Growing up in a cult: ‘We kept our pain silent’

From the end of the spanking line, I could see the paddle in Uncle Zephaniah’s hand. The oldest kids, the 12- and 13-year-olds, stood at the front. At five, I was the youngest and would take my punishment last. This was the worst – not only did you have the longest wait, but you endured it alone. Just you, an adult, and a paddle.

We stood single file in the centre of our dorm, a room full of rough-hewn bunk beds stacked three levels high, yellowed sheets covering thin pieces of foam pretending to be mattresses, bare light bulbs hanging from the ceiling.

I didn’t know exactly how adults got punished, but I knew that sometimes they disappeared, got sent away to different communes, in different countries, because they needed to be humbled.Credit: Stocksy

I felt the familiar fear creep over me. Don’t make a sound. Don’t look up. Don’t let anyone see you shaking. Then it started. I kept my eyes on the floor but I could still hear the smacking sound so loud, the thick, unbending slab of wood striking the skin of bare bottoms. We all knew not to cry because that would earn us more swats, so we kept our pain silent, our whimpers as tiny as possible. The older kids were better at controlling their tears; usually, the crying didn’t start until the younger children’s turns.

Suddenly, a high-pitched screech bounced off the tiles and filled every crevice. Who’s doing that? I wondered. They needed to stop. Somebody needed to make them stop. Everybody knows you aren’t allowed to cry like that. The other kids started turning around in line. Everyone looked at me.

My friend Virginia lifted her finger to her lips, her eyes dire with warning. But I couldn’t stop. The sounds burned my throat, hurt my ears. I knew I was in trouble, but I didn’t understand why. The injustice of it all bubbled up inside me – this isn’t fair. It was a thought that I knew, if spoken out loud, would earn me an even worse punishment.

Through my sobs, I remembered the fear I’d felt when I had woken up a few minutes earlier from a sound sleep on my trundle bed. My frizzy, dirty-blonde hair had come loose from my braid and I didn’t want to be chastised by the aunties for messiness.

Nap time could be dangerous. All 22 of us kids were expected to maintain perfect silence, either sleeping or studying the prophet’s words, for the entire two-hour time period, always enforced by an auntie-in-charge. If someone talked or asked to go pee, or did anything else that wasn’t allowed, we all got punished. Sometimes it was hard to know why we were getting punished. One thing might make the aunties mad one day, and the next day they might not even notice. Some things made some of the uncles mad, but not others. I tried so hard, but it was impossible to keep track.

I had heard the raised voices and loud stomping feet entering the dorm as the other kids frantically tried to get in position. I felt so relieved when I saw my mother that I forgot to fall in line like I should have, like I had been trained to do. I should have known better, but I ran to her to comfort me.

The older kids, already in formation, tried to catch me to prevent a harsher punishment, but I flew past them, eyes only on Mom. “Daniella, what are you doing?” she barked. “Get back in line. Everybody is in trouble. I’ve had it up to here with all of your horseplay during quiet time.”

I looked up at her, confused. She was a different mother than the mother she could be when no one was looking.

I looked up at her, confused. She was a different mother than the mother she could be when no one was looking. There was no warmth or friendliness in her eyes, her mouth drawn into a single thin line. It didn’t make sense. I’d done nothing wrong. I was doing what I was supposed to. I was being a good girl.

As older kids’ hands shepherded me back to the line, I understood. Mom would insist I get spanked, whether I was guilty or not. My mother, at that moment, was no longer Mom. She had become Auntie Kristy, the adult in charge of all of us. She couldn’t treat me differently. If she played favourites, she might get punished, too.

I didn’t know exactly how adults got punished, but I knew that sometimes they disappeared, got sent away to different communes, in different countries, because they needed to be humbled. Sometimes kids did, too.

The uncle holding the paddle, Uncle Zephaniah, was my new stepfather, but I knew that wouldn’t change my punishment. He said the same things all the adults always did: “If you aren’t guilty this time, this is for all the times you were guilty and didn’t get caught.”

Author Daniella Mestyanek Young.

I struggled to get my sobs under control, trying to catch my breath. I could be quiet. I could be good.

The line got smaller and smaller as the other kids received their swats and returned to their bunks. It was up to whoever was swinging the paddle to determine the extent of the punishment to be doled out.

In the system we kids had for ranking the uncles’ punishments, Uncle Zephaniah was one of the better ones. In a big group, he usually refrained from repeated swats. Probably because it took a lot of energy to spank more than 20 kids, and he had bad asthma.

As I counted the loud smacks reverberating throughout the room, I felt a kind of stillness. Thinking about the spanks as numbers made them less scary. Numbers were just ideas. Ideas couldn’t hurt me. One. Two. Three. Next child. One. Two. Three. Next child. One. Two. Three. Next child. One. Two. Three.

Only three swats. What a relief! Some of the other Uncles gave 10 or even 20 swats, no matter the size of the offence. There were some, like Uncle Jerry, who we all knew enjoyed hitting us and calling it discipline for God. No matter who was doing the spanking, they always told us that it hurt them more than it hurt us. What a lie.

This isn’t fair, I thought, anger surging through my body. I will never forgive him. I’ll never forgive any of them.

My stomach clenched and I tried to make myself tiny and invisible as it became my turn. Uncle Zephaniah was my new dad. Maybe he would go easy on me when he saw just how small and scared I was. I stepped up all alone. From where I stood, he looked like a giant, his red hair and prickly beard standing on end – he’d probably been woken up from his own nap for this.

He was breathing heavily and moving the paddle back and forth between his hands. “For crying and running out of line, you will receive nine swats, instead of three,” he pronounced.

My sobs broke free again. I glanced desperately over at Mom, hoping she would intervene on my behalf. I was being a good girl, I tried to tell her with my eyes. I don’t deserve to be hit nine times. But she didn’t move. She was not my mother. She was Auntie Kristy. And Uncle Zephaniah was not my new dad; he was today’s punishment uncle. They were leaders in the commune, so they knew better than anyone that you always put The Family before yourself, before your own family.

With shaky hands, I pulled up my hand-me-down dress and dropped my underwear to the floor, leaning over to expose my bare buttocks. Uncle Zephaniah was wheezing, sticky and covered in sweat – even just three swats each had been hard work for him.

I held my breath and braced for what was coming. With the pain of every swat came something else, something stronger. I could feel my face get hot, my teeth grinding into each other, my hands turning into fists. This isn’t fair, I thought, anger surging through my body. I will never forgive him. I’ll never forgive any of them.

This was wrong, and even though I was the one being punished, somewhere deep inside I suspected the wrong thing wasn’t me.

When it was over, I stood up, pulling my underwear back into place before forcing myself to move forward, to hug and thank Uncle Zephaniah for the discipline, the way each of us had been programmed, the way each child had performed before me.

He exited the room in silence, each of us having returned to our beds, only a few muffled sobs coming from the scattered pillows and mattresses on the floor. Back to nap time. Just another day in the Children of God.

Support is available from the National Sexual Assault, Domestic Family Violence Counselling Service at 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732).

Edited extract from Uncultured (Allen & Unwin) by Daniella Mestyanek Young, out now.

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