Originally a comment by Misty Griffin on What Amish life is really like, by an eyewitness.
This seems a little akward but I left the Amish 9 years ago. Reading some of these comments makes my blood absolutly boil. I beleive that people who are constantly saying that they have such nice Amish neighbors, they never see anything out of place, they are so well mannered and so on are just plain ignorant!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
If you know anything about the Amish you will know that they are a closed society and they will not let you see anything they don’t want you to see.
The things I have seen and heard would leave you truamatized for the rest of your life. Mainly the Amish practice of silenceing thier sex abuse victims, while many may say that this happens in every cultutre it is not true, not like in the Amish. In the Amish if you are raped by your Father you are not taken out of the home, you are made to forgive him and must live in the same house with him till you marry and more than likely he will continue to rape you your whole life.
This practice and many like it make me want to vomit and that is why I ran to a police station a little over 9 years ago. I am sorry but I have no love for the Amish and while some may say that I am biased I will tell you I saw to many victims to care what anyone would retort to me becuase I would tell you in return” If you were never Amish you dont have a clue what you are talking about, end of story!”
To learn more about my story you can see it on Amazon (Tears of the Silenced).
I was not born Amish but was taken to them after being held captive by my crazy mother and stepfather. I was held prisoner on a mountain until I was eighteen and after nearly being killed by my step-father I was dropped off at an Amish community. My sister and I had been raised by Amish tradition so the transition was not very difficult. My sister is still Amish and the sting of being shunned is immense. Anyone who says we should learn from the Amish must be not thinking clearly, if we all lived like the Amish we would still be living in the 1600s, people would be dying of the plague, there would be no vaccines no freedom of religion, no freedom at all pretty much. People would be dying in their mid thirties and so on. Sometimes people just do not know what they are talkinng about I guess.