Trained to disappear

There’s a scene right in the middle of Famished wherein one character, Leah, confesses that she is mad at God. Leah is newly married and admits over drinks that the prosperity gospel–like myth of purity culture has not panned out. Leah is convinced that she did the right thing—she and her husband waited to have sex—but it doesn’t feel like God has blessed their marriage.

“You know that’s not how it works,” replies Anna Rollins, author and narrator of the memoir. She adds: “Though I wondered if I, too, believed that was precisely how it worked.” For the rest of their exchange, Rollins defends herself against the temptation to empathize with her friend and instead parrots what both of them have always been taught: that no matter what, Leah should probably go back to church. In this deftly dramatized scene, Rollins captures one of the seemingly countless double binds which underpin her book. As the titular good girl, Rollins feels obligated to steer Leah back to the straight and narrow, ignoring her own quiet doubts and essentially invalidating her friend’s.

For girls raised within fundamentalism, as Rollins was, there is often no room afforded for intellectual or emotional honesty. Rollins was taught to value control, and every time that control is threatened—by external factors, by the unpredictability of the world, or by Rollins’s own unsanctioned emotions—Rollins recounts, “the more I micromanaged meals, perseverated over calories, and added extra workouts to my already full days.”