My parents said I should envy babies who die within an hour or two of birth. They escape before being poisoned by this evil world. God really loves them best. They also told me that singing songs from the radio and reading books from the library would lead me straight to the Devil.
And they did. Dad, wherever you are, you should know that I have long hair, I vote, and I read all seven Harry Potter books. That last one alone proves that I've been making out with Satan.
But back in the seventies, I was trying my best to be a really good girl. I wanted to be the best girl. I was an active student, always the first to raise her hand, eager to join the academic discourse. In sixth grade, I politely informed Mr. Karshner that he was wrong; The Earth was actually created in 6000 years and dinosaur bones were planted in the rocks by the Devil to fool us. Of course I did this very politely. I loved Mr. Karshner and wanted him to be the best teacher he could be.
Despite being punished for bad grades, I was told to disregard my public school education. I was instructed to learn the devil's lies in school, so that I could better serve The International Bible Students.
The Bible Students teachings were arcane, fundamentalist and oppressive to begin with. Then they were tossed down the rabbit hole in my father’s declining mental health. He slipped and slid through the seven layers of hell, seven layer dip made of every health food fad to hit the seventies, two liter green glass jugs of Carlo Rossi Chablis, four kids in constant risk of possession by demons and one dog who shook and peed every time she heard his voice. As he dropped down each rung of the ladder descending into violent alcoholic paranoia, he brought his family and his bible with him. Buckle up folks.
We did not live on a sprawling compound or in a town too small for a Walmart. There were no forced orgies or blood letting. We never used the word "cult." But my dad was God's representative in our house and we were required to believe that his insanity was actually God moving through him. Whenever the outside world didn't obey him, his tiny mind exploded. Every time those weirdly kind strangers at school started asking about my drawings . . . we moved. By the time I graduated high school I'd been to seventeen different schools.
Several times a year all six of us crammed into what ever vehicle had not yet been repossessed and we'd drive for hours in toxic silence until we reached the home of our scattered flock: The Sisters in Eastern Washington. I loved the hand tatted doilies they pinned to their puffy clouds of white hair. Other people met us there. I thought it terribly mysterious and romantic when they called my dad "Brother Mike." They had massive cats. After Meeting, the Brothers and Sisters ate horrible cookies and discussed who's boy might make a good husband for my step sister. She was not having it.
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The International Bible Students was formed by a man named Pastor Russel. They practiced a religion called “The Truth.” Around 1920, several members got sick of Russel, broke away and formed a far more liberal and open minded religion called Jehovah’s Witnesses. Compared to the International Bible Students, the Witnesses seem like a leftwing swingers club, or scientists.
We, and a few remaining Bible Students scattered around the world, continued to practice the austere religion as Russel intended: If anything that comes from the secular world makes you laugh or sing or dance or play, it is evil and Satan is actively and personally targeting you and trying to pull your soul away from God. So knock it off or your dad can beat you. Its says so right there in Proverbs, chapter 13, verse 24.
If asked what we believe, the church approved answer was "The Truth."
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I was quoting bible verses in kindergarten. I learned to spell "Ye" and "Thou" before "Cat."
In order to protect me from secular poisoning, I was not permitted to participate in most after school activities. In high school, my father chose typing for all my "electives." We did not go to the library or book stores. I did not have a bike and never rode a city bus. I entered a movie theater exactly six times in my childhood. I cannot remember ever eating in a restaurant.
Surprisingly few girls in Eugene Oregon were interested in joining a cult, so I had only two friends; one in seventh grade and one in junior year. I spent a lot of time writing and watched a lot of wholesome television.
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By 1980, I suspect my father had been picking up subliminal messages from the television. He loved the show Little House on the Prairie. In the final season, “Pa” (played by Michael Landon) got all hopped up on saving the soul of every wayward character in town. As an actor, Landon had the angst and hubris of a mortal savior down pat: the crinkled eye brows, the evangelical quiver, the misty eyes. He cried under his burden in every episode. And he looked a little bit like my dad. The message was obvious.
By tenth grade, I knew my personal role in the coming establishment of God’s Kingdom on Earth. We were the chosen people. And by “we” I mean the six of us – not including the dog. No pressure, and don’t bring any attention to yourself. God hates a show off. Blend.
I sported home haircuts, had a blaring learning disability, had the social skills of a tortured lab monkey and suffered from a Satanic gift for music. . . . and was told to position myself as a spiritual leader among my peers . . . and blend.
As chosen people we had awesome responsibilities. A few minutes after Armageddon, while the fallen buildings are smoldering and world leaders are repenting and dead babies are everywhere, an amazing thing will happen: Every one who has ever lived and died will magically emerge from their graves. Bullet holes will be healed, amputated arms reattached, moldy lungs re-inflated, and no worms will be present.
All these people will be dazed and confused and they will need a guide. And that guide will be . . . you guessed it . . . ME! I’ll be suddenly popular and informed and my leadership skills will finally be appropriate. I’ll be the super cute tour guide for the “Second Coming.”
My father knew this as Truth with a capital “T”, so I was destined to fulfill my role. Unless I strayed.
I strayed. In the middle of senior year in high school I jumped out of the cart on my father’s version of Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. And surprisingly, God did not immediately strike me dead in the middle of running away with what ever I could cram into three Hefty bags. He must have been busy in a meeting with his team of demons. I watched for His wrath and fury at my running away from my father. I hoped He understood that I was leaving my father, not leaving Him.
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The first years were a blur as I tried to learn all about the world from which my father and his wife had so benevolently protected me. How does a bank account work? What is rent? What are laws? What is a museum? How does the solar system work? What is birth control? When do I speak and when do I touch? How do normal people act? How does a grocery store work? How long does it take to cook an egg? What is a phone bill and why is everyone moving away from me?
Once I could operate with out appearing to be a savant, the real evil commenced: I read newspapers, worked on a political campaign and read actual books. I went to Planned Parenthood, looked at maps, got a decent hair cut. I said the pledge of allegiance. Or, more accurately I TRIED to say the pledge of allegiance for the first time at age 22. My throat closed up like a furniture store and I winced, waiting for God to kill me. In truth, hundreds of attempts and decades after that first try, I’ve still never made it all the way through.
And as I learned about the world, I learned about God. And I learned that The International Bible Students were a collection of batshit crazy people. And what they called "The Truth" had nothing to do with God.
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Learning things in adulthood that others learned in childhood made rainbows and unicorns fly out of my mouth. I no longer shriek out loud with happiness every time I learn a new fact. (Apparently my confusion and glee made me seem like a serial killer clown for a while). I am better at hiding my glee now, but I still feel it almost every day. I am still in constant awe of the wonders of a world full of beauty and creativity that I was taught did not exist.
Our physical brains are designed to grow up at the same time that our minds grow up. Mine didn't get to. I will always have a little gap. In the years that a child is supposed to build a brilliant garden in the mind and name it "Self," I was sitting in my room, alone for hours, waiting for my Dad to come home.
He told me he had "people" at my school watching me and reporting back to him. I was told everything I have, everything I am, was his property. Over 17 years, every time I asked for his permission to decide what kind of thoughts I wanted to have, the punishments got stranger. He told me "You have no thoughts unless I give them to you." And this was all sanctioned by an invisible church that taught us that we are "born dead."
The "truth" will always be just a little shaky for me.
But I am incredibly lucky: Despite being raised in a trash can, I am a ball of joy and intellect. Despite being told that I am nothing, I am apparently fierce as a three legged alley cat. I decided to believe this is true because I trust the people telling me so now: I have brilliant friends who taught me everything I know.
Every year out of the church equals three years of growth. Every year I get more consecutive days of complete and fearless autonomy. But I still have a few weeks every year, and random days scattered through out, in which I am a balloon that got cut loose in the park. I don't even know I'm a balloon. I only know that I am filled with . . . nothing. And I have no idea where the ground is. And the nothing, the floating, is the only option to balance the memory of being trapped, squashed, examined and erased as I served a mad man who wouldn't let me out of the house.
But I do recover. And each time I reconnect with the real world a pack of brilliant, brave, creative humans and animals are there to hand me a sandwich and a hammer or a paintbrush and they gently wrap my balloon string around their own wrists. And I trust them.
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According to The Bible Students, we who once believed, then denied The Truth, are considered Dead. Although I still roam the Earth, cavorting with Satan's drones (you), other Bible Students (my family) are instructed to view me as a ghost. Inside that house I had a family. We were all scared together. Freedom was outside the house, but crossing that threshold meant I suddenly had no brothers or sisters. The price of Freedom was the complete loss of family, for ever.
We, The Fallen, have been demoted to a level from which we won’t even be reincarnated - ooops, excuse me, I mean “resurrected.” When everyone else rises from their graves. When the other sinners are given their second chance, I, along with Judas and Hitler, will be enrolled into a special club called “The Second Death” where I won't even have the honor of writhing in fiery torment. I will simply cease to exist. That did not scare me, because I had not been allowed to exist inside the church, so not existing outside was the better option.
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I saw my Father only three times after disappearing with out warning from his house three days after Christmas in 1983. In those bizarre meetings there was no mention of fear or sadness, only perfunctory questions. He did not say he missed me, did not ask me to come home. He just looked at me the way a tired minister would look at a dying bird. Neither he nor I knew then what a blessing it is to be considered dead, but imagine informing the IRS that you’re dead, or informing the Mob that you’re dead. Apparently I was born dead after all.
And yes, I was a dying bird. Like a sparrow beating herself against a window for 17 years finally falls to the floor, I caught my breath, saw the open door and zipped out, good as new. Resurrected.
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