Saving $10,000 to leave my fundamentalist family and church made it clear that money is power — and I have it

• I grew up in a fundamentalist family where I was oppressed as both a woman and gay person.
• In order to make time go by faster, I worked constantly and saved up $10,000 which I used to leave.
• I’m happy to be out, but the threat of homelessness means balancing three to four jobs all the time.
• This essay is part of Strings Attached, a series about people leaving insulated communities and their relationships with money.

This story was written under a pseudonym, to protect the identity of the writer who fears repercussions from her family and former community. Insider has privately confirmed her identity and her story.

I was brought up in an ultra-religious, conservative Christian home. There are four of us children — myself, and three boys. 

As the only female child, I was subjected to rules that didn’t apply to my brothers. I was to learn to be submissive, fulfill the wishes and needs of whatever man I ended up marrying, and practice those skills of subservience with my father and brothers.

Marriage to a man, of course, was out of the question to me. I’m a lesbian, and have been comfortably identifying as such for many years, even in the face of the horrified opposition of my family. 

I was 14 when my mother began running interventions on me due to my sexuality, which ultimately culminated in me being sent to conversion therapy at age 16.

I knew that I wanted to get out, but it took me a few years to find a path out of fundamentalism.

I used work as an escape, and ended up funding my exit plan without realizing it

When I was 12, I began working as a babysitter, earning some of my own money. My family insisted I donate at least 10% of my earnings to our church — the standard Christian deduction. 

After high school, I worked multiple jobs including being a dog walker, a tutor, and a nursing home assistant. I didn’t have a grand plan to save money to leave my family’s home or anything like that — it simply helped give me an excuse to not be home and gave me purpose in my life. 

However, when COVID-19 hit, I was forced to majorly cut back my hours of work, like so many other Americans did. 

When I was alone with my thoughts — not consumed with work — it dawned on me that I had accumulated almost $10,000 working my life away. I realized that I could now leave my family and community. 

I used some of the money I had saved to purchase a car. Then, I chose to use continuing my education as the guise under which to leave.

I found a place to live near the school I planned to attend and moved there a month before classes were set to begin. That was two years ago, and I haven’t looked back since. 

I’m out, but life is so exhausting when you don’t have a safety net

I still hold around three or four jobs at any given time to make ends meet, as I am completing my last semester of classes. I am saving as much as I can in my current situation in order to leave my current region and make a life elsewhere. 

I have worked graveyard shifts in elder care and janitorial work for years. I have spent countless exhausted days going from one obligation to another to be sure I don’t end up homeless.

There are many young people like me who grew up under the thumb of fundamentalist religion who are struggling with a complete lack of necessary skills, including financial skills, to survive in the world. We are often without any help or support, deemed a lost cause, and excluded from our family’s love — except under the condition that we return to their fold.

This kind of conditional love, which leaves us all lacking, ensures that we have to struggle to learn our own skills from the bottom up — whatever the consequences may be. It also means that we are without money and basic necessities. That particular prospect keeps many, many people trapped in these communities due to the fear of being homeless and vulnerable.

I now have savings, and I am currently preparing to move away to a major city. I am proud that I have almost completed a college degree. I have been successful at this because I have worked myself to the bone and exhausted myself for years, in order to establish my independence. 

My life is a constant grind, which, though I am tired and often sad, is slowly but surely leading me to a better life.

Read more:

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Growing up in a cult taught me it was sinful to spend money on myself, and that took me over a decade to unlearn