When Jeremy and I married, he was the pastor of a small church in Laredo, Texas. It was the first time I’d lived away from home. In fact, at the time, I was the only Duggar kid not living in northwest Arkansas. (Today there are two. Jeremy and I live in Los Angeles, and my brother Justin and his wife live in Texas.)
I felt ready to move out of state. I didn’t foresee any issues being away from my family. My thoughts were centered on marrying Jeremy and starting a life with him. I assumed everything would be fine when we got to Laredo. I was wrong.
Not long after we settled into our new life, I found myself feeling anxious in social settings, including church. While I was genuinely excited to go to church on Sundays, I worried about the relational side of things. I had attended church nearly every Sunday since I was born, and I didn’t remember ever feeling this way.
Like most kids who grow up in church, I’d experienced moments of indifference, weeks where there were other places I would rather be. But for the most part, I’d always loved attending church. I had visited all kinds of churches throughout my travels, and I had never felt anxious because I was with my family. They were my security blanket. In Laredo, my family was hundreds of miles away. I had to learn how to build genuine relationships on my own. I quickly realized I had no idea how to do that, which led me to feel a stomach-churning, palms-sweating, mind-racing kind of anxiety.
I should have felt the opposite. I had a newfound love for the Bible. I understood the story it was telling. I was engaging it like I hadn’t before. I was also excited to worship God through song. On top of all that, I got to hear my brand-new husband preach every week. I know I am biased, but Jeremy is a phenomenal preacher. He explains the Bible accurately and with passion. I was grateful for the opportunity to listen to him do what he loves. His sermon was the most peaceful part of the service for me. The calm in the storm. The anxiety came before and after the service, when it was time to strike up conversations with other members of the church.
When someone from the congregation would approach me and ask the simplest question, like “How are you doing?” I’d stumble through a trite response. “I’m fine. How are you?” Most never knew that while I was giving them guarded, cliché answers, I was experiencing full-scale internal panic. My mind would hurl the same accusation at me again and again: Don’t say the wrong thing! Don’t say the wrong thing! Don’t say the wrong thing! I didn’t want to embarrass myself. If I was in a group, especially when I was with Jeremy, I didn’t feel this social anxiety. It only paralyzed me during one-on-one conversations.
One of my lowest moments happened a few months after moving to Laredo. Determined to meet new people, make friends, and be a good pastor’s wife, I scheduled brunch with a young mom in our church. She is one of the sweetest, kindest people I know. There was nothing threatening about her. Still, that morning I told Jeremy I couldn’t do it. I cried right up until I left for the restaurant. I was terrified I’d say the wrong thing or wouldn’t know what to talk about. I was worried that she wouldn’t like me or would think I was weird and awkward.
Somehow, I managed to drag myself to the restaurant. I didn’t bring an appetite with me. I ate my food but didn’t enjoy it. I was nervous the whole time. From the moment we sat down together until we said our goodbyes, I felt like I could burst into tears.
Not long after that, my social anxiety caught up with me. I was at the house of another lady from church, and she was asking questions to get to know me. I don’t remember what she said that triggered my reaction—she was being sweet, thoughtful, and kind—but I suddenly started to cry. The pressure of figuring out what to say, combined with the fear of saying the wrong thing, became overwhelming. I couldn’t keep back the tears. They started to pour out of me. My host was gracious and understanding. I don’t remember what she said when she realized I was crying, but I remember her being gentle and patient. She prayed for me and gave me the space to talk or not say anything. I’m grateful for her understanding, and I wish I would have opened up a bit more to her.
Moments like that almost didn’t feel real. They were more like out-of-body experiences. They weren’t who I thought I was. Growing up, I was one of the most social Duggar kids, always with my parents or at least one of my siblings. I was an extrovert—the girl who wanted to live in a big city, surrounded by people. I was the kid who didn’t mind talking to strangers. I’d walk up to people at stores and start telling them about Jesus. Starting in my teenage years, I’d traveled all around the world and met thousands of people. I’d spoken at conferences in front of large audiences. No anxiety in those settings. But put me in a cute brunch restaurant with a sweet friend from church, and I’d freeze.
Before moving to Texas, I can remember just a handful of times I’d gone one-on-one to coffee or a meal with a person who wasn’t part of my family. I did not have many close friends who weren’t also siblings. My sister Jessa was my best friend. Beyond her, I was, and still am, very close with all my sisters.
I was rarely in isolated social settings. At least one sibling or parent was always with me. When we traveled, filmed for the show, spoke in front of audiences, or interacted with people on mission trips, we did it together. My family was my security blanket. I was comfortable around them.
That dependence on family transferred to Jeremy as soon as we married. If he was with me, I was comfortable. He is incredibly confident in social settings, so I would follow his lead. But if Jeremy wasn’t with me and I had to hold a conversation, I didn’t know what to say. Part of that is because I simply had no practice.
Another reason those conversations were difficult was because I had always believed there is a right answer and a wrong answer to everything. Saying the right thing was part of being a light to the nations. I thought that by projecting confidence, knowing what to say, and always smiling, I would make my faith look more appealing to the world. I could do that in front of large crowds. It was as if there was a script to follow. The same was true on TV—I knew how I was supposed to talk and act when the cameras were rolling. When traveling for the show, a book signing, or mission trip, I would interact with a lot of people, but they were passing acquaintances. I would repeat the same clichés over and over during these introductions. And I was always with my sisters, so if I didn’t know what to say, I could turn to one of them.
Getting to know someone by myself forced me out of that performative mindset. It put me in an unpredictable situation. Because I didn’t know the other person, I didn’t know what they expected me to say. I had no idea how to make them happy. I didn’t know who I was, either, so I’d try to adapt to the other person’s personality—or I’d freeze.
If life consists of moving from one script to the next, then life itself becomes a performance. That’s essentially what Gothard taught me life should be. This lack of authenticity makes developing close relationships incredibly difficult. If I’m worried about saying the wrong thing, of stepping out of my role in the drama of life, then I can’t get to know someone, and they can’t get to know me.
Growing up, I thought I had to perform for the world, putting on a joyful, self-assured countenance at all times. For women particularly this expectation seemed to often extend to the home. In many of the families who attended Gothard’s seminars, it was my impression that women would follow a specific script with their husbands. They would think it was their job to be agreeable and encouraging. Many of the women I interacted with seemed to make a point to avoid any topic that might lead to conflict. Why did Gothard teach women to always be agreeable? Because if they complained or argued with their husbands or failed to support them, those husbands would look to other women for support and submission.
Here is a summary of a story from one of Gothard’s seminars where he described this horrifying perspective. It explains so much of my actions during my first year of marriage. A woman came up to him and asked him why her husband left him. Gothard had no idea. He implied that the woman was very attractive. As they talked, Gothard figured out that this woman never encouraged her husband. She was sad and critical of him. She didn’t have a grateful spirit. If she had a grateful spirit, Gothard told the audience, she would still be married.
Gothard filled this story with drama and intrigue. He told the wife that he was sure her husband was going to leave her for a woman at work because that’s where he was being complimented and experiencing female gratitude. From Gothard’s perspective, a man is owed that kind of regular gratitude. If a wife doesn’t regularly compliment him and talk about how wonderful he is, he can’t be expected to stick around.1
Gothard made me believe that all men are like the one he described in this story. For that reason, I thought that when I married I was going to have to constantly encourage my husband or he was going to leave me. When I was younger I assumed that if my husband had an affair, it would be my fault. Yes, he would have messed up, but I would be to blame because I hadn’t been the wife he needed to be happy and encouraged. Because that was what I assumed about marriage, I was scared I wouldn’t measure up. I wouldn’t be the kind of encouraging, happy wife my husband needed.
That first year of marriage to Jeremy, I may not have said I still had this perspective on marriage, but I acted like I was the one responsible for my husband’s happiness and fidelity to me. For my entire life, I’d been taught that when I married, I needed to perform for my husband. Those instincts weren’t going to disappear overnight, even though I had intellectually disentangled the truth that I should support, love, and encourage him from the error of thinking it was my responsibility to keep him faithful.
That first year in Laredo, I never expressed an opinion. It didn’t matter how trivial the topic. When Jeremy asked me what I wanted for dinner, I would say, “Whatever you want is fine with me!” He’d get the same answer when he asked me what I wanted to do on a Saturday or how I wanted to spend a holiday. Even when he would ask me questions that he didn’t really care about, like what color curtains to put in our house, I would say, “Whatever you want is fine with me!”
Sometimes I acknowledged Jeremy before I even knew what he was talking about. More than once while Jeremy and I were on a walk or sightseeing during a trip, he’d see something he liked and say, “Hey, Jing, look at that.” Before turning my head and looking at what had caught his attention, I would exclaim, “Wow!” in the most upbeat, positive voice I could muster. I did that because I didn’t think my opinion mattered. What mattered was gauging Jeremy’s excitement and matching it, even in small things.
But Jeremy wanted to hear my opinion. He gently encouraged me to speak my mind and let him know if I didn’t agree with something—and to not apologize for that. He didn’t want me to perform or be fake. He wanted me to be myself. More than once he said, “Jing, you’re not a Stepford wife.”
The first time he said that, I asked, “What’s a Stepford wife?”
When he explained the concept, I realized he was saying that he didn’t want me to be a parrot, someone who was only going to reflect his opinions. He wanted me to think for myself and figure out what my convictions were and what I liked and disliked.
By living out Gothard’s teachings, I had, without realizing it, become a version of a Stepford wife. I had conformed myself to a mold of what I thought women were supposed to be, which was agreeable, happy, and relentlessly encouraging. It’s taken years for me to learn that it’s okay to tell Jeremy I don’t like green walls or I prefer he wear certain colognes and not others. Or that it’s okay for me to get upset and discouraged. To have bad days. To not always be bubbly and cheery when Jeremy comes home.
That’s real life. It’s part of being human. I certainly want to grow in my joy and be as Christlike as I can, but I don’t want to suppress myself and all my emotions like Gothard taught.
Yet his principles weren’t the only barrier I had to overcome in learning to be my true self. Being on television also made this challenging for me. Other than a few moments of sadness, such as my grandmother’s funeral, the show was overwhelmingly positive. We were supposed to be happy as we did things like play games, go on trips, or talk about our relationships.
The positive nature of the show affected my personal life. I was constantly worried that someone would recognize me and see me in a moment of weakness or discouragement. So I was always aware of my facial expressions in public, especially my smile. Even if I wasn’t being filmed, I assumed someone was watching me and wanted to see me as they saw me on the show.
I’ll never forget being at a restaurant in Laredo and finding glass in my meal. Instead of asking to see the manager, or even asking for another meal, I acted like everything was fine. I smiled and said it was no big deal. That’s a small example of an attitude I carried with me and struggle with to this day. I assume that I must be happy and see everything in a positive light, even if there’s glass in my food.
I also remember that whenever Jeremy and I played tennis or darts during that first year of marriage, I spent the whole game encouraging him and telling him he was doing amazing. I’d say over and over that he was better than me, even if I had just won the game. When I responded this way, I was reinforcing the belief that my life was a performance. Fortunately, Jeremy didn’t want me to respond like that. He wanted me to be happy that I won. He would say, “Jing, I did horrible. You just beat me. It’s okay to tell me that.”
Along with my inexperience making friends and the performance mindset I took with me to church and home, I also struggled with one-on-one conversations because of the Gothard-inspired bubble in which I grew up. It had shielded me from anyone with different thoughts or opinions from my own—including Christians who didn’t follow Gothard’s principles.
If I had to steer clear of other Christians, you can imagine how little I interacted with people who did not believe in God or follow the Bible. I thought they could taint me spiritually and corrupt my mind. Too much friendship with the world could cause me to walk away from the Christian faith. I learned James 4:4, which says, “Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.”
This lack of interaction with the world made it hard for me to understand why anyone would do things a different way than I did. If someone listened to music I didn’t listen to, dressed in ways I never would, wore earrings in places I wouldn’t, dyed their hair pink, or ate food I would never eat, I thought their decisions were not only wrong but also weird. Of course, there’s a lot of irony in what I’m saying, especially for everyone who watched the Duggars on TV and thought we lived odd lives. But when you live in a community as insulated and isolated as mine was, you assume the way you live is normal and right.
In Laredo, I didn’t know anyone who’d grown up exactly like I did. No one at Jeremy’s church was from the IBLP world. They were the kind of Christians I hadn’t interacted with much. They didn’t grow up with the same convictions I did. And even though I was gradually changing my convictions, I still was having a hard time interacting with people whose lives and backgrounds were unfamiliar to me. My first year of marriage was the first time I formed friendships with people I wasn’t related to, people who were not like me in many ways. And because I had little experience with people like that, I experienced a lot of anxiety talking to the sweet, kind, Christlike people I met in Jeremy’s church.
In Laredo, I didn’t understand how to love others the way God loved me. I had no clue how to obey the second part of the Great Commandment, which is to love your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 22:35-40).
Part of my education in reading the Bible the right way was learning to ask questions of the text. The obvious questions for these verses are, How do I love God and others? and What does that look like? Thankfully, the answers are found all over the Bible.
I think the simplest definition of love is found in 1 John 4:16. “God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.” God doesn’t only express love. He is love! It’s who He is. So when God acts, we see love on display. And what is God’s greatest expression of love? I found that answer in the Bible’s most famous verse: John 3:16.
God’s Son is, of course, Jesus Christ. He is truly God and truly man. When I was younger, I never thought about what Jesus was doing before He came to earth. He was with the Father in heaven, ruling over all creation, enjoying the constant praise and adoration of the angels. He gave that up to come to earth and become a man—and not just a man but a helpless baby. He lived in a small town in an outpost of the Roman Empire, far from any influence or power. For thirty years, He lived in obscurity. For three and a half years, He preached the gospel and ministered to the sick and poor. At the end of His ministry, He was arrested, charged with blasphemy, mocked, spit on, nailed to a cross, and crucified.
And that wasn’t even the worst part. While He hung on that tree, God punished Him for the sins of the world. Jesus was innocent. He hadn’t sinned once during His thirty-three years on earth. He was the only man in history ever to do that. His pure life made Him the perfect substitute for me and you. The suffering Jesus endured that day is unimaginable. For a few hours, Jesus became sin: “He made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). This verse, and so many others, tell me that people can become as righteous as Jesus because of what He did on the cross. How? It’s actually quite simple: “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved” (Acts 16:31).
By coming to earth, resisting all temptations to sin, suffering unimaginable hate from creatures He had formed in their mother’s womb (Psalm 139:13), facing the holy wrath of His own Father, dying, and then rising again, Jesus made a way for us to be saved, go to heaven, and live with Him forever. All we have to do is believe. That’s the best news I have ever heard!
What does any of this have to do with my social anxiety in Laredo? Everything! Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection show me exactly what it looks like to love someone. Love is self-sacrifice. It is others-focused. It is giving all of yourself for the good of others. That’s what Jesus did.
But that’s not what I was doing in Laredo. I was thinking mostly about myself and worrying about how I was coming across. I was focusing on my appearance, my words, and my reputation. When I was having brunch with that young lady, I wasn’t thinking of her. I wasn’t giving all of myself to her. I was holding back. When I broke down in tears at my friend’s home, I was overwhelmed because my focus was inward. Love turns it outward.
If love is giving all of yourself for the good of others, that doesn’t just mean your strengths. It also means your weaknesses. I used to think the best thing I could do was be happy and agreeable all the time. I don’t think like that anymore. Now I see that the best thing I can do for others is to be honest, vulnerable, and self-giving. At that brunch, I wish I had told my sweet, kind friend that I was struggling. I wish I had told her how little I knew and how much I wanted to learn about loving God, loving others, being a pastor’s wife, and living in Laredo. I’m sure she would have given me wonderful advice. I’m sure she would have shared much more about herself. We probably would have prayed together. I know our relationship would have been stronger for it. Instead, I smiled, ate my food, made small talk, and thought only of myself. I did not love her the way Jesus loves me. He gave all of Himself for me. I could have given part of myself for my friend.
Jeremy and I left Laredo for California a few years later, and I’ll never forget what a longtime member of the church said to me on our last Sunday. She told me that she was going to miss me and that she regretted that she hadn’t gotten to know me better. She said it seemed like I had kept people in the church at a distance, and she wished I hadn’t. She was right. While I’m grateful that by the time we left, I had made some friends, dear people I miss to this day, I wish I had opened more of my heart to them. I had not let a lot of cherished people into my life, and my life was poorer because of it.
I don’t know if I’ll ever be completely free of my social anxiety until I go to heaven. Those habits of performance are hard to break. The fear of saying the wrong thing and embarrassing myself or my family may always be a struggle. And I still have a lot of catching up to do when it comes to interacting with people who think differently than I do. But by God’s grace, the social anxiety does not control me like it did that first year of marriage. I am now seeking to focus my relationships around love. It is my desire to pursue a self-giving care for others that is marked by the kind of love described in 1 Corinthians 13: “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (vv. 4–7).
Love does not seek its own benefit. That’s what I was missing. But now I see that a self-giving love, instead of a self-protecting performance, not only causes others to flourish but also frees me from so many burdens. Love—God’s love for me and my love for Him and others—casts those burdens aside.