At school, I was shy and had few friends. I felt alienated and alone. But as much I hated my estrangement, it was a welcome retreat from my turbulent home life.

I can remember bus rides home, dreading every stop closer to mine. The sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. The uneasiness as I tried to pretend everything was OK and that I was happy to be going home. The truth was, I wanted so badly to go back to school because it was one of the few places where I felt safe. Sure, some of the kids teased me, but no one beat me or yelled or called me cruel things. Life at school was bearable, life at home was torment.

When I was young, my mother would take me and my brother to church with her. To this day, I have never known my father to attend church except in the case of rare holidays or special occasions. We stopped going only a couple of years after moving into the new house, but it was pretty nice while it lasted. I was too old to attend Children's Church, but I had enough imagination to daydream away during sermons. I usually kept a notepad in my purse so I could doodle and write.

One service in particular sticks out in my mind -- the preacher had chosen the subject of Hell and was delivering what was probably his best fire and brimstone pitch. I can remember snapping to attention because his voice boomed and echoed throughout the church. I wasn't so much afraid of the noise, but was curious because for a man who was usually very cheerful and soft-spoken, he was suddenly loud and angry-sounding. He preached the dangers of living in sin and continuing to live the wicked ways, rejecting God, and so forth. He talked about the fires of Hell, and unending torment, carefully stressing the "forever means forever" angle, and Hell would eventually be here on Earth. I remember thinking that Hell must certainly be a terrible place ... then my thoughts crept to my home life. I realized with a startling clarity and understanding that Hell certainly did exist -- my house was my Hell on Earth.