Part 15 A Unexpected Revelations--Claremont Christian Academy

It’s incredibly odd to think that I haven’t woken up to what I’m about to write until today. My husband thinks my brain couldn’t handle all the memories at once, so the realizations of abuse come in pieces. I think it’s because I really was brainwashed and this was all “my normal.” It’s probably a mix of both. I’m discouraged to say that there’s two more organizations that I still haven’t identified as systematically abusive I’m afraid I will draw the most criticism in my personal life for these two posts, but I carry on wearily anyway, because I need this for myself.

My cult church in NH ran a school called CCA. In our early years in the church, those in the school ostracized the church kids who did not attend. I would get wind of things that parents would say about public school kids, like, “What I want to know is how [a public school student] passed his science tests,” implying that the student must have been compromising his faith. I do remember a little criticism about homeschooled kids like me as well, and up to a certain point, we weren’t part of the “in crowd.” That faded with time, though, particularly when the principal of CCA was found to be sexually abusive and a lot of his minions had graduated and moved to college. To my cult's credit, he was kicked out of the church because he refused to apologize for his actions, but some outraged families even left with him and started another short-lived school. While he was in leadership at CCA, I heard all sorts of stories of abuse, ranging from him raping and molesting teenage girls to obese teachers sitting on elementary school students until they cried. I sit in grief for the children who were entrusted to his and his staff’s care.

Personally, I was always perfectly happy not attending CCA. The curriculum, called Accelerated Christian Education meant that everyone had to sit facing the wall, without talking, for most of the day. Instead of engaging with other people, it required students to read lessons alone. I knew that wasn’t my learning style, but in high school, my parents informed me that someone in the church had anonymously paid for me and 3 of my siblings to attend.

The curriculum reflected the school’s spiritually abusive messages that we heard from everyone in our church. It was filled with cartoons containing formulas for living the Christian life (This action + This thought = Pleasing God). The idea that hurt me the most was one I heard from all sides in my life and it went as follows:

·         God is the absolute authority. God has set me up as your leader. Therefore, God wants you to obey me and obeying me means obeying God.

As you can see, this was brainwashing at its finest. I wouldn’t dare step outside of their ideals for my life.

One teacher stands out as particularly abusive. He was also the leader of our youth group (the man who told me that I had to submit to my parents even if they weren’t good parents). While funny and easy-going, he made me feel shame like no one else at the school. His constant group talks about modesty made me feel like it was my fault when I caught him checking me out (and I realize a lot of people will be angry and accuse me of lying, but curvy girls would probably understand right away what kind of looks I’m talking about). The thing is, when I caught his eyes as he stared up my shorts one day, I only remember halfway feeling like he was wrong. The other half of me felt like I was wrong and that I should have done something differently, even though I lived and breathed strict modesty standards for myself and others. It was something I rigorously policed myself on on an hourly basis thanks to the teachings of my father and this man.

Another way he made me feel shame was for my physical disability. The staff, when I attended, was dismally disqualified to be teaching (something that goes along with ACE curriculum; the staff are considered “supervisors,” not “teachers.”), and this youth pastor was our gym teacher. There were certain types of exercise I enjoyed, and certain ones that made me feel like I couldn’t breathe. I honestly just thought I was out of shape and that running was more rigorous than anything else I did (snowboarding, swimming, horseback riding, rock climbing). My throat quickly became raw, my face turned beet red (and remained so for the rest of the day), and I would suck in huge amounts of air, but I always felt like I was suffocating. For the rest of the day after I was forced to run, I would hold back vomit and feel like a pillow was being stuffed over my mouth so I couldn’t breathe. I tried to alternate running and walking in gym class, for which the teacher accused me of being lazy. I found out as an adult that I have exercise-induced asthma, which is aggravated more by certain activities, including running. If I hadn’t snuck in walking when the teacher wasn’t looking, I could have died. A qualified PE teacher would have recognized the symptoms of asthma, but instead, he made me feel like a less-than-worthy human being. I felt sinful for having asthma.

Not coincidentally, this man was also the camp pastor for the camp in Part B of this blog post...