Start of Claustrophobia

I'm not going to try and keep things in chronological order; I'm just going to write down what I remember or what I've been told.

1973-1974 Background: My mother and I shared one bedroom, one bed.
Because my aunt had a habit of stealing, my mother put two locks on the inside of our door, and the outside had a padlock.
At this time I could only reach one lock; I wasn't tall enough to reach the second.

I distinctly remember it storming; I was in the bedroom playing; I wasn't near the door; the door was open.

Suddenly the door slammed shut. I'm 3-4 years old; it scares me.

I go to open the door, and both inside locks lock.

I start screaming.

My grandmother comes running; she's telling me how to unlock the door, but I can't even reach the top lock, and every time I try to unlock the bottom lock, it keeps sliding back into the lock position.

Now in my mind, I was locked in for hours—I don't know how true that is, as they refused to discuss it ever.

I know the room was pitch black; I know my aunt was on the outside, clapping her hands and yelling; she hoped I died; she hoped the devil came and got me.

Whether I had a vivid imagination for a not yet 5-year-old or whether she somehow conjured something up, I don't know, but I will swear to the day I die what I saw and what I felt was as real as I am.

At some point, I looked over, and underneath our bed were flames; there were faces with open mouths in the flames; I could hear screams and moans; there was a tall red figure with a pitchfork; he wasn't goat-like; he was just a man with horns on his head, and he was laughing at me.

I hid in a corner by the door.

This lasted for hours but probably was only minutes.

At some point, my grandmother called my great-aunt, and they tried to get this door to open and failed.

They could not take the doorknob off; they could not take the door hinges off; they could not unlock it.

These women were not helpless little women; they could do plumbing; they could make furniture; they were more than able to remove a door, yet they couldn't.

I distinctly remember them getting an ax and trying to chop their way to the inside lock—again, that may just be my imagination, although I'm fairly certain there is a mark on that door.

I don't know how they got me, but eventually they did.

I came away from that day with a deep fear of small enclosed rooms, locked doors, and the dark.

The church we went to was not a hellfire and brimstone church; it preached gentle love for mankind, so how at that age I even knew what hell was—I don't know, but there you have it.