Former Counting On star Jinger Duggar isn’t mincing words when it comes to sharing how she really feels about her upbringing. She didn’t hold back in her book, Becoming Free Indeed, and she didn’t hold back in her interview with People magazine, either. While promoting her new book about walking away from her parents’ strict religion, Jinger shared how she lived in a near-constant state of fear as a child thanks to the “cult-like” upbringing parents Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar subjected her and her siblings to.
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Jinger's book 'Becoming Free Indeed' takes aim at the Institute in Basic Life Principles.
Fans were a little surprised when Jinger dropped the news that she’d penned a tell-all style memoir about growing up following the principals of the IBLP. Now she’s lifting the veil again for her fans ahead of the book’s January 31 release and talking about just how many of her life choices were motivated by fear growing up.
The mother of two described feeling near-paralyzed with fear as a child.
According to Jinger, the basis of Bill Gothard’s teaching, which relied heavily on fear and superstition, caused her to question everything around her growing up. She admitted to feeling like she didn’t know what God expected of her.
“The fear kept me crippled with anxiety,” she recalled. “I was terrified of the outside world.”
It wasn’t until 2017 when, as an older and wiser version of herself who had met new people with different beliefs (including brother-in-law Ben Seewald), she started to see the harm in what she’d been taught.
Jinger's eyes were opened and her perspective about things began to shift.
“His teachings were so harmful, and I’m seeing more of the effects of that in the lives of my friends and people who grew up in that community with me,” she admitted. “There are a lot of cult-like tendencies.”
The Duggars are known for their extreme beliefs, which include prohibiting women from wearing pants or listening to certain types of music — all holdovers from the now disgraced former church leader’s teachings.
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Even the simple things in her life became terrifying for her.
Sharing a heartbreaking story from her childhood, Jinger recounted how she once worried that joining her family for an afternoon game could’ve been a big enough slight in God’s eyes that he would’ve rather seen her die than have fun.
“I thought I could be killed in a car accident on the way, because I didn’t know if God wanted me to stay home and read my Bible instead,” she recalled.
It sounds like Jinger has a good reason for wanting to speak out about her experience all these years later.
“That’s the beauty of this journey,” she explained. “The teaching I grew up under was harmful, it was damaging, and there are lasting effects. But I know other people are struggling and people who are still stuck. I want to share my story, and maybe it will help even just one person to be freed.”
We can’t help but wonder if Jinger has anyone in mind with that statement (like maybe her sister-in-law Anna). Though standing up against her parents’ long-held beliefs can’t be easy, there’s no doubt Jinger is helping others to break away from similar circumstances by sharing her story.
