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"But the dreamers of the day are dangerous people, for they think their dreams into reality with eyes wide open." - TE Lawrence

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Plotting Your Novel with the Plot Clock

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tialevingswriter

The video I did explaining Michelle Duggar’s art

The video I did explaining Michelle Duggar’s artificially high and trained vocal behavior continues to go viral. So many of you have aha connections. And then there’s the folks who insist the training doesn’t exist, isn’t rooted in books like Fascinating Womanhood (and it’s descendants), or is isolated to one family.

So I couldn’t resist a little compilation when @itsrowsdower shared the IBLP calendar commercial with me. In the whole clip, “Esther” uses the baby voice for the most part, until she dips into a lower register to say “good character doesn’t just happen.” It’s a great example of how her vocal chords are just fine, and capable of an adult register, and yet she uses the baby voice to keep sweet and sell.

To get more on what’s really up in Christian Fundamentalism grab my free FUNDIE CHEATSHEET, link bio @tialevingswriter

#duggars #michelleduggar #babytalk #keepsweet #vocaltraining #fundies #religioustrauma #exevangelical #iblp #wisdombooklets #wisdomcalender #quiverfull #countingon #trad #tonepolicing #voicetraining #thevoice

The promise: stay pure, wait as long as it takes,

The promise: stay pure, wait as long as it takes, practice being a good wife on your family, and…someday your extra special one and only chosen just for you prince will come.

There’s a ring sometimes, and a little wedding-like ceremony with daddy to signify your promise. Not everyone does it but enough do that you can search promise rings on Amazon.

The restrictions: modesty matters. No shoulder straps or tempting men through whatever is deemed as immodest fashion. No thinking about boys. It’s possible to mentally cheat on your future mate, harming your marriage before you’ve even met him. Probably no dating—use courtship instead. Although this varies in evangelical circles too. No m@stub@t1on. No flirting. If you’re an older adult and getting stale, you may need a Christian dating app to help you find God’s best (apparently God doesn’t always get the delivery address right) but otherwise, chemistry isn’t important. What matters: he’s suited to lead you and get you to cooperate with top-down complementarian leadership and submission. (For example, see my reel where Priscilla accepts David’s “proposal” by “following his leadership.”)

It a lot more….streamlined than dating for chemistry, compatibility, partnership, and equality.

To get more in what it’s really like in Christian Fundamentalism grab my free FUNDIE CHEATSHEET, link in bio @tialevingswriter

#duggars #wallers #19kids #quiverfull #courtship #christiandatinghumor #somedaymyprincewillcome #religioustrauma #fundies #exevangelical #timesup #waitongod #sahdaughter #purityculture #purityculturedropout #dogwhistle #godsbest

A lesson I learned in high control patriarchy: tho

A lesson I learned in high control patriarchy: those who verbally demand respect by virtue of gender or position often behave disrespectfully, hurting and abusing those they perceive themselves to lord over.

Crowder’s bully behavior here is so similar to his kind that it sounds like a script. Raise your hand if you’ve heard his diatribe before. But to the person inside of a scene like this, fawning and repositioning herself for safety, it doesn’t feel like a script. It feels random. Dangerous. Volatile. Teetering on the edge of explosion. As delicate as a trip wire. Alone.

Let’s decode:

“Wifely things” = serve me

“I’ve never received love from you” = you assert yourself against dominion

“You need to be disciplined about it” = obedient service should be reflexive and constant

“You’re not committed to anything” = you won’t stop doing what you want to do what I want

“This is discipline and respect” = you’re out of line and it’s my job as a man to correct you

“watch it” = calling out abuse is a trigger for the violence he’s done before

Alone is a fallacy. When women compare stories we find commonality and can examine the system churning and nurturing toxic abuse.

Crowder is angry his wife can legally divorce him. And he has company in this view—Christian patriarchy wants to make it hard to get a divorce, if not impossible. Crowder also said his fault in this situation was that he “picked wrong.” Domineering men want women who can’t leave—and marriages that can’t be left.

To see more on how church-sanctioned domestic abuse flies under the radar grab my free FUNDIE CHEATSHEET, link in bio @tialevingswriter

#stevencrowder #domesticabuse #patriarchy #religioustrauma #highcontrol #toxicrelationships #toxicmasculinity #shareyourstory #traumasurvivor

The Duggars (and adjacent families like the Waller

The Duggars (and adjacent families like the Wallers, Bates, Rodrigues) put themselves out there as examples of a superior lifestyle. And the IBLP (Institute of Basic Life Principles) lifestyle has impacted Christian congregations and conservative society to the extent that our government and liberties are changing. So it’s more important that ever that we responsibly examine the fruit of that lifestyle. How they run their homes is how they want to run the country.

Two Duggar-adjacent characters and IBLP alumni are David and Priscilla Waller. They create a lot of content and I use their example in my work frequently as a result. Here they’re sharing the proposal that resulted from their courtship, and in so doing exemplify several fundie behaviors:

🔴 Priscilla’s speech is high, trained, and earnestly sweet

🔴 she also exhibits what many viewers pick up on— a cognitive deficit. True to fundie form for both education and healthcare, her condition was inadequately treated

🔴 David coaches her speech and when they broadcast, she is trying hard to perform and express correctly

🔴 Her value in fundamentalism is as a womb and service to her husband

🔴 fundie proposals can be really weird. Here it sounds like a very awkward business arrangement, probably because that’s exactly what it is

To get more on what it’s really like to live in Christian Fundamentalism grab my free FUNDIE CHEATSHEET, link in bio @tialevingswriter

#duggars #fundies #19kids #19kidsandcounting #courtship #quiverfull #iblp #wallers #religioustrauma #highcontrol #highcontrolgroup #patriarchy #patriarchysucksbecause

So many feelings have come up with the release of

So many feelings have come up with the release of the Shiny Happy People. It’s a bizarre form of time travel to see images of a former life beneath present-day voice overs. It jolted my nervous system to see smiling women and rows of sweet babies in church, coupled with the revelation of the shadows and monsters nurtured in the high control religion of Christian patriarchy—Bill Gothard’s Institute if Basic Life Principles (the IBLP). That system was a gateway into high control, church sanctioned abuse, and silent suffering. But those years also span my young motherhood and every memory of my little babies and youthful hopes and optimism.

Back then, I could cry when it hurt. I could wonder at the silent sky and a painful God. I could kneel and beg in prayer. But I couldn’t name the truth. I couldn’t say what was happening or where they wanted to take us. And that’s what’s different now.

My book comes out in August of 2024. And I participated in the docuseries that pulls back the curtain on the Duggars and the IBLP. Feelings around it do come up. They flow. My fellow survivors reach for one another’s hands, liberated now and not alone. When you watch, I hope you hold us in your hearts because we never thought this honest day would come.

To get more in the realities of Christian fundamentalism, grab my free FUNDIE CHEATSHEET, link in bio @tialevingswriter

#duggars #shinyhappypeople #amazonprimevideo #documentary #19kids #19kidsandcounting #quiverfull #smashthepatriarchy #religioustrauma #exevangelical #deconstruction #freeindeed #traumasurvivor

The song choice for the Paris installment of If By

The song choice for the Paris installment of If By Sea needs a little explanation. This song was popular when I was there and I kept hearing men sing it quietly to themselves, accents thick, with music or without. Eventually I caught enough of the lyrics to look it up and then was singing it too. Because as you know if you’ve read episode 7, glimpses of myself and the “us” of my parts and dreams and goals, were what I encountered on the Seine.

Here’s the excerpt from ep 7:

Prudence holds a serpent. Venus has no arms. Baby Man Jesus, fat and wise with coming trauma.

Augustino Du Duccio, The Madonna and Child, surrounded by four angels. I stood before that one for a long while, thinking of mothers of miscarriage and infant loss, surrounded by their invisible children.

Greco-roman faces etched in stone. Time or Grandpa got their nose.

The Louvre wends down in half staircases and squares….

(To keep reading, sign up for IF BY SEA, my free serial travelogue. Link in bio @tialevingswriter

#solotravel #travelogue #eatpraylove

Thank you so much for your wonderful and kind note

Thank you so much for your wonderful and kind notes after these installments. I save every single one and I’m so grateful you’re on this journey with me. ❤️❤️❤️❤️

***

The sound of the zipper on Maud sounded bound and determined, which is what you want a heavy-duty zipper on a pack stuffed with over fifty pounds of clothes and shoes and toiletries to sound like. I’ve got this, says a strong zipper. It won’t rip and leave you hanging.

I hefted her up and went outside to wait for the car.

I wanted to go home.

(To keep reading, sign up for IF BY SEA, my free serial travelogue. Link in bio.)

* Sign up at TiaLevings.com/story to enter the workflow (link in bio). You’ll get one issue a day until you’re current

* About once a week I’ll share a photo with the opening paragraph of the chapter

* That week’s serial + photos will release via email

* Check back here for the travel reel!

* Stories come down June 1

12 (ish) chapters, 4 countries, over 3 months. A different kind of journey, a different kind of healing.

#travelogue #traumahealing #divorcerecovery #solotravel #slowtravel #writingadventures #memoir #serial #dover #englishchannel #homesick

First time obedience is attractive to tired parent

First time obedience is attractive to tired parents under pressure. It means the end of judgy stares or side glances when their kids make noise in church. An end to being “that mom” with the kid throwing a tantrum in the grocery store. It means children walking in a well-scrubbed row and receiving smiling adoration from others. It’s a pleasing image of success.

That’s how it’s sold, anyway. The reality is not so shiny.

Fundamentalism offers solutions to life’s pain and problems. Dominance feels like the first taste of control after a struggle in chaos. And the fundies offer their own success as proof it can work. This is why the Duggars and Bates families have TV shows…so we can all see how well their way of life works—and make the obvious next choice to make it ours.

Listening to survivors of the methods needed to achieve first time obedience may change your mind. These are some of the most harrowing stories in the religious trauma world: the Pearls’ cruel baby switching, long spanking sessions, deprivation, isolation—first time obedience is why children have been bound to their beds and even died.

Even when the stories aren’t as criminal, first time obedience doesn’t deliver what it promises. The total suppression, robotic responses, emotional paralysis, secret deviation, and shame haunts survivors through years of therapy and long into adulthood.

Maybe you come from a background that taught first time obedience “with an iron first” but that wasn’t religious. Rest assured the fundies took that and ran with it, as they do in nearly every area, with a scripture to back up their cruel dominion.

For more on what it’s really like in Christian Fundamentalism grab my free FUNDIE CHEATSHEET, link in bio @tialevingswriter

#childtraining #obedience #michelleduggar #duggars #19kids #19kidsandcounting #trainupachild #michaelpearl #billgothard #iblp #fundies #religioustrauma #exevangelical #domesticabuse #shame #traumahealing #controllingrelationship #controllingparents

Did you know indecisiveness is a symptom of ADHD,

Did you know indecisiveness is a symptom of ADHD, depression, and PTSD? But it’s also baked into fundie life for girls. So detangling it in recovery is complicated.

My process started unraveling when I was in my thirties. I was stuck in a conundrum: it was very difficult (paralyzing) to make small decisions for myself like choosing a restaurant while dating my second husband. But I’d also become very controlling about little shit that didn’t matter much, like how the spoons were put in the dishwasher. I didn’t know how I could be called controlling when I had such a hard time making up my mind. But therapy teased up the roots:

Because I had so little autonomy or agency over my own life and choices in fundamentalism, and humans need a sense of control (somewhere) to feel secure, I’d gone into a kind of panicked hyperdrive over small things within my acceptable “realm.” This often happens to women, where running a household or parenting is an acceptable outlet for high control, which then masks the underlying cause of why she’s so fired up about why how the towels are folded matter.

Healthy, secure individuals with autonomy and agency don’t obsess about small shit because they’re free to make choices about their beliefs, relationships, pursuits and behaviors. They don’t control others because they respect the autonomy and agencies of others.

Today, I can tell you where I want to eat. I decide who to (and if) I pray. I make decisions about where I live, who with, what color gets painted on the wall. I realize I want to write and clear space in my day to write. As a result, I don’t care how the spoons get loaded—if someone helped load them, I say thank you. I have the quad: ADHD, depression, CPTSD, and religious trauma. Sometimes, what’s complicated, boils down to something simple: girls deserve to be free.

To get more on what it’s really like in Christian patriarchy, grab my free FUNDIE CHEATSHEET, link in bio @tialevingswriter

#duggars #19kids #19kidsandcounting #saved #quiverfull #religioustrauma #exmo #traumarecovery #traumaresponse #adultadhd #adhd #cptsd #indecisive #makedecisions #whatsfordinner #highcontrol #controlling

So much can be said of this clip. The “someone” is Bill Gothard. The way her cadence matches his. The way her husband, a Gothard-beta wannabe (that’s a thing in the IBLP world,) is watching her face and performance, smiling with glee when she gets the words right. Insiders know every aspect of Priscilla’s life is controlled. Her TBI had made her especially vulnerable and there are many tragic notes in her story.

However, she’s also an example for the ideal fundie wife. And when I listen to her, I remember what I was trying to be at 23. Simple. Sweet. Endlessly generous. We were saturated in that message, even as we dissolved into invisible servants. Even as we vanished into depression. Even as we started to get sick and die from exhaustion.

In my own story, my life was saved by a lightning bolt of clarity, a funeral, and life-altering grief. But Priscilla (and the many thousands of young women like her) are still popping out babies annually, still expecting to serve nightly in bed, still subjugating any dream or desire of their own in favor of everyone in their family, including the pets.

To get more on what it’s really like to live in Christian Fundamentalism grab my free pdf the FUNDIE CHEATSHEET. It will also sign you up for pre-order updates for A Well-Trained Wife, coming in summer 2024.

#duggars #19kids #iblp #religioustrauma #generosity #giving #servant #exevangelical #quiverfull #fundies #culty #cultish #householdmanagement #housewife #invisible #feminism #fascinatingwomanhood #childlike #submissivewife

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Copyright Tia Levings, 2022