Wonderings - Michelle Richmond

Fear, trembling, & tribulation: notes from a raptured childhood

Before I was a San Franciscan, I was a Southerner, and every reformed Southerner knows a thing or two about the Rapture. As a child in a strict Southern Baptist household in Alabama, fed a steady Sunday diet of Revelations, I lived in fear of the day Jesus would return, the graves would open up, and the skeletons of the saved would start rocketing skyward. I pictured the waking dead like puppets on strings, a grisly group choreography dancing its way toward eternal life. Of course, it wasn’t just the dead who would suddenly be lifted heavenward. The living born-again would also be among the raptured. Rapture was a noun, but it was also a verb. To be raptured was divine, to be left behind was hellish.

One of the ironies of the Rapture is that it’s supposed to be a celebratory moment for Christians, the moment when all of their spiritual dreams come to fruition, the moment when they are rewarded for their belief and their evangelizing. But I didn’t know a single child who looked forward to the Rapture, and I always suspected the adults were just pretending. Because there was always that nagging question: what if I am not among the raptured? What if I’m left behind?

We all have our childhood rituals. Some people went to Tahoe, some went to the Russian River, a lucky few went to Europe. I, on the other hand, went to Vacation Bible School, and to lock-ins at First Baptist Church of Tillman’s Corner. The pizza was great, but the entertainment was a downer. At some point in every lock-in, the lights went off, the movie projector ticked and hummed, and some low-budget film about the end times began to play. One scene that was played out in all of these movies, and which haunted me for many years, was the scene in which the cars start crashing and careening off the road, as unsuspecting drivers disappear from behind their steering wheels. I had nightmares of suddenly being alone in the backseat of a speeding car as my mother went the way of the righteous. Other nightmares involved waking up in the morning to find the house empty. Left to my own devices, I wondered, would I submit to the Sign of the Beast–the numbers 666 stamped on my forehead? It was a choice that anyone who was left behind would have to make. Accept the Sign of the Beast, and burn in hell forever. Refuse the Sign of the Beast, and meet a horrific worldly fate.

We’ve heard a lot about Harold Camping’s prediction for May 21, but those who weren’t raised in the shadow of the Rapture may not know about the Tribulation. I asked my husband, an atheist and the product of many years of Catholic schooling, and he’d never heard of it. The Rapture is supposed to be followed by seven years of hell on earth following Christ’s second departure: war, famine, all the worst doomsday scenarios one can imagine. During those years, those who have been left behind have the opportunity to repent and publicly announce their belief in Christ. Doing so, refusing the Sign of the Beast, means you can’t buy groceries, find work, feed your children. You’ll probably be tortured by the heathens, and there’s a good chance you’ll go to prison. But at the end of the seven years, you get to go to heaven.

As a child I was not allowed to watch Star Wars, on account of it being too graphic and possibly frightening, but I was steeped from an early age in the blood-curdling imagery of the Rapture and Tribulation. My parents were kind and affectionate, supportive in every way, determined to create a safe and loving home, which they did. But my mother was a product of her own childhood. As the daughter of a Southern Baptist preacher, there was no room for debate on matters of the Bible; she considered it impregnable, our instruction in it as much a part of her maternal duty as feeding and clothing us. Darth Vader was off-limits, but the Devil was real and dangerous, and we better be prepared.

Aside from moving to San Francisco, ceasing to believe in the Rapture is probably one of the most radically backslidden things a Southern Baptist girl can do. But I am here, and I’ve traded the ghosts of my childhood for more practical concerns. The Rapture now seems to me as outlandish as any other religious myth, a grand narrative of fear meant to keep the followers in line. But there was a time in my childhood when a bolt of lightning or a coming tornado would have me looking skyward, wondering if this was the moment, and whether I’d stay or go.

One more thing you should know about May 21: Aside from a tiny group of radicals among the radicals, the vast majority of people who believe in the Rapture think Harold Camping is a nutcase. One of the basic tenets of the Rapture, if one reads one’s Revelations, is that no one can know when it will happen. It will be preceded by an Antichrist, a human who convinces millions around the world that he is the Messiah. There will be earthquakes and tornadoes, plagues and pestilence. But anyone who claims to predict the date is to be viewed as a false prophet. Jesus promises to come “like a thief in the night,” when you’re least expecting it. You don’t get to save the date, you don’t get to dress for the occasion. You don’t get the turn on the TV at 6 p.m. and watch the earthquakes roll toward you. The Rapture may be televised, but it won’t be scheduled.

Jaycee Dugard Memoir – A Stolen Life

“In the summer of 1991 I was a normal kid. I did normal things. I had friends and a mother who loved me. I was just like you. Until the day my life was stolen.”

Simon and Schuster has released A Stolen Life, a memoir by Jaycee Dugard. There is also an ebook and an unabridged audio book, read by Dugard. A portion of the proceeds will go to The JAYC Foundation, which provides support and services for the timely treatment of families recovering from abduction and the aftermath of traumatic experiences. Scroll down for a link to Jaycee’s pinecone jewelry to support the foundation.

About the book : Dugard narrates the story in the present tense, beginning with the harrowing day of her abduction at the age of 11–her confusion, her terror, her absolute powerlessness as Phillip and Nancy Garrido paralyzed her with a stun gun, dragged her into the car, shoved her to the floor, and drove her from Tahoe to Antioch, California, to the dismal backyard compound where she would spend the next 18 years of her life. Scroll down to read an excerpt.

Each chapter is followed by a reflection, in which Dugard, who has been in therapy since her rescue in 2009, reveals her feelings about the ordeal now, as an adult looking back at the suffering of her younger self. Dugard’s writing style is direct and lucid, filled with detail; the naturalness of her writing is all the more impressive given the fact that her formal education stopped at the age of 11.

Dugard writes about discovering she was pregnant at the age of 14, and about delivering two baby girls in her back yard prison. She writes about how dependent she was on Phillip Garrido for everything. For most of the first six years of her captivity, she was locked in a soundproof room. Garrido convinced her that he knew everything she did. She lived in fear of getting “in trouble,” certain that he would use the stun gun again.

When her youngest daughter was two years old, Dugard was finally allowed to begin going out in public. By then, she had been so manipulated by Garrido that she believed his terrible lie: that she was safer in the back yard compound than she would be out in the world, and that her daughters were safer there as well. On outings, she avoided looking people in the eye; repeatedly, she mentions her feelings of invisibility.

Through it all, we see Dugard’s attempt to live as normal a life as possible–caring for a series of beloved pets, creating a school for her children, establishing small routines, and later, keeping the Garridos financially afloat by running the family printing business–often while Phillip and Nancy spent their days in a drug-induced slumber. She even keeps a journal, portions of which are presented–in her own childish print–in the book. Later journal entries reveal Jaycee struggling with many of the things any twenty-something young woman struggles with: her weight, her desire to eat more healthfully and be more motivated. These entries are extraordinarily poignant, infused with Jaycee’s longing, all these years after her abduction, to be with her mother; her desire to be free mixed with uncertainty about where she would go, or how she would take care of her children, if she were ever to leave; her confusion about Nancy and Phillip’s role in her life. After all, they have become her “family,” but she desperately wants to be with her real family, to be held once again by the mother whose face she can no longer remember, but whose love she remembers vividly.

Some of her journal entries include lists of dreams she has for her life. Along with taking a hot-air balloon ride, visiting Ireland, and learning two languages, she dreams of writing a best-seller. She has done just that; the day of its release, A Stolen Life hit #1 on Amazon.

Dugard also explains her reason for writing this book: she will no longer hide Garrido’s secret, she will no longer protect him from the truth of what he did to her. Others will know the brutality of his abuse.

This is a heartbreaking book from a brave and unbelievably resilient young woman, who now looks forward to a normal life for her and her two daughters. It is also inspiring; so much was taken from Dugard, and yet she has chosen to move forward without hatred. While she still experiences loneliness, she writes, she has fully embraced the joys of making home-cooked meals with her family, walking on the beach, and simply being free. Buy the book.

Having done a great deal of research into missing children while writing The Year of Fog, I followed Jaycee’s case with deep interest. One cannot help but be amazed by the fact that she survived and raised her daughters in such harrowing circumstances, and that she has now turned her efforts to helping other families through the J A Y C Foundation. In her interview with Diane Sawyer, which aired July 10 on Prime Time Life, Jaycee emphasized the fact that crimes such as those committed by the Garridos affect not only the victims, but also the victims’ families.

A note about Michaela Joy Garecht: Jaycee’s recovery momentarily gave hope to other parents of missing children–in particular to Sharon Murch, the mother of Michaela Joy Garecht, who was kidnapped from a Hayward, California, parking lot in 1988, and who has never been found. Sharon Murch is still looking for Michaela; read more about her story here.

Excerpt from A Stolen Life:

In the summer of 1991 I was a normal kid. I did normal things. I had friends and a mother who loved me. I was just like you. Until the day my life was stolen.

For eighteen years I was a prisoner. I was an object for someone to use and abuse.
For eighteen years I was not allowed to speak my own name. I became a mother and was forced to be a sister. For eighteen years I survived an impossible situation.
On August 26, 2009, I took my name back. My name is Jaycee Lee Dugard. I don’t think of myself as a victim. I survived.
A Stolen Life is my story—in my own words, in my own way, exactly as I remember it.

View a video clip of Diane Sawyer’s interview with Jaycee Dugard here.

View Jaycee Dugard’s website, The JAYCFoundation, here.

A pinecone was the last thing Jaycee touched before she was dragged into the Garridos’ car two decades ago. It is “a symbol of hope and new beginnings,” she told Sawyer. “There is life after something tragic.” Purchase pinecone jewelry to support the foundation here.

Michelle Richmond is the author of The Year of Fog, No One You Know, Dream of the Blue Room, and The Girl in the Fall-Away Dress.

Related reading:

The Long Journey Home: A Memoir by Margaret Robinson

In Plain Sight: The Startling Truth Behind the Elizabeth Smart Investigation, by Tom Smart

The Persistence of Memory and the Neurological Origins of Fear

According to an article by Roger L. Clem and Richard L. Huganir published recently in Science Magazine, it is possible to erase fear memories.

When I saw the headline about “Fear Memory Erasure,” my interest was immediately piqued. The things that one obsesses over in private invariably make it into one’s books…which is to say, memory and forgetting were bound to worm their way into one of my books at some point.

Toward the end of The Year of Fog, Abby wishes that she could take a “forgetting pill,” because all of her familiar beloved places in San Francisco are tinged with the difficult memories of her search for Emma. She would like to forget the year that she has just endured, she would like to forget the intense emotions, and the fear, all of it. Because to remember a thing is to relive it, for better or worse.

As it turns out, selective forgetfulness isn’t just a fantasy. Here’s the abstract for the article:

Traumatic fear memories can be inhibited by behavioral therapy for humans, or by extinction training in rodent models, but are prone to recur. Under some conditions, however, these treatments generate a permanent effect on behavior, which suggests that emotional memory erasure has occurred. The neural basis for such disparate outcomes is unknown. We found that a central component of extinction-induced erasure is the synaptic removal of calcium-permeable amino-3-hydroxyl-5-methyl-4-isoxazole-propionate receptors (AMPARs) in the lateral amygdala. A transient up-regulation of this form of plasticity, which involves phosphorylation of the glutamate receptor 1 subunit of the AMPA receptor, defines a temporal window in which fear memory can be degraded by behavioral experience. These results reveal a molecular mechanism for fear erasure and the relative instability of recent memory.

It’s heady stuff, not particularly friendly to the untrained ear, and half of it went over my head; but one thing that stood out to me is the role of the amygdala (Abby delves into this small but powerful structure in the brain in her attempts to understand the complex workings of memory. I delved into it by visiting a neurologist, an odd and infinitely entertaining man with a glamor shot of himself in full medical regalia on the wall of his office, a man who sucked on Mentos during our entire visit, prior to pointing out the rascally amygdala on a model brain perched on his desk). The removal of a particular substance from the amygdala seems to be the key to the removal of fear and the “instability of recent memory.”

What Makes You Cry?

There’s a wonderful scene in Broadcast News in which Jane Craig, played by Holly Hunter, unplugs the phone in her hotel room, sits down on the bed, and starts weeping and wailing. She cries passionately for several minutes before pulling herself together and confidently going about her business. Later, one realizes that crying is part of the character’s daily routine. I love the scene, not only because Hunter makes crying funny, but because it shows crying in all its cathartic and narcissistic glory, crying as ritual and refresher, crying as a near-religious experience.

My son came home recently talking about a birthday party for a girl named Ruby, to which he hadn’t been invited. “At first I was sad, but now I’m so glad I didn’t get invited,” he said.

“Why are you glad?”

“It was a princess party,” he said. “It made Jack and Joey cry.”

Jack and Joey are twins, and their play dates with my son invariably involve light sabers, wrestling, swords, and other forms of pretend violence. Their own birthday party this year had a pirate theme. They probably had great expectations for Ruby’s birthday party. I imagined Jack and Joey bursting into tears upon realizing that they were surrounded by girls in princess dresses and giant pink balloons. I have to admit I couldn’t stop laughing when my son told me, so earnestly, about Jack and Joey crying at the princess party.

Of course, to the twins, the princess party was no laughing matter. Their tears were real. Disappointment is a powerful thing. As adults, most of us remember well a few instances in our childhood that made us cry with abandon.I have vivid memories of crying in Mrs. Monk’s first grade class at Greystone Christian School in Mobile, Alabama, during a lesson about clocks. Mrs. Monk was a kind and gentle teacher, and she came over to ask me what was the matter. “I don’t understand time,” I cried. I still don’t. A couple of years later, another incident at Greystone brought me to tears. My third grade class had had a potato-growing contest. Each student had brought a potato to school, stuck it in a jar of water, and waited for it to sprout buds. My potato exceeded all expectations and, much to my astonishment, won the contest. Read the rest of this post at My Year of Questions.