Jinger Duggar details cult-like upbringing in upcoming book and reveals why she struggled after breaking free
After Jinger Duggar Vuolo broke free from her strict household in Arkansas, she and her husband headed to Texas, but salvation wasn’t found there.“I was in Laredo for two and a half years,” the 31-year-old recalled to Fox News Digital.“As we were leaving Texas, one of the ladies in our community said, ‘I’m going to miss you, but I also feel like I didn’t get to know you.
Maybe you didn’t let me into your life as much as I would’ve wished.'”“It hit me like a ton of bricks,” she admitted.“I had been so guarded.
I had been so afraid of what people thought about me that I wanted to keep up this performance.I was afraid that if I showed them that I had hard days, they wouldn’t like me.
Maybe they thought I was insecure about what I didn’t know from having grown up in such a tight-knit community where it was cult-like in many ways.”The mother of two, who is expecting her third child, has written a new book, “People Pleaser: Breaking Free from the Burden of Imaginary Expectations.”It is a follow-up to her 2023 book, “Becoming Free Indeed,” which detailed what compelled her to walk away from her former church.“I exposed the harmful teachings I was raised under,” the former “Counting On” star explained.“But then I began to realize that I was so entrapped by what people think about me that I was almost unwilling to speak on this topic.
I was so afraid of losing my community, my friends, my family, those who I love so dearly.”“I thought if I spoke up against them, then I would be putting everything on the line,” she shared.“And as a people pleaser, it was the disapproval that I faced that I feared the most.”Bill Gothard, who was a prominent Christian evangelist, founded the Institute for Basic Life Principles (IBLP) in 1961.
His organization has conducted Bible-based seminars around the country on subjects ranging from conflict resolution to achieving financial success.Duggar Vuolo was raised by her parents, Jim ...