Emma Gingerich said the past nine years have been the happiest she's been in her entire life. That's all because, she said, she's committed to her dream of abandoning her Amish community, where she felt she didn't belong, to pursue a college degree.
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"I didn’t fit in," Gingerich of Texas told ABC News. "Other girls my age were a lot happier than me. For Amish women, they're very secluded and always kept in the dark."
Gingerich, now 27, grew up one of 14 children in the small town of Eagleville, Missouri, where her parents sold produce and handmade woven baskets to passerby.
Living as Amish, Gingerich said she made her own clothes and was forbidden to use any electricity, battery-operated equipment or running water. The children rarely played and their only form of transportation, she said, was a horse and buggy.
"My family was very strict," she said. "They believed in old traditions that were made up years ago. There's just no breaking the rules anywhere."
Besides living without modern amenities, Gingerich said there were things about the Amish lifestyle that somewhat frightened her, such as one evening that sticks out in her mind from when she was 16 years old.
"I don’t like the way the Amish people date, period,” she said. “One day, my family members set me up with somebody they thought I'd be a good fit with. They bought him to my parents’ house on a Saturday night and they brought him upstairs to my room. You're supposed to wake up and talk to the guy.
"In your room, stay overnight, in your bed. But they condemn you if you do anything romantically before marriage," Gingerich added. "I was absolutely horrified. I don’t see how people can fall in love like that. To me, that’s just wrong."