How did you “break the cycle” in your family?
The Cleansing: Breaking a Cycle of Confession and Control
My grandmother forced me to confess imagined sins every full moon while my dad watched, then called me her little helper for making the younger kids cry on command. When I finally opened up about how it broke me, how I used to pinch my own little brother to spare him worse, she smiled and said,
“You should be proud.” “You helped save their souls.”
I just stared at her. That was six years ago. Last night, she locked herself in the basement and cried so quietly I almost missed it.
Every full moon, our entire extended family would gather for the cleansing. Children had to gather in my grandmother’s basement and confess every thought, every doubt, every moment of happiness that wasn’t centered on the family. Those who didn’t cry enough were deemed resistant and faced corrections. I was seven the first time I understood what corrections meant.
My cousin Sarah, two years older than me, had smiled during math class because she solved a problem before anyone else. During that month’s cleansing, when it was her turn in the circle, she confessed this moment of pride. But she didn’t cry.
Her voice stayed steady as she admitted to feeling smart, feeling special for those 30 seconds before remembering that individual achievement was selfishness. Grandma’s face went cold.
“No tears means no true repentance,” she said. Sarah disappeared upstairs with three ants. When she came back, her eyes were swollen shut, and she couldn’t sit properly for a week. After that, we all learned to cry on command.
The rules were simple but impossible. Every joy, every laugh, every good feeling that happened outside family time was a betrayal. Got an A on a test? That was pride: putting school above blood. Made a friend? That was dividing your loyalty. Enjoyed a song on the radio? You were letting outsiders influence your spirit.
But here’s what made it truly sick. You also had to confess thoughts you didn’t have yet, sins you might commit, doubts that could creep in. If your confession list was too short, that meant you were hiding something too long, and you were reing in darkness.
My little brother Marcus was five when he made his first real confession. He’d been happy at recess because he went down the slide fast. That was it. Five years old and sobbing because sliding made him smile, but his tears weren’t desperate enough, weren’t enough.
Dad noticed. Dad always noticed when the crying didn’t ring true.
“He’s fighting it,” Dad told Grandma. “The resistance is strong in this one.”
I knew what that meant. We all knew Marcus was going to face corrections unless his tears became more convincing in the next 30 seconds. I did something then that changed everything. I reached over and pinched Marcus hard on the soft skin under his arm where bruises wouldn’t show.
He shrieked. Real pain. Real tears. The adults nodded approvingly.
“There it is,” Grandma murmured, “the spirit breaking through.”
After that night, I became the pincher. During every cleansing, the younger kids would sit near me, and when their tears weren’t enough, I’d help. A twist of skin, a sharp fingernail, whatever it took to keep them from corrections. I collected their pain in small doses to save them from the larger horrors.
By 13, I was an expert at the performance. I kept a mental list of fake sins to confess, spacing them out across months so they seemed natural. I practiced crying in the bathroom mirror, learning exactly how to make my voice crack, how to let snot run for authenticity. But the full moons came too fast. Every 28 days, another basement gathering, another circle of confession, another night of measuring tears like currency.
The worst part was how they made us grateful. After each cleansing, we had to thank them.
“Thank you for saving me from myself.” “Thank you for loving me enough to correct my path.” “Thank you for keeping our family pure.”
The words tasted like ash, but saying them wrong meant starting the whole process over. My cousin David once mumbled his gratitude. Four hours later, when the second round of cleansing finally ended, his gratitude was crystal clear.
