Mark My Words

One of the strongest emotions I’ll never forget from my childhood was being afraid. Through my father’s parenting style - he was one to never spare the rod and would punish us in advance for things we didn’t do yet - and the beliefs that I grew up with, I felt like I lived in a constant state of fear. When my siblings and I were younger, we probably looked to be really well behaved kids to outsiders. We were rarely disobedient and would sit for hours without any distractions. 

One strong memory I have is going shopping with my father. He would take us with him when he needed to get something for the house for many of his home improvement projects or even if he was buying new clothes. When you are young time goes by more slowly (at least it did for me), and the hours we sat there felt like days. But we dare not complain because we know what waited for us at home if we did. We would have loved to run around, check out the toy section, play hide and seek, or just be kids, but we looked really well behaved because we were just so damn scared of my father.

I think that was a common emotion for all of us. There weren’t many times I can remember that I wasn’t afraid of my father. The fear was instilled through the punishments he wrought on us. He had some belief of the maximum number of times he could physically hit us during the day (according to some passage in the Bible, he claimed), and many days he would hit us right to this limit. He would abuse us psychologically, too, as he would inform us well beforehand that we would be hit later in the day.

Did something he didn’t like at breakfast? He would tell you that at 6pm that evening I would need to meet him in his library to receive my punishment. You then would go about your day dreading the punishment you would receive that evening. He would always remind you of it any chance he got and I honestly believe he got pleasure out of doling out the punishments. Perhaps it’s because he was punished harshly as a kid, so he did the same to his children. The psychological aspect of his punishments were worse than the physical, but they were still painful and frequent. It got so bad, my brother’s and I would add extra padding by wearing extra layers of clothes or putting books underneath our clothes. We weren’t very skilled at this so he caught on soon. 

Then there was the fear of eternal damnation. For many years I really believed the teachings of my father and his so-called religion. It was hard not to. If you’re born into this and have the belief system drilled into every day of your life since you can talk, it’s hard to not actually believe the stuff. I really believed that the world would end in 2000, that only the 50 or so people in our church would be saved, that if I didn’t do everything my father said I would be disobeying God and thus not be saved, and that maybe, just maybe, I could have a girlfriend before the rapture came.

The constant threat of punishment from my father combined with the threat of going to hell if I disobeyed him caused me to live a life of deeply ingrained fear every day of my life. I didn’t really know much more until I was able to escape. I remember the feeling well - finally not being afraid just to get up.

During my teenage years I started to feel that something was wrong when I made my first friend who was from “the world”. Also known as a normal person who wasn’t in our church. This person was so kind, fun to hang out with, and just so cool and not judgmental. I started wondering why he was considered so bad when he was nicer than all of the people in our church, who apparently were the chosen people.

I had a lot of plans for my life when I turned 18. I would move out. I would go to college. I would try and have a normal life that doesn’t involve a cycle of constant physical and emotional abuse. The day I turned 18 I felt like it was all in front of me.

But I was afraid. Even though I was a legal adult and could finally leave and do whatever I wanted, fear gripped me. Not fear of how I would make money or get a roof over my head. But fear of my father. Logically I knew that I didn’t have to be afraid of him anymore. I could leave and he couldn’t touch me. My girlfriend at the time, a girl who was not in our church, encouraged me to leave and we were making plans. I tried for months before and after my 18th birthday to build up the courage to stand up to my father, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t erase the effects of living my entire life in fear at the hands of one person.

So, I decided I would take a baby step. I never liked my haircut. My father forced us boys to have the haircut that he liked, which was basically a mullet. He was obsessed with the 1960s and the Beatles, so he made us all have haircuts like the Beatles, except he made us grow our hair long just in the back. It looked terrible and I was always so embarrassed of my hair. I hated it with a passion but couldn’t do anything about it. My father always cut our hair and this was the hairstyle he forced upon us.

But now I was 18 and I had the legal right to do what I wanted. I decided to go to a barber for the first time in my life.

This is something I think is hard for people who don’t grow up in cults to understand. Everything that you think is normal, everyday stuff, is alien to those of us who grew up in a cult. Going to a movie, listening to the radio or music, watching the news, having a television or radio, talking to people outside of your family, going to school, everything you would think that a normal middle-class American might experience. These are all things I didn’t experience. As I experienced each one, it was new and exciting and exhilarating all at the same time.

Getting my first haircut was scary for me. But it was my first act of defiance and escape from the control that fear of my father had over me. I found a place in a nearby mall and on my way home from working another day at my father’s office, I stopped to get my first haircut. I had no idea what style I wanted. All I knew was that I wanted to have it short in the back and not look like an idiot. 

The stylist showed me a book with various options. My heart was beating so hard it felt like it would fly away as I chose one. She started with a clippers, then moved on to a scissors. I sat there in disbelief. I couldn’t believe this was happening. I couldn’t believe I was actually doing it. I was doing something that would be against my father’s wishes and without his knowledge.

It seemed to last for hours, but my haircut was finally complete and I saw my new look in the mirror. Thanks to years of degradation from my father, I had no self-esteem. But this was one of the first times I actually felt kind of good about how I looked. I was excited about what this meant. It was a first step on my way to freedom.

My mind was racing as I drove home. What would my father say? How would he react? I went over various scenarios, from him kicking me out of the house (which had happened before when I was a minor) to him physically attacking me. 

I got home, went in to the kitchen, and saw my mother. She smiled. “You got a haircut! It looks great!”, she said calmly and softly as she gave me a hug. My mother always had to go along with what my father said, because if she didn’t agree with him she would be subject to physical and psychological abuse. I knew she was proud of me and wanted to tell me before my father saw me and without him hearing. 

As I hung around the kitchen, still scared to go up to my room which passed in front of my father’s library, he finally came in. He saw me and his face became red. He was enraged. He started yelling and cursing at me. 

For hours into the night, he screamed at me and explained to me how me getting a haircut - even though I was a legal adult - was the beginning of the degradation of my soul. 

“You defiled my wishes which is going against God!” 

“I’m ashamed to even call you my son!”

“You are going to hell!”

“What do you think you know, you idiot?! You are a bad influence on your siblings and everyone in the church!” 

“I disown you as my son!”

These are just some of the things he said to me. I remember that night vividly. Like all of the other screaming matches, I took it. He didn’t hit me that evening, but proceeded to verbally abuse me and say amazingly hurtful things. Nothing that I hadn’t heard before, I thought. But still hurtful coming from anyone, much less your father.

I was finally able to stand my ground. I told him I just got a haircut, it didn’t mean anything. I just didn’t like the way he cut my hair. I stayed as calm as I could. I didn’t apologize for getting the haircut and told him that I was an adult now and could do what I wanted. 

“Mark my words,” he said, which was one of his common phrases.

“You are going down the path of the devil!”

“So be it,” I replied. “That’s your opinion. But I don’t think God is angry at me for just getting a harmless haircut.”

The screaming and verbal abuse finally stopped at about one in the morning. I went to bed stressed out and nervous, but I also felt so alive. I felt like this was indeed the beginning of something. It was the beginning of my freedom. I think my father knew this. He knew that once us kids left, he would lose control over us, which would mean losing control of our free labor at his office, church, and around the house. It would make him look bad to his followers. This is what really bugged him. It wasn’t just the haircut, but the fact that he could see his grip on my life was slipping.

It would take a few more years for me to finally escape and have enough courage to break free from fear.

A few weeks after I got my haircut, my older brother came home with a new haircut of his own. 

My father blamed me as a bad influence and that I was the cause of my brother’s sins. I hoped I was the cause, and that I gave my brother some inspiration to also start to break free.