A woman has detailed her horrific experience of abuse after being made homeless at a young age and having to sell herself for money to survive.
Rachel Carter, 32, shared her story of how she sought refuge in the Mennonite church, where she was further abused and exploited, which later resulted in her being “trafficked” between 15 Amish and Mennonite settlements, and even suffering a life-threatening miscarriage.
“I feel like my whole life I was a sexual object to be played with, from childhood to adulthood,” Rachel, originally from Idaho, told the host of the Cults to Consciousness podcast. Shelise Ann Sola.
Rachel recalled that her parents often fought, which made her feel so sacred that she would sometimes wet herself and leave her room.
However, things only got worse after her father remarried and her stepmother brought her five children into their home.
Rachel Carter, 32, shared her story of how she sought refuge in the Mennonite church, only to be further abused and exploited.
Rachel’s fascination with religion began at an early age when she was in Sunday school after a teacher told her that Jesus loves everyone and was desperately seeking someone’s acceptance.
When she was about 14, a family of Holdeman Mennonites, an ultra-conservative sect of Christianity, moved in next door, and Rachel began attending church services with them.
Soon, she began dressing in the clothes worn by the Memmonites, which included long, modest dresses and hats, which caused her family to lose control.
Rachel added that she was never allowed to be baptized in the church because her father did not bless the decision and said that was “difficult” because it meant there were many facets of the religion she could not access.
Her life at home became even more difficult when she got her first period, as her family believed that once your menstrual cycle started you were old enough to take care of yourself.
However, since Rachel was only 12 years old she couldn’t get a job, so she began having sex with men in exchange for money and food.
When she began attending church, she was shocked to discover that several of the men she had had sex with for money were actually active members of the congregation and of fairly high rank.
However, because she was not baptized or raised in the church when she told the leaders, they did not believe her.
Rachel told podcast host Shelise Ann Sola: ‘I feel like my whole life I was a sexual object to be played with, from childhood all the way through to my adulthood.’
While Rachel is still somewhat religious, she has distanced herself from the ultra-conservative sect and is working to rebuild her life.
“I came home feeling defeated, like I had put everything of myself into this church, and at 16 I ended up standing in front of the church and apologizing and repenting for things I said I had made up, but that wasn’t the case,” she reflected sadly.
Rachel was still in church in high school, but says many of the things she loved, like listening to music and playing in her school band, were taken away from her.
He ended up dropping out of school at 16, but continued to practice the ultra-conservative religion until he made friends from another church.
Rachel also spoke about some of her “traumatic habits,” which included hoarding food for fear of not having enough and “barricading herself” in her room when men were present.
The then-teenager was also told by some that she was “beyond hope” and shunned by members after a prominent church figure raped her and she became pregnant, only to miscarry at 27 weeks and nearly lose her own life.
Eventually, Rachel stood up for herself and her church was called to pick her up, where she was told she would have to pay back everything they had paid for her to be there.
Rachel said that where she was staying, they were not allowed to comfort each other or show much emotion, and said she learned to “turn off” her feelings, adding that the woman in charge regularly sent the girls staying at the house to cook and clean for other families in order to profit from them.
When Rachel returned home, she was offered a job as a milkmaid, admitting that she enjoyed the work and the family she lived with, but she developed severe depression and attempted to take her own life.
At that point, the family she was living with took her to a hospital, where she confessed to an emergency room doctor, who took her to a counselor so she could share her story.
Rachel recalled that the counselor was surprised, but more alarmed by her lack of emotion.
‘(For me) there was no reason to feel all the things that happened to me because in my mind worse things were going to happen,’ Rachel said sadly.
Rachel was then sent once again, this time to Kentucky, to a place called Caneyville Christian Fellowship.
She moved in with a church leader, only to be told that all the abuse she suffered was not to blame for her problems, and that it was an attitude problem.
Rachel eventually received help from a man and his wife in the Holmes County community of Ohio, where she escaped to an Amish community, but her troubles didn’t end there, describing most things as a “trauma trigger for her” that people around her struggled to understand.
‘While living in the Amish community, she was pressured to join the Beachy Amish Mennonite Church, which is another sect of the Amish church.
“Churches that claim to follow and do everything Jesus wants are some of the most abusive churches,” he said.
Rachel was then taken back to California, where she met a Mennonite couple whose lives she saved, especially when she began to suffer seizures that the religious people around her claimed were due to her “sinful” past.
“They showered me with unconditional love and showed me what a family looks like, what it’s like to belong and that it doesn’t have to be surrounded by religion or rules,” she explained, adding that meeting these people marked the “turning point” for her to leave the church.
When Rachel was 29, she had pelvic surgery and was diagnosed with endometriosis, and later had to undergo a hysterotomy, which was heartbreaking because she had “always” wanted to be a mother.
After the surgeries, her doctor also noticed that she had many scars from all the abuse she had suffered over the years.
“I thought I was no longer a woman,” she recalls sadly. “These people took everything from me, that’s how I felt.”
Rachel continued: ‘I felt like less of a woman, I can’t have children anymore, so no man will ever want me because I can’t have children.’
Although she admitted that she has found it difficult to unlearn the rules of the church, she is now taking a break from religion.
She has also cut her hair short, which she says is due to years of abuse from men who pulled her hair.
“I cried when he started shaving it because I was a little stressed about it, but at the end I felt very liberated,” she reflected.
Rachel hasn’t been inside a church for a while, as it fills her with anxiety and “extreme panic,” but she said she now practices in her own, less strict ways.
She is now focusing on “getting her life back” and has signed up for diving and singing classes.
“I started doing different things,” she explained. “It awakens little parts of me that had been muted.”
Rachel is now a dog trainer and is planning road trips and exploring more of the country.
“I have much more hope than before and I look forward to the future,” she concluded passionately.