by Olivia Reed
A two-year-old in my church died of pneumonia. The only treatment: being prayed over. Nobody called a doctor. Nobody took them to the hospital. It simply never occurred to anyone to do that.
That’s the world I grew up in.
I was raised in a high-control religious community that practiced faith healing. We were taught to put our trust in God to heal our diseases. As a child, I had never been to a hospital. My community believed that God heals, not man. Vaccines were a sin. All seven of my siblings and I were born at home, with the help of one older woman who had no real medical training. None of us had ever been vaccinated.
Being Prayed Over
I suffered multiple vaccine-preventable diseases as a child. When I was three years old, I got whooping cough. I had coughing fits so severe I would fall to the ground, gasping for air. The only treatment I received: prayer by a church elder. The pastor poured a small amount of oil on my head, laid his hands on me, and asked God to reveal anything in my life that might be preventing healing. The prayer was simple, and rarely long. My community believed that God uses illness to show you ways in your life that you were meant to be closer to Him.
When I was nine, chicken pox spread through the small church school I attended. None of the children were vaccinated. Kids came to school clearly showing signs of chicken pox, and everyone treated the outbreak as something that just happens sometimes. It was a small school, but I remember everyone being out sick. I was the first in my family to get it, but my siblings soon followed—including my six-month-old sister. I remember her rubbing her arms and crying in constant pain. Nothing was done for her. Many of my siblings and I still have chicken pox scars.
As a child, I never thought any of this was strange. It was just life. Everybody I knew believed the same things. We weren’t allowed to talk to people “outside” our community, so I had no frame of reference. If somebody had told me they were vaccinated, I probably would have told them that was a sin. We knew our way of life wasn’t quite normal. We were told not to tell people that we weren’t vaccinated, and warned that the government could take us away from our families.
People Died. We Called It Being “Tempted in Body.”
Many of the people in my church died. Looking back, I realize now that they probably died from preventable or treatable illnesses. I can’t know for sure, because we weren’t supposed to evaluate conditions, name sicknesses, or try to understand them. If someone fell ill, we would just say they were “tempted in body.” The church preached loudly against medical treatment, medicines, and vaccines. It wasn’t that people refused to go to the hospital. There wasn’t even a refusal, simply an acceptance that a hospital was not a consideration. It’s hard to explain, but when we were sick, going to the hospital wasn’t even thought of as an option. Only now do I understand how ignorant and uneducated the church’s arguments were.
When I was fourteen, my mother got very sick. I watched her die slowly while my siblings and I could do nothing but sit with her. It was a slow and agonizing process, but she never once thought of getting medical help. Her death certificate lists the cause as stage four breast lymphoma.
There was no diagnosis while she was alive.
Just prayer.
One Question Led to Another
I credit the internet for my break from the church. As a young teenager, I started reading about women’s rights. What I learned made me question the church. One question led to another. Before I knew it, I had unintentionally deconstructed my entire belief system. Once I realized the church was wrong about some things, I began to see it was wrong about everything.
Leaving the church wasn’t simple. It still isn’t. I have young siblings; my father will prevent me from seeing them if I speak openly against the church. People who leave are shunned—talked about as if they were dead, judged for every decision they make afterward. If you seek medical help, people in the church often say you wouldn’t have needed any help if you’d stayed in the church. I haven’t told many people about my decision to leave. I have to protect my relationship with my siblings.
But I am quietly getting caught up on my vaccinations. Because I never had any vaccines as a child, I’m working with a doctor now to get on a schedule. I’m still young, but I’m making up for lost time.
Children Can’t Protect Themselves
I don’t have magic words to convince anyone to vaccinate. What I have is my life.
I had whooping cough at three. Chicken pox at nine, and watched my infant sister suffer through that disease with nothing but prayer to help her. I watched a two-year-old in my church die of untreated, preventable pneumonia. I watched my mother die slowly of treatable cancer. I grew up in a world where children were sick, and scarred, and sometimes died—and nobody called it preventable, because nobody knew any different.
It is disheartening to see people I know influenced by fear mongering. It is disheartening to see them so opposed to basic education. It is disheartening to see medical treatment discouraged.
Children cannot make these decisions for themselves. They cannot question what they’ve been taught. They cannot walk into a doctor’s office. They are entirely dependent on the adults around them—and when those adults believe that medicine is a sin, the children pay the price.
I was lucky. Not all children are.
I hope my words show you how important vaccination is. Without vaccines, children suffer.
So please, vaccinate to save your children and the children around them.
Olivia Reed is a pseudonym used to protect the identity of the author, for reasons stated in the story. Her story, like all others on this blog, was a voluntary submission. If you want to help make a difference, submit your own post by emailing us through our contact form. We depend on real people like you sharing experience to protect others from misinformation.
