Counting the Cost

by Jill Duggar

By preventing us from discussing anything controversial or sensitive with each other, the instruction not to “stir up contention among the brethren” became a tool for silence, for control, for guilt.

When he said he was giving me to Derick at the wedding altar, it was an empty gesture. IBLP teaching was clear that his authority over me would never diminish. If I disobeyed him or didn’t honor his wishes and stepped out from under the umbrella of protection, I would be exposing myself to potential harm.

I am clear about the mistakes that my parents have made over the years with our upbringing, especially Pops, but the way my parents handled or didn’t handle things with Josh does not influence or justify the release of juvenile records and further re-traumatization and exploitation of innocent victims.

Answering all Megyn’s questions, with Josh watching from a couch just out of shot, was like having a bandage ripped off a deep and open wound. It was agony, so painful that I didn’t really pause to ask why Josh was allowed to be there in the first place.

i could not begin to imagine the pain of this

I’d spent much of my life listening to IBLP teaching on the “umbrella of protection.” When I’d needed it most, it had failed me. It felt as though I, as a woman, was expected do all I could to protect Pops and Josh. Nobody appeared to see it differently.

“You want to know why I’m crying?” My voice was cracked, my eyes burning. “It’s that you think I’m some kind of horrible person just because I wear pants and have a nose ring, and yet you see that girl outside and praise her. That’s why I’m crying, Daddy. I’m evolving and changing, just like that girl out there, but you can’t see it. You treat me like I’m a prodigal who’s turned her back on you. You treat me worse than you treat my pedophile brother.”

IBLP had put a lot more energy into teaching me to fear the world beyond its doors than it had put into teaching me to trust God and discern for myself how to reach a good and wise decision on any given issue.

You can recognize the beauty and happy parts of your story while also recognizing the more difficult parts. The two can coexist. The highs aren’t automatically erased or invalidated by the lows.

“Sometimes you have to be okay with other people not being okay with you. And you have to be okay with you not being okay too.”