Book Review: Leaving the Fold
I'm in the middle of re-reading Leaving the Fold: A Guide for Former Fundamentalists and Others Leaving Their Religion by Marlene Winell. My first read of it was about a month ago, and now I'm re-reading it because it's so good and has been extremely helpful. I really wish I had read it 20 years ago when it was first published, because I think it would have helped me get over some of those huge emotional hurdles of leaving the COC much faster. It would have helped me realize that I wasn't crazy and that I certainly wasn't the only person facing the challenges of leaving a toxic church. It has also helped me better analyze the dysfunctional dynamics of my family. For a long time, I thought my family's problems were unique, but they really aren't. One point that Winell makes in the book is that children of fundamentalist parents often have psychological problems and profiles similar to those of children of alcoholics. Whether the parent's addition is al...