Doomsday prepper dad prepares her for COVID-19
“My dad was a Southern Baptist minister and a doomsday prepper. I was raised in Palestine, up in East Texas. We lived in the parsonage next to the church where my dad preached. But he also built a little cabin in the woods, just outside the town of Rusk. It didn’t have plumbing, but it did have electricity. That was sort of a weekend getaway/ultimate destination if the grid ever went down and things got really bad.
“My dad was always a little mistrustful of the government. So I think he was just worried that something might happen and his family wouldn’t be safe. I guess in his mind it was really important to make sure that no matter what, we would be fine. In a way, that was very sweet. But in a way, it was kind of like, OK dad, please stop.
“I was homeschooled, and I had very little contact with anybody outside my parents’ social circle. So I just sort of thought it was normal. It was actually kind of terrifying as a little kid. I would have problems sometimes, thinking about the world ending. It was a big source of anxiety for me. Then, as I got a little older, and the world was supposed to have ended a whole lot of times but it hadn’t, it made me a bit cynical about conspiracy theories and that sort of thing. Like, yeah, I’ve heard it all before.
“Then when COVID hit, it felt like something I’ve almost been waiting for my whole life. Obviously, I’m not happy about it. But it was like, OK, I can do this. I feel like I’m ready for this. It would have been a big source of anxiety for me as a child. But now, as an adult, I’m not panicking. I have my bad days like everybody else, where I’m worried. But, you know, I sleep at night. It’s going to be OK.”
— Rebecca Barker
A former Baytown resident, Rebecca lives in Michigan with her husband and their daughter.
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