LIVE: Michelle Duggar Knew — The Psychology of the Mother Who Stayed

This is Hidden Tillers Live with Tony Brusky and Robin Dray.

The psychology of a mother who knows her children are being abused and chooses her husband,

her faith and her image over their safety.

And talks like this.

And what that specific betrayal does to children who live through it.

I was thinking long and hard about this the other day and I actually just did a piece

on it this morning, a monologue that'll be dropping later in the week about Michelle

Dugger.

She's someone who, and I'm not accusing her of any crime, she's never been charged

with anything, you know, I think she's, she does hold responsibility for how she raised

her children.

I'm not saying that she intended for any of this sort of things to happen, but there is

a level of chosen ignorance.

I think that that comes along with folks like this, that that marry into something of

this nature.

And then then continue to hold the torch.

Michelle Dugger knew she knew in 2002, she knew again in 2003 about Josh when additional

victims came forward inside her own home.

She later admitted to police that her son never received professional counseling.

Of course, that's over the devil.

He was sent to help a family, friend, remodel a building is what they said.

They sent them off to their little IBLP work camp.

And two months after that, he came back and the girls were told, you know what, we know

he did that to you, but you don't even remember it to you, so they minimized the shit out

of it to the girls, even though, you don't remember right, you nobody remembers, okay,

go tell Mac and Kelly, nobody remembers to make it all good for the family.

All that went down, I mean, the betrayal of a mother to their, her daughters.

I don't think this gets talked about enough and I think it is, it is monstrous for the

woman that portrays herself is just like this.

And yet you let, you let this go on in your house and then you, you, you allowed a system,

you allowed the ecosystem of your home to be that in which your own daughters would feel

guilty if they didn't forgive their brother for doing traumatizing horrific shit to them.

That to me, that's not mom of the year material, in my opinion, Shavon.

No, no, it's a complete betrayal of your kids and, and a lot of people when they're in therapy

dealing with the rage that they're feeling as adults looking back on the abuse, if the

abuse came from dad, they're just as angry at mom for letting it happen and for not holding

anybody accountable. And this, somebody said, don't trust the passive sweet voice.

Yeah, it's always a red flag when someone communicates in that way that there's,

there's just not a fully adult person here on the other side of that voice.

Where's the power to protect your kids? It's just another form of abuse.

And with that, I'm curious, Shavon, you know, when someone like Jill or any other girls are

able to have the aha moment, things aren't seeming right, they now move away, they protect themselves,

they move away from the cult part of their religion, but still embrace their Christianity.

The thing that really struck me, and I'm curious what you, you recommend as a therapist,

they still go back for family events, they still go to the house, they still have interactions,

even though Jill even talks about her memory or how uncomfortable she is around her dad,

but they still engage. My mind, anytime I deal with crazy people, I walk away. I don't, you know,

when there's unhealthy people in my life, I just like, hey, you're on your path, I'm on my path,

time for us to part ways because I don't do crazy. Is it healthy for them to still engage with,

it's me again, the analogy I keep coming up with on this one is alcoholism. It's like, all right,

you admitted you're an alcoholic and you're in a cult of alcoholics, but you know what,

I stopped drinking, but I'm going to keep going and just have a little bit every time.

It just doesn't make sense. No, either do or you don't. Gotta get out, man.

Should they be still interacting so much with such unhealthy, crappy people?

I find, you know, just speaking from what I see, more and more people disengaging and either

doing a total cutoff when there's been abuse in the family like this, where it's never been processed,

it's never been, you know, resolved. There is no good outcome for the victims.

They tend to walk away and not go back and lots of people are doing that. I think there have been

a lot of things in the media, I think the New York Times did an article on it, you know,

a strangement, adults who grow up and just say, you know, what I'm done with my family.

It's never something that I encourage people one way or the other because it's got to be an

individual situation. But I think if people find that going back and spending, let's say,

Thanksgiving and Christmas with the abusive relatives and it's really upsetting them,

why do it? You know, if it's not something where they feel safe and they feel accepted and they

feel at peace and they feel like, you know, we've all come to some kind of closure with with the past

mom has apologized and accepted her role in it, you know, because you can see families that

work this stuff through, but that's a lot of work. And I think probably more often than not,

people just say, no, I'm done with that. Yeah, these ones still seem to be caught in the trap.

Sorry, Tony, go ahead. Yeah, and the dynamic here is so complex because it's not just mom and

dad that they have the relationship. Some of these girls raised their siblings. So they're like

mom to some of the younger ones that are still in the system. So they got to feel a sense of

responsibility to whether they should or not is not the point. They do because it's their own

flesh and blood. It's their loved ones. So they're invested in ways that others aren't. I mean,

again, this is all part of the spider web of how these systems survive because they entrap you

in so many different ways and then you end up staying because of fear and guilt. And unless you

break away and someone breaks away that inspires everybody else to do the same, you're either going

to play them and to keep going back and forth card or you're going to completely separate. And

some are going to look at you as abandoning them. And some are going to look at you as they

escaped in an inspiration to look to. But it's all going to depend, I guess, on the emotional

maturity and the mindset of those people that are still back behind the curtain until they have

the autonomy to get out because some of them can't yet. I mean, that's the scary thing with these

people. Yeah, it's really complicated. You look at the number of people in this family system

and the different, because there are obviously going to be siblings that have tremendous

attachments to their other siblings and others that have less. And it's just going to be a big,

it's a big complicated mess to try to navigate. Michelle told Fox News back in 2015 that her

daughters were initially unaware. The abuse had occurred. This is talking about Josh.

That statement right there initially unaware. And then the girls were coached to say that to

Megan Kelly in the interview. They have since recanted that in their books of how they were forced

to go out and basically it was an assumption to go out and do this and do that on television

when they were younger and basically stick up for the family.

Saying initially unaware Michelle saying that is Michelle saying that more for herself than she

is for the kids to basically exist to to to find some sort of reason to get up in the morning

because I mean, if you if you tell yourself that oh no, they were aware they were suffering

this was horrible. But if you tell yourself they're initially unaware and you say it to yourself

enough, it sounds a little less bad. Something horrible. Yeah, definitely. That's that's the story

that she was able to tell herself. So she could sleep at night and feel like she's still a good mother

and that no damage was done. And people have a remarkable ability to to say things that when you

look back, you go, well, this doesn't all add up and it doesn't make sense. And it's not the same

story that everybody else shares. Everybody else has a different perspective on it. So yeah,

just more more denial and minimization. We're learning more and more about the Dugger family.

I just did a piece on this that'll be dropping either today or tomorrow. Grandpa,

Grandpa Jim Bobstead never charged with anything. But in the books of some of the girls,

it has come out that he was a predator as well to children and that there was no time

where they could be hanging out with Grandpa or Papa or whatever the hell they called him. And

they didn't really know why until he died. And then it turns out, and this is from Jim Bob's sister,

she's the one who came out and said, yeah, he was a predator and that they would lock the doors

of the girls rooms when he was around to prevent him from getting in and doing anything.

So we're seeing generational abuse at this point. I'm not going to I'm not accusing Jim Bob or

Michelle of doing any of that sort of stuff to their own children. But we do see it a generation

removed and now we're seeing his grandkids Josh and allegedly Joseph engaging in that sort of

activity. It's not necessarily an inherited trait or is it? I don't I mean, what does it say when

we have that just one generation removed that everybody knew that about Grandpa, but but he's

where Grandpa was still part of the family, right? Still was at the cookouts, still was coming to

things. It was just yeah, he doesn't drive you to school by himself. He doesn't, you know,

you don't do sleepovers, you know, that sort of stuff. It was there was there was boundaries,

quote unquote. More locks on doors. Yeah, yes. Yeah, I see a lot of that where Grandpa was

a molester. It may be dad, it may be not, but just in families, it does seem to follow a pattern.

And I think because they get away with it and this becomes just sort of the sexual background

energy that people grow up knowing that well, you can molest the little girls or the little boys.

In one case, I'm thinking of it was the boys and the girls have been molested by Grandpa.

But yeah, the whole family still got together with Grandpa for holidays and Christmases and

even sometimes Grandpa was left in charge of, you know, taking care of the kids for the day.

And, you know, it's, it's, I'm, I'm racking my brain to come up with a good explanation for how,

when a mother was molested by her father and then she has a little girl and she still lets

her father spend time with that little girl, knowing what he did to her. But I have seen that

over and over in families. It just becomes sort of the, the milieu, the, this is the environment

that becomes normalized. Tell us the district. It's our masochistic where it's like, we happen to

me. So now it's going to happen to you. I mean, yeah. It's sad too. And I know the, I know the,

the draw of it because you want to be close to family. You want to still, for some reason,

people think that family trumps all. Yeah. No healthy relationships trump all because if you

are still engaging with sick nutters, I'm not just talking nutters. We're just talking sick nutters.

You are just perpetuating and enabling them to continue down that road. You got to cut. I mean,

a lot of people in the comment section are saying the same thing, but you got to cut. I'm curious.

Do you think, I've asked this question a lot when regarding duggers, do you think they joined

this cult to save themselves from predators or because it helped them be predators?

I would lean toward the latter that this was a very good fit for people who were very into power

and control. And with these kind of sadistic tendencies, which, you know, fly fly very hidden.

They don't show that externally, but you see it in the way they do relationships. So I think,

I think people choose a faith or belief system that fits their personality. So people can choose

a very benign faith system that's based on love and compassion and empathy and helping people

be their best selves because that feels good to them. Or people can choose a faith system based on

power and control and damnation and this sense of us versus them, you know, being in that spiritual

warfare all the time. And it's, it's, you know, people sort of self-select in that way. They find

the one that fits for them. Mark, try and put it right really good right there at the bottom.

They are taught that love covers all sins. And so that's how they, they guilt you into saying,

well, you, you're not forgiving. So you just don't love enough. And so you're not basically,

you know, yeah. And if all you got to do is say to sky daddy that, hey, I'm sorry,

you kids are free ticket to do whatever you want. And yeah, I mean, because, you know, that time

in prison is just, it's just a mere, mere, you know, scraping the wind on the,

new ministry. It's a new ministry. Exactly. They'll find a way to, to contort that into whatever they

need to, to justify their breathing oxygen. Fascinating conversation. As always, I just, gosh,

there's so many layers to this onion. And I'm sure we're going to keep peeling it back as,

as a new chapter of counting the charges continues with the Dougher Sivan Scott. Psychotherapist

and author, her book is Nightbird. Check it out wherever you get book. She's a survivor of

a religiosity extreme, really, religiosity. And she writes a better than the book. Definitely worth

checking out. And Robin's new book is available as well. It's not all about me. If you find yourself

maybe wanting to join a cult. It's a good one. Actually, this would be the better one for that.

It'll help you avoid the cults right there. And so if you do check this, this is a bad one

you never want to get. Bill Cosby, the worst day of my life. It's on my desk. So I had to,

not nobody, Cosby's not on the show, but this, you know, anyway, check, don't, don't check

that on your scholastic book order this month, kids. It's not when you want to get the toys that

come along are not appropriate. All right. Until next time.

Oh, man, this came up with that one. Until next time, first of all, in Todd and Robin,

I'm Tony Bruceke. We'll talk again real soon.