The House and Other Stuff

I remember the day we moved out of our Father’s house. He wouldn’t let us take anything. Mom didn’t make a big deal about it. She told us we would go back later to get our things. We drove to a town about twenty miles away to a home the cult had found for us. Our “new” home was built in about 1860 by an early pioneer to the area. Although the neighbor kids were scared of our “haunted house,” we were excited to see our new home.

This is a picture of the home circa 1861 (meaning it was taken in 1861 - not when we lived there). The left (South) side of the house, the upstairs, and the basement were where I would spend the next eight years of my life. The right (North) side of the house had a two bedroom apartment that was lived in sometimes by outsiders and sometimes by cult members. Outsiders were renting the smaller apartment when we moved in. A girl about our age, Lena, lived there with her family. A newly married cult couple rented part of the upstairs which had been turned into a one bedroom apartment. At the time we moved into the house, we used the two large upstairs bedrooms. A short time later, my older sisters used the basement bedrooms. The windows in the basement were so tiny that if there had been a fire when we were sleeping, we surely would have died. The basement was so dark because of this that when the lights were off, our eyes never adjusted to the dark. If we woke up in the night, we could see only blackness.

That first night in the house, we slept on the floor because our beds were at our father’s house. We didn’t even have dishes. We went exploring and found some little cans on the shelves above where the washer would go which we used to eat our breakfast cereal. Later, Mom took her brothers with her to help get our belongings from Dad’s house.

Mom started dating my step dad shortly after we moved into the old house. He was very friendly. He would play and dance with us. Mom and Bob could have been married in the eyes of the law because neither of them had another spouse at this time, but the leader of the cult (the man my mother had left years before) wouldn’t allow them to legally marry. They had a spiritual ceremony that only my oldest sibling was invited to attend. Afterwards mom’s family had a big surprise party for her birthday which in hindsight I realize was a wedding reception. I don’t remember being told they were married, but I guess mom must have said something to us because shortly afterwards the babies started to come. The secrecy was one more way for the leader of this cult to make life hard for Mom. It was his way of getting back at her. If the marriage had been legal, she wouldn’t have been asked to go on welfare. He set her up for a fall, and she went along with it because she had seen how bad life was outside of the cult. She was warned, failed to listen, ended up in a horrible situation (one even worse than living in a cult), and was now back and ready to be completely obedient.

When a person leaves the cult they are told how bad the outside world is. They are also told that there are consequences for leaving – something bad will happen, and their eternal salvation is in jeopardy. I remember being told about a woman who left. One day, as the story went, she backed her car over one of her children and killed her own child. It was drilled into our heads that every time you did something against the cult or sinned in any way that a price had to be paid. The price could be paid by you, or God could take the price from someone you loved. If you told any of the cult secrets, you or someone you loved would have to pay the price – usually an injury or illness would strike. It just wasn’t worth taking a chance that something bad would happen to someone I loved. I kept my mouth shut about the cult.

We kept their secrets because of fear and because for the most part, we liked being in the order – at first anyway. The people were fun. They had that big party for my mom. There were a lot of celebrations and dances – complete with food. Unfortunately only a few of the people in the cult could actually cook a decent dish, but it was fun to play with all the children – most of which were our cousins at one level or another or both. Inbreeding makes for some interesting family trees – only more like a morning glory plant (bind weed) all wrapped around itself and strangling the host plant.

After their marriage, my step dad seemed overwhelmed by all of us. He was an orderly person, and we (including mom) were an unruly bunch. We were used to being on our own with only a slightly older sibling in charge of us. Our house was generally so cluttered and messy that we were embarrassed to have friends over. We had been in other homes and knew that not everyone lived the way we did.

Although my step dad made good money, Mom continued to work because that is what the women of this cult did. For a while, we were tended by our Aunt, but by the time I was eight or nine, we were back to watching ourselves again. Mom gave us jobs to do, but we usually waited until we heard her tires on the long gravel driveway before we did them. One day we even took the hose inside the house when a water fight got out of hand. We amused ourselves in the big house by sliding down the long staircase in boxes, playing dodge ball in the dark (inside the house), playing keep off the floor tag (which took its toll on our furniture), and hanging from the railing of the stairs and seeing how high up the stair case we dared to drop to the floor below. How we didn’t end up with broken legs or arms, I’ll never know. This was the environment our step-dad was thrown into. At the time, through the eyes of child, I was mad at him for being so playful before Mom married him and being so annoyed with us after the wedding. I thought he had tricked us all – had used us to get to Mom. I was angry with him for many, many years. Only an adult point of view would change my opinion of him.

This picture of the back of the house was taken when I was a teen. My room was behind the two top windows. Mom paid extra to rent the little upstairs apartment and had it remodeled into two bedrooms. The kitchen sink and stove were right behind my bedroom wall and still accessible. The nice part about us renting this little apartment was that now we had two bathrooms for our very large family. My windows faced West, and the afternoon sun streamed through making this a wonderful place to grow houseplants of every kind. I took advantage of the light and filled my room with living things.

I didn’t sleep well when I was a teen because I had nightmares nearly every night. To quell the nightmares, I stayed up late into the early morning hours playing solitaire on my floor until I could barely keep my eyes open. At that point, I’d turn on my nifty eight-track tape player, set the volume at barely audible, and let a Moody Blues tape play through the rest of the night just in case I woke up. The music comforted me when the nightmares came. Because of this, it was hard for me to wake up in the morning and be on time for school. I would wake up ten minutes before class, throw my clothes on, and run out the front door. One morning as I raced out the front door – nearly late for school again, some younger children who were walking to the elementary school took one look at me and ran screaming down the street, “The witch – the witch – run!” I laughed the rest of the way to school. Our house had quite the reputation as THE haunted house.

For those of you who believe in ghosts, the house was indeed haunted. For those of you who don’t believe in ghosts, I dare you to stay a week in the house and still not believe. I’ll share more about the "haunts" in another post. This house is  the place I consider my childhood home. It is boarded up because of a fire, and no one has lived in it for years, but if I dream about home, this is the home I dream about. I love this house and hope someday it will be restored to what it once was. My childhood was crazy and confused, but I have happy memories from the years I lived here.  The shadow you see is from a giant old apple tree that held a tree house where we spent many hours.

Shadows are out Today

The following may be triggering for some.

I’ve struggled with my relationship with my mother. I struggle to write about it because we are all still trying to figure it out. The whole situation just feels like one big muddle in my mind, so I’ve asked Laura – the perfect one – if she would help us write about it.

First, let me introduce Laura. Laura was created when I was about five years old. She is the other half of Cat (another alter who I will introduce later). Laura is between seven and nine years old. She has thick dark hair that hangs straight down to her waist, pretty blue eyes, and a straight nose. She is slender and perfectly proportioned. Her teeth are white, and unlike most children her age, she is not missing any. She prefers to wear blue and white over any other colors. She is very smart; she writes, cooks, and gardens, but she does not speak. She is smart enough to communicate without using spoken words. She never gets dirty or gets into trouble – ever. She walks with a quiet step. She has a calm soothing spirit and often comforts those around her – both on the inside and the outside. The only emotions she is able to feel are peace, compassion, and fear. She doesn’t get angry, and when she feels fear, she hides away until things are safe because she doesn’t like being afraid. She knows how to be quietly invisible when necessary. I wish I had an alter who was an artist, so I could draw her portrait.

My mother was the good parent of the two I was blessed with. My father was a monster and is the reason I became a multiple. Because my dad was so awful, Mom, in comparison, seemed so good. She is kind, she always tries to be nice, she tells people the words she thinks they want to hear, but she isn’t honest – not with herself or her children. The part of her that we are struggling with the most is the fact that she refuses to ever take a stand. She is a fence sitter who always tries to please everyone around her. The problem with this is that she ends up pleasing only the people who have not seen through this exercise. I have no idea what she holds dear or believes in.

The other issue I have with Mom is that she failed to protect us. I understand that a mother can not protect her children from everything in life. I understand that she was unaware of the severity of the abuse that went on in our home. I blame only my father for his actions – yet she was emotionally detached as a mother. She worked too many hours and failed to provide for our basic needs. As children we went hungry (mostly because of dad), we went without adequate supervision (her fault), we looked like ragamuffins with tangled hair and dirty worn out clothing, and we often went without needed underclothes and stockings. Our home was a mess and even when we had enough food, our diets were unbalanced as she went on food jags of one type or another. Although she read to us most nights, loved us, and helped us see that we were smart enough to accomplish anything we set our minds to, she failed to provide for our other basic needs. Still she was the good parent of the two.

These two issues create the conflict that causes us to feel detached from her. These many things built up until the last straw came yesterday (of course there is always another straw waiting to fall). A few days ago a friend of mine called and said, “Your dad’s number came up on my caller ID. When I answered the phone, it was your nephew (he lives with my dad), calling to see if he could do a sales presentation.” My friend had found it strange to see my father’s name and number on his phone. I was thankful that my nephew didn’t have my phone number, because I never wanted to see my dad’s information on my caller ID. I haven’t seen or spoken to my father in over eleven years - the last time being in a courtroom when I testified against him for beating up my grandmother.

Fast forward to yesterday when my phone rang and clearly presented my father’s name and phone number. Although I knew it was probably my nephew, there was no way in hell that I was going to answer the phone and chance that it could be my dad. Later that day, my nephew called my two adult children. I asked my daughter where he had gotten our numbers and she said, “Grandma gave them to him.”

So I ask (in my head), “Mom in what universe did you think I would be okay with seeing my rapist’s name and phone number on my caller ID? When he asked for my phone number, couldn’t you have said (especially since you know he lives with my dad), ‘Why don’t you wait and call her from my phone.’” She gave me no heads-up; perhaps she could have said to me, “Hey, nephew is selling a new product. I gave him your phone number, so don’t freak out when you see your dad’s information on your phone.” Instead she did nothing but expect her daughter to deal with the aftermath of her insensitivity. She doesn’t consider the consequences of her actions.

I talked to one of my 3D (real life) sisters and asked if I should say anything to mom. My husband thinks I should let it go because Mom is old. My sister said that she has confronted Mom about things. I asked her if it did any good or changed Mom’s behavior in any way. She said, “No, it didn’t change a thing.” So perhaps I will vent here, and if I say anything to mom, it will be, “I’m sure glad my friend called and told me about nephew calling him so that I didn’t completely freak out (verses the partial freak out you are all witnessing) when I saw Dad’s information on my phone.”

Perhaps it is enough that she gave me the ability to seek higher and gave me the belief that I am a capable human being. Do children really need clothing with intact crotches and stockings? Is adequate supervision and food really necessary? Perhaps it was unfair of me to put her on an unreachable pedestal – it only makes her more broken to me when she falls trying to stay perched there. The littles in me are still saddened when she fails to protect us, but the adults in me realize that we can protect ourselves. Perhaps I will never figure out how to have a relationship with this woman who I do not understand.

Without the sun there would be no shadows, which means that even when I have a shadow day, the sun must still be there waiting patiently to once again brighten and warm my face.