Unpacking Familial Trauma & Homeschool Cults
A Review of Heather Grace Heath’s Lovingly Abused: A True Story of Overcoming Cults, Gaslighting, and Legal Educational Neglect
When Amazon’s Shiny Happy People documentary was released in June 2023, it brought national attention to the stories of many IBLP survivors, including Heather Heath. Heath’s debut book, Lovingly Abused: A True Story of Overcoming Cults, Gaslighting, and Legal Educational Neglect, was published in 2021, chronicling her story of being raised in the IBLP and the impact it had on her life. As far as survivor memoirs go, Lovingly Abused has become one of my favorites as Heath thoughtfully and humorously unpacks familial trauma, describes the process of undoing her homeschool education, and engages with life outside of the cult.
Unpacking Familial Trauma
One important aspect of Heath’s book is unpacking her family’s history of trauma–including extensive domestic violence, abuse, sexual assault, and other tragic events–which led to her mom’s initial engagement with the Institute in Basic Life Principles (IBLP) and, eventually, the Advanced Training Institute (ATI), the homeschooling curriculum of the IBLP. Heath’s understanding of her family’s trauma, developed by extensive conversations with her mom, is that it led her mom to find escape from trauma through something she could control. IBLP and its associated resources provided “security” within rules, essentially guaranteeing followers a successful, controlled life when they followed the rules provided by IBLP. The trauma Heath’s mom endured compelled her, and eventually her husband and daughters, to participate in IBLP’s yearly conventions and events.
Undoing a Homeschool Education
Heath’s entire education was dictated by the IBLP’s Advanced Training Institute curriculum, which was composed of “wisdom booklets.” The contents of the wisdom booklets–and often only the wisdom booklets, after parents removed key subjects like math and science from the child’s education–effectively brainwashed children into a one-track mentality toward most issues and topics. Children were not instructed on how to think critically or engage opinions different from their own, and were taught to mistreat those not in alignment with their views. Similarly, the wisdom booklets, combined with IBLP’s conferences and workshops, taught her and others a singular mentality toward the Christian faith and its practice, leading to Spiritual Abuse of the cult members due to extremely legalistic practices and more rules. In her book, Heath explains her process of relearning, often through the virtual (pandemic era) education her daughters were receiving, even as young as kindergarten. The older Heath got, the more aware she became of how little she had actually been taught. She notes that to this day, she will learn things she’d never been taught before just by helping her daughters with homework.
One aspect of Heath’s story and unpacking of her education that I really appreciated was her keen ability to call out educational abuse and neglect, while not throwing out homeschooling entirely. Heath recognizes that in her case–and in the situations of many other children who were homeschooled, ATI or otherwise–educational abuse and neglect were clearly perpetuated by her parents as she finished high school with a lacking knowledge of many basic subjects that were well known by her peers. Other ATI stories include children who never advanced past an eighth grade math level (even as a high-school-age student), young girls not being taught math beyond basic problems and fractions, and parents who used homeschooling as an coverup of domestic violence, sexual abuse, and neglect of their children.
Even as Heath recognizes the clear educational abuse and neglect she experienced as a result of ATI and her homeschool experience, she doesn’t entirely throw out homeschooling as a valid option. She recognizes that, when done well and at an age- and grade-appropriate level, homeschooling can be a great option for some children. She directs her readers to resources such as the Coalition for Responsible Home Education, which advocates for the protection and rights of current and past homeschool students. Heath’s ability to see the both-and of a situation–with the perfect blend of humor and real stories–makes her story of unpacking her homeschool education a very interesting read.
Engaging with Life Outside the Cult
Just as interesting as Heath’s cult upbringing are her stories of life outside the cult. From a young age, she expressed interest in working in medicine, and eventually became a paramedic. Achieving this goal caused Heath to be questioned, demeaned, and belittled by others in the IBLP/ATI community for pursuing a career (something actively discouraged) instead of getting married and having children at a young age. Reading Heath’s story is like sitting down for coffee with a friend who’s a great storyteller. Her stories of life and learning outside the cult are fascinating and, in most cases, extremely funny.
As a reader, I found Heath’s story engaging, thought provoking, and discouraging all at the same time. The stories of her childhood and family trauma made my heart break for her, even as her stories of leaving the cult and engaging with life outside of it had me cheering. Heath’s story is an important one as more and more people are leaving IBLP and similar cults, providing hope and inspiration that life can be found after being in a cult.
To purchase your own copy of Lovingly Abused, visit Amazon or Heather’s website, and connect with Heather on her website or Instagram.
