According to Sarah Rocksdale, who now identifies herself as an atheist, she grew up in a Pentecostal Christian home and was compelled by her parents to attend bible college in Griffin, Georgia, that she identifies as Southwestern Assemblies of God University Valor.
As Rocksdale explained, "I thought my only option forward career-wise ... was in the church or to become a missionary," before adding, "There was this peer pressure to go to this school and I did. In the first few days of being at the school that was also in a church, called Griffin First, we were told to sign a waiver or agreement giving our permission to go through their rigorous boot camp."
Saying she was part of 35 attending the camp, she stated pastors told them upon their arrival there were three hard and fast rules: they we were not allowed to ask questions, or allowed to speak. They were not allowed to bring cell phones or watches because "the pastors didn't want us to know what time it was while we were there." And they were only allowed to bring one personal item with them.
What followed was a bizarre demand "to bring a backpack with a duct-tapped bag of sugar in it. The first years were supposed to have a 5 pound bag, the second years, a 10 pound bag and the third years, a 15 pound bag. We later found out that the bag of sugar represented Jesus carrying the weight of the world's sins."
"Late one night around 11:30. I woke up to the sounds of loud banging on the dorm rooms and my roommate was already up and frantically running around the room screaming, 'This is it! We have to go now! We have to go!'" she recalled. "I start panicking because I wasn't prepared with my bag of sugar so I jump out of bed, locate the duct tape and sugar and start taping. I'm rocking on the floor, wrapping my bag of sugar like a maniac. My roommate runs out of the room and the door just swinging open. I throw on some shorts, a t-shirt and some tennis shoes and head out. We were later told that being taken suddenly was because when Jesus comes back, you're not going to know, it'll just happen and you have to be ready."
According to Rocksdale, the students were herded out onto the lawn on the middle of the night and bullied into calisthenics, followed by being forced on to a bus and taken to run on nearby trails as pastors screamed at them.
"I'm not sure how long we ran, I only remember feeling like I couldn't keep going. I looked over at my best friend at the time, she was running right beside me, crying and saying that she couldn't do this anymore and then the pastors just screamed at her that she had to keep going," she detailed. "I started slowing down also and they got right in my face and screamed at me too."
According to Rocksdale, they were also denied sleep, and punished as a group if another in their class committed an infraction.
Saying she could take it anymore after three days, she contacted her parents and begged to be allowed to come home, only to be denied, so she turned to cutting herself.
"I packed a small knife in my backpack and went to morning prayer at the chapel. Each morning, we had prayer for 2 hours from 7-9 AM and you could go anywhere in that big space as long as you didn't fall asleep," she recalled. "I went closer to the stage area, the front of the room in the first few pews where I was hoping someone would see me and stop me from what I was about to do and started doing.I began cutting my forearm. And I kept cutting. And no one saw me do that. I carved the words, “LOVE ME” into my left arm."
According to Rocksdale, "During this time I had been talking to the Christian counselor and I told her I didn't want to live anymore. I told her I needed to leave and that if I couldn't I was going to either drown myself, slit my wrists or my other idea was running at full speed, head first into this giant tiled wall that was in the chapel's bathroom. One Sunday morning, I began having a panic attack and I pulled one of the pastors aside and told him I was going to kill myself. He told me to wait right where I was because he was going to get help."
Instead, Rocksdale claims, she ran away from the camp while they searched for her, fearing she might have drowned herself.
"One of my friends found me and I was taken to the ER, then a suicide hospital. I stayed there for a few days and called my parents again, pleading with them to come get me. And they did," she said before adding, "Later I was told from a friend at that bible college that 2 other students left just after I did and that the pastors were really hard on the rest of them to not leave. They said no one else is leaving."
According to Rocksdale, the school no longer offers the boot camp.
Watch the video below via YouTube:
(H/T The Friendly Atheist)
