Incredible Journey: Chapter 7

A Memoir of Healing and Redemption

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

If you are following this story you will notice I have changed the title to Incredible Journey: A Memoir of Healing and Redemption.

What happened next? I stayed with Corrie in that Montana farmhouse until I felt stable enough to call my parents. This took some courage. I knew I had hurt them badly and wasn’t sure what their response would be. Many of the problems that made me vulnerable to the cult began in my childhood. This was only a vague intuition at this point, but I didn't want to enter into that difficult place called home without some understanding of myself and the issues I had to watch out for. I had to know I could survive a crisis and rebuild my life without depending on my parents for rescue.  I was almost thirty and needed to face the world like an adult.

“Mom, it’s Ann.”

“Ann? Oh, oh, honey, we have been worried sick. Dan, come here, it’s Ann!” 

“Where are you,  Sweetheart? Last we knew you were in Seattle,” my dad asked.

“I am in Montana now, taking care of a lovely 80-year-old woman named Corrie. I am out of the cult now, for good. I just wanted to let you know I am OK.”

It was good to hear their voices. They welcomed me back like the prodigal daughter I was, with no recrimination, but I still felt vulnerable.My parents wanted to bring me home right away, no doubt to see how I was after the last few years. I agreed and gave notice and said goodbye to Corrie and her family. 

My parents flew me to Florida, where they were now living. I spent several months recuperating there. I wrote out the journal of events from the cult that I have referred to a few times. I also shared it with my parents so they would know what had happened, bare bones and all. My father got the whole point, and said, “Let’s talk.”

My mother didn’t get the point and focused on my “boyfriend relationships” and said she was happy that they happened, because she had been afraid I was a lesbian. I know she loved me, and meant well, but that reaction? I was speechless. What about all my pain and heartache at being repeatedly left behind and abandoned? What about the completely crazy worldview I had adopted? But my mother cared about appearances–having a lesbian daughter in 1981 would not have been a good look, as they say.

My parents lived near the Atlantic Ocean in Florida, so I would walk to the beach for some solitude and to get away from the oppressive atmosphere at home. The beach was a stretch of white sand without tourists, just an occasional jogger or dog walker.  One day I brought a book with me called Purity of Heart Is To Will One Thing by Søren Kierkegaard. I don’t know why I chose that book. Maybe it was because it was about purity of heart. But Kierkegaard is not a cheerful writer. Before long I was weeping full flow about my pain and failure to “will one thing.” 

A young man jogging by saw me and came over to ask, “Are you alright?”

I wiped my face with the back of my sandy hand and nodded, “Yes, I am alright.” Well, not really. Dang, I had thought this was a place where I could go and cry in peace!

About that oppressive atmosphere–it had to do with my mother. She was a perfectionist, and the house had to be just so. She also wanted to control everything. She would not have seen it that way. She thought she was just trying to help with all her comments and instructions. But neither my father or I appreciated it.

While I was there I had a good conversation with my dad about what had happened, and to the extent I understood it then, why it happened. We drove to a private location and sat looking out at the harbor. I noticed my dad’s hand was trembling on the stick shift. It was going to be a tough conversation for me–apparently, it was tough for him also.

“Dad, I know what I did was wrong. It must have broken your hearts. But the reason it happened was that I didn’t know who I was. I didn’t feel valuable, lovable, or able to live my own life. I think this came from my childhood.”

I elaborated– the constant moving, and the resulting lack of friends, the lack of a personal relationship with him, the abuse I had experienced in 8th grade, and my difficult relationship with my mother were all contributors.

He said he was very sorry for the things he had done or failed to do that led to my feelings of worthlessness, and wished he could go back and change things.

I told him I had been very angry at him for his connection to the Vietnam War–he had served in Saigon on the General’s staff. I knew he was there because that was his duty and he was not personally responsible for the war, but I had been influenced by the cultural view of the war (for example the movie Coming Home),  and by association, anyone who fought in it. In working through my feelings about my childhood I had gotten rid of the anger. It really wasn’t about Vietnam, it was about feeling abandoned every time he was sent overseas to a war zone. The message I had taken on board was that he cared more about his career than he did about me.

I also told him that I loved him and I  hoped we could now have an adult relationship. I promised I would let the past go. We returned home at peace with each other, and it remained the same until the end of his days. He was a good man.

My mother and I, on the other hand, were never able to have this talk. She was living as if nothing had happened. She didn’t dare express any negative emotions because she was afraid I would leave again. But the anger and hurt were there. I never found a way to broach the subject with her, probably because of my own anger and hurt. 

Mothers seem to trigger intense emotions in their children, including blame and anger for perceived lacks. Infants and mothers are meant to form a unique bond of love. It is vital for an infant’s development. Any inconstancy in that bond, any withholding of affection or attention, tells the infant that the world does not care about her, or that her needs will not be met.

To explain all this better, I need to take a dive into my past.