Part 4
Violence was not uncommon in our home. It wasn’t just the big altercations between my parents but all of the little everyday things that happened. The worst spanking I ever received was when my father spotted me standing close to a man outside. He was standing near the fence that divided our yard from the grassy field above. He was watching a softball game. I was outside and when I saw him I went to say hello. What my parents did not know is I had been talking to this man for a long time. He lived down the hall from us. One day I spotted his open apartment door when I was exiting out the back door of our complex. He had just moved in and so I stopped by to say hello. Yes, my parents had taught me not to talk to strangers but I was desperately lonely. He chatted with me and was always friendly. I know I was actually in his apartment at least once. I have no idea what this man was actually like. I do not have much memory of him but I remember his apartment and I remember his figure standing by the fence watching the game. My father spotted me outside with this man he did not know and he came out to fetch me. Once in our apartment, his anger boiled over and he started to interrogate me about the neighbor. He yelled about talking to strangers and I remember crying very hard. I don’t remember what I said to him but I know that I attempted to explain and that only made him angrier. I was in elementary school at this point, maybe 7 or 8 years old. My mother seemed unconcerned until he reached for the dog collar to spank me. He was not wearing a belt and the dog collar was the closest thing within reach. I lurched to get away and my mother yelled at him. The collar had metal notches in it and a metal clasp and she thought it was too dangerous to spank me with it. He did not listen to her and started swinging at me hitting whatever he could, mostly my legs. It was expected that I would sit still when being spanked, if I moved they would hit whatever was where my butt was supposed to be including my hands. In this case, I tried to get away because I could sense the fear in my mother’s anger. He grabbed my arm and let me have it. After he was done my mother and father argued about what he had done and I cried alone in my room away from their fighting. I believe the big concern to be whether or not someone might notice and call social services. Eventually, they tried to make peace with me by giving me a flour tortilla. As weird as this might sound, they often tried to comfort me by handing me a tortilla or banana. They explained why talking to strangers was dangerous and life went on. As angry as my mother was with my father she was often the more violent of the two of them. She spanked me but she also pinched me and twisted my ear when she wanted my attention. She would pull my hair when she was really angry and that hurt the most. It amazes me that they would believe that a child left alone for 10-12 hours a day would have the self-control to not talk to strangers given how lonely I would naturally be. My mother cried over her loneliness all the time and my father sought out other women to keep him from being lonely. I feel like they did not see me as a real person. They seemed unaware that I was a human and not a doll. I had needs and emotions. I felt all the same things they did. To this day I wonder if they did not understand or did they just push away that understanding because had they acknowledged it they would have had to change how they were interacting with me.
When you are a kid there is so much to worry about. I worried about losing my keys and being locked out of our apartment. I worried about people breaking into the house and strangers. It was the 70’s and stranger danger was a big deal. Then there was the alarm clock! I was always concerned with being late for school or oversleeping. So I developed little rituals around checking the clock and checking the locks on the doors. I looked over my shoulder when walking down the street alone and always checked the back seat of the car when I got in. The keys around my neck were like a security blanket. At various times during the school day I would feel for them just in case they might have fallen off of me at some point. I learned all of this from my mother. She was never diagnosed with OCD but she definitely displayed some of the behaviors. She drove me nuts checking the knobs on the stove and having to go back and check to be sure the door was really locked. She planted this worry into me. No amount of checking and rechecking life was enough for her. She was always preparing for doom. I would stare off into space as I waited for her to check and recheck. I was trying desperately to be somewhere else.
When I left for school in the morning my dog Muffy was the only one there to see me off. She was also the only one there waiting for me when I returned. She would be watching at the window when I left for school and waiting for me there when I came home. Every day I would run home after school and feel for the key around my neck. Sliding it in the lock I would fight to turn the stiff deadbolt. Immediately a walking cloud would come bounding towards me. Her fluffy white tail curled over her back and I would bury my face in her neck. The apartment was always silent. After putting my things down and taking off my coat anxiety would wash over me. With Muffy by my side, I would wander through each room checking for who might be hiding and waiting for me to come home. I checked every closet, under the beds, and behind the shower curtain. There was never anyone physically there, just me and fear. Dread would wash over me and I would remind myself that you can’t see the devil.
The devil or Satan as he was sometimes called was a part of my daily life. He was as present as any person I could see with my eyes. God felt like light years away but Satan felt as close as the breath in my lungs. All of the adults in my family seemed to be very concerned about him. I knew one thing, he was tricky. I was taught that he and God had some kind of falling out and now he was the enemy of God. Because God created me the devil wanted to steal me away and take me to hell with him. Some day the devil was going to burn for all eternity and if I chose him over God I would burn too. In Sunday school we learned a lot about how the devil might try to trick us. He might tell me lies and I had to question every thought, action, and emotion, to see if they were of God or of Satan. This was tough because the devil was so manipulative and how would I know if I was right? The adults in my life made it sound like Satan was always lurking around every corner, under every bed, and in every closet just waiting for a chance to deceive me or worse yet drag me to hell. Later in life, I would learn about the AntiChrist and in many ways, he was even scarier than Satan. He would be in human form and as the church and my family would often say, “He might be alive right now!” There was much speculation about who he might be. The Pope was always a popular candidate but some people said that Ronald Reagan might be as well after all his name added up to 666 just like the Bible said to look out for. As an adult, I look back on those teachings with disgust. I have raised four children and thankfully none of them have had to deal with fear the way I did, I am 50 years old and it has taken me decades to let go of that fear. I cannot remember any time in my childhood or up through my 40’s when I have not been afraid. My childhood was soaked in teachings about an angry God and so much of what I endured during childhood is wrapped up in those teachings. Fringe religiosity and mental illness do not go well together and my family had equal amounts of both. I am descended from a long line of very religious people. My mother’s roots pass through both the Assemblies of God and the Church of God organizations. Eventually, she ended up attending a United Pentecostal Church. It was this church, Calvary Gospel United Pentecostal, that had the biggest impact on my life. The combination of the end-times theology of the 1970s and on through the ’80s and untreated severe mental illness created a childhood full of uncertainty, worries about abandonment, and child neglect. I did not come through this childhood unscathed but I have managed to survive and I keep leaning into the hope that I can continue to get closer to being whole and healthy. Most people who know me see me as a driven and fairly successful person. I have a devoted partner and I’ve raised 4 children. I am politically active, and I participate in volunteer initiatives within my community. Some might tell you that I am creative, a lover of furry creatures big and small, a collector of books, and driven by a desire for transformation. If they know me well they might tell you that I never sleep, have to be reminded to eat, and that at times my anxiety is crippling, and sometimes depression follows me around like a fog threatening to swallow me whole. If they know me even better they might tell you that when I do sleep I tend to be plagued by nightmares complete with guillotines and often involving me running from some sort of One World Government authority figure. Writing this book is one way I am trying to heal myself. As you continue on this journey with me, I will tell you about the other ways I am working on healing and helping others to heal. None of this is easy but it feels necessary.
Debbie McNulty 