Perfect: From Trauma to Triumph
Synopsis
Perfect: From Trauma to Triumph, is a soul stirring account of my experience growing up with an unstable mother, who became delusional and fanatically religious when I was eleven. She believed she was the incarnation of Jesus Christ, and the end of the world was coming in three and a half years. She took my sister, Deb, and me out of school in eighth and ninth grade and dragged us around the country on a quest to gain devotees into her micro-cult she called The Kingdom.
She convinced me and dozens that she could read minds and perform miracles and held the keys to heaven and hell. She expected us to be perfect in every way. If we weren't, she’d put us in the "hot seat,” interrogate us, and force us to repent using humiliation and other tactics.
Witnessing Mom’s wrath against doubters and questioners, and fear of damnation to The Lake of Fire kept me obedient. I was in a chronic state of fear, constantly battling doubtful thoughts and fighting off demons.
I craved a real mother, not the micro-cult leader Mom had become. I was so confused because for the first half of my life I had a mother who—though not great at it—parented. But in the second half, her focus was on her "calling" from God and finding a man. She expected Deb and me to be adults. Our adolescence was filled with hard work, instability, and trauma.
Before Mom had her “calling,” I'd already survived so much: my parents’ divorce, losing my brother to adoption, a second divorce, moving and starting over across the country, poverty, homelessness, domestic violence, a third divorce, and so much more.
Having lived in Sacramento for almost four years, I'd felt stable for the first time. I awoke every morning excited for whatever adventure came my way, be it a smile from my sixth-grade crush or getting invited to a sleepover. Mom worked hard—at times waitressing at two places to make ends meet. But, underneath her hard-working façade, was despair. She cried in my little lap when she was drunk. “Peggy, why don’t my mom love me?” And she cried about Joseph, the baby she gave up for adoption. I wanted to make it better, but I didn't know how. I felt responsible for her.
But when I was with my friends, I put my home life out of my mind and focused on being a kid. That is, until Mom dropped a bomb. The night she told Deb and me that the end was coming, everything I’d found joy in disappeared. No more friends, no more school, no more Friday night skating, no more boyfriends. Mom told us if we didn't act and think like a perfect servant of God, we’d be tossed into the Lake of Fire for eternity. I had nightmares in which I'm thrown on a pile of burning bodies still alive, shrieking and flailing. In others, I'm wandering around half naked, starving because I didn't take the sign of the Beast: 666. When I was awake, I'd audit my thoughts every waking moment, ousting every doubtful thought about Mom, fearing she'd read them and confront me. My life went from just a kid being raised by her single mother, to a kid whose mom claimed to be the incarnation of Jesus who was going to be killed by nonbelievers in three and a half years, setting off the End of Times.
Perfect maps the riveting, winding path I navigated before, during, and after the Kingdom. It also takes you into the layered complexities of my relationship with Mom. You'll see the inner workings of the brainwasher and the brainwashee, and what led to Mom's beliefs becoming so distorted. Perfect challenges what we think about religion, the fragility of the mind, and destiny. It demonstrates the impact of trauma and the power of resilience. Readers will fear for me and cheer for me. They’ll despise Mom, but they’ll also come to understand her.
Perfect is not a light read. Bring your tissues and a stress ball.
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