later becomes a lead singer of a death metal band) was having flashbacks to the beatings his father gave him. It was so raw, so vivid, that it was giving me flashbacks, not because of the violence, but because the lines that he used were the exact same lines that were told to me as a child.

There were so many profound statements that really spoke to me through the character Josh. A friend of his asks while he is in a mental hospital due to a suicide attempt and cocaine use. His friend asks them if he wants to bring back an old band that they used to have, he said he wasn't sure about that, and his friend said he used to be passionate about the music. This was his response:

I don't have a clue what I am passionate about because my father stripped away every shred of independence. It was never enough to follow orders. He had to pry me open, to make sure I didn't have any feelings or motivations that he hadn't given me permission to have.

Then, in a scene during a group therapy session for survivors of religious abuse, he talks about why he can't believe in Christianity anymore.

"I was raised to believe that  there was a God, who loves and helps people. I believed  that, and I prayed, with the faith of a little child. God was supposed to listen; but year after year my father stood in his church, daring him to intervene. God never did a single thing. He never lifted one finger to help or comfort me" 

When a Christian woman in the group become offended by this, implying that she thought he wanted everyone to become atheists, this is what he said: 

I'm not saying that. I'm saying that we don't always get to believe what we want. Somehow we have to reconcile our desire to believe with the reality we have seen."