What Heather Suffered at Bill Gothard’s Hands

I recently read what is I think the most moving story I have read yet on the Bill Gothard scandal. In it a young woman, who goes by Heather, tells her story, written in the form of a letter to Gothard. Gothard began an inappropriate physical relationship with her when she was eleven—eleven—but that was really only the beginning. Honestly, from reading Heather’s story, I get the feeling that she doesn’t feel that the footsie at age 11 or the caressing and feeling-up at age 15 was the worst part of what she suffered at Gothard’s hands. Those who still defend Gothard’s teachings need to read how Gothard destroyed Heather with those very teachings—and that this is about much more than sexual abuse.

Heather met Gothard when she was 11, and her family soon became constantly involved in his ministry. As a young teen, she spent time alone with him in his office. There was footsie, and petting, and hand holding. Heather was not aware enough to recognize that these were warning signs, and she tolerated it because Gothard made her feel special. But things were about to get much worse.

When Heather was 17 or so, her mother left her abusive father, with Gothard’s support. But it appears that Gothard had ulterior motives for supporting this move. He soon made it clear to Heather that he would provide housing and financial support for her family, but only if she would become what amounted to his constant servant. And so, with no education to speak of and no skills, Heather took the deal, and became her family’s sole support—at the cost of being Gothard’s slave.

Heather eventually complained about the 12 hour days Gothard was requiring her to put in caring for his mother at his home, including additional personal time with her at the end of each day. As punishment, Gothard sent her to Northwoods Conference Center Prison Camp to do janitorial work for a month.

I lived with hundreds of boys that I was not allowed to speak to or look at and a small clique of girls who never showed any warmth to me.  I had no phone access to call home.  My hours were long and tiring.  There was nothing to look forward to.  I felt like I was in prison.  Before that month at the Northwoods, I’d always felt like a little bird; able to fly around from here to there talking with people and smiling and laughing and feeling someone “normal” because of interacting with others who lived the same insane existence that I did.  But when you locked me up at the Northwoods, it felt like torture.  The depression was intense and relentless, but not a single person took notice of it or sought to give me aid.

Gothard finally allowed Heather to come home, but not for long.

You gave me two options: go to live with my father – the one you supported my mother to leave based on his years of abuse toward us  – or to go Indianapolis and join the EQUIP program.

At this time Heather was no longer a minor. No, she was 19 years old.

I went to Indianapolis kicking and screaming inwardly but without any outward show of pain whatsoever.  I arrived to have my things dug through as though I were a common criminal.  My clothing selections were deemed inappropriate and taken from me even though they were long skirts and modest blouses.   I was made to wear things chosen from the donations boxes that were ill-fitting and terribly outdated.

I was near a literal nervous breakdown but was not allowed even a moment alone during the day.  Even trips to use the restroom required accompaniment.  The only times I was allowed to be alone was in the shower.  And even though my showers were timed and kept to a limit so that I was not alone a moment longer than was necessary for personal hygiene, oh how I wept during those precious minutes alone.

You told me that these situations were intentionally designed to break me.  And break me they did.  I didn’t even know to cry out to God to rescue me from that awful place because I was utterly confused about who God really was and what His true heart was toward me.  Thanks to your teachings, grace was a distorted concept in my mind about something I initiated and responded to that lead me to righteousness, not something that was entirely God-initiated and had nothing at all to do with whether or not I was righteous in any way.

My time in Indianapolis lasted for nine months.  I was forced many times to miss meals, sometimes for days at a time, when my heart was “not right before God”.  I was locked into my room on more than one occasion and had all outside contact and food withheld from me until the leadership decided it was enough.  I was interrogated by leadership on a regular basis, often taken into back rooms with only one member of leadership  – usually of the opposite sex – and berated for hours.  I was not allowed to cry or disagree.  I was called a “whore”.  I was treated with utter cruelty.  I was isolated from the few friends I was able to gain.  I worked 10-12 hour days of hard manual labor with no pay on a renovating crew where I hung drywall or molding or helped lay carpet or paint and hang wallpaper.  I missed many meals because of my long work hours and was not allowed to find food when I was done working.  I lost several dress sizes within just a few months of arriving and no one noticed that or called my treatment into account for my obvious physical distress.

I was subjected to room searches on a regular basis where my drawers and mattresses and closets were rifled through and things taken if they were not deemed “approved”.  Everything of value had been confiscated from me.  Letters from friends, pictures from home, even toiletries that I had purchased.  My mail was routinely opened and read before being given to me – a federal offense.  My friends were often interrogated about me.  Some remained loyal to me while others gave in to the tremendous pressure from the leadership and gave false stories about me to gain their approval or to simply be removed from their interrogations.  The results of those betrayals often cost me our weekly outing to the store or being allowed to go to church – the only two times in a week that we left the compound.

I know someone who spent three months at the Indianapolis Training Center, as a young adult. She left the compound exactly once in that entire time.

What happened to Heather? Well, it came out that she had begun to fancy a young man also in the program, and that he fancied her back. Gothard was not pleased with this when he found out.

When October came around, you were in town when my final week with your cult was upon me.  Depression was apparent in my face and mannerisms.  You saw me singing in choir and summoned me to your office.  You said that you could tell from my downcast countenance that I had given ground over to Satan. The light in my eyes was gone.  You blamed me and some supposed, hidden sin in my life rather than the blatant woeful treatment I’d been receiving.  Once again, you held me responsible for the abuses of others.

The next day, you called me to your table after lunch for another meeting.  You told me that the leadership had shed light on the situation.  They’d told you that I was attracted to a boy, but they could not figure out who it was.  You asked if that was true.  I did not attempt to withhold the truth from you.  I told you immediately that it was true and who it was.  I told you that we were obeying your rules of conduct and that our relationship had not gone past mere attraction and that it would not until we were older, had our parent’s blessing( as was standard IBLP law), and were no longer working at your facility.

We were both locked up immediately and left with no food or outside contact for days as you decided what to do with us.

I assume that you have never been held against your will in a locked room.  It is a form of torture, you know.  As is the withholding of food.  These games of mental cruelty wreaked far greater damage in me than a hungry belly and a night of dark tears.  They broke me.  They ruined me.  Nearly twenty years have come and gone since these days, but the bones you crushed, the heart you flogged, and the mind you broke back then still refuse to function correctly today.  No amount of intervention, therapy, and medication in the world seem enough to turn back the clock and reverse the damage.  I live with constant impairment.

And then what?

I don’t need to tell you the end of the story because you already know it.  You kicked me out.  You gave me three hours.  Three hours.  Three hours to leave the only world I’d ever known.

Three hours. Three hours.

Seriously, go read Heather’s story in its entirety. There is so much there worth reading. She talks about Gothard “counseling” regarding the sexual abuse she had previously suffered at the hands of some boys her own age, and about the mind games and how Gothard managed to control her for so long.

What I want to drive home, though, is that Bill Gothard’s sexual abuse of Heather and other vulnerable young women is only a part of his larger abuses. Heather’s story makes it clear that Gothard was a cult leader in the classic way we think about cults—wielding absolute power over members’ lives, punishing or banishing offenders, using control tactics to ensure that members don’t consider leaving an option, and so forth. The sexual abuse is only the icing on the cake.

Heather’s story also makes it painfully obvious that IBLP can’t just ditch Gothard and keep right on running as before. Gothard was not physically present at Northwoods, or at Indianapolis, where Heather was held prisoner, and yet his underlings upheld his system of control, spiritual abuse, and punishment. The problem at IBLP was not simply Gothard. It was—and is—a systemic problem. It should not have taken sexual abuse to bring Gothard down. Gothard should have been pulled down long, long ago.

I’m especially struck by Heather’s literal imprisonment. By the end, she was 20. She was not a minor in the custody of a guardian, as bad as that would still be. No, she was an adult, literally held against her will at Gothard’s orders. This is not legal. Gothard—and IBLP—are in serious need of some actual legal investigating—and none of this in-house stuff.