| I was a 4th generation J.W. Even though I was raised as a Witness,
this did not free my sister and I from sexual, mental and physical
abuses. I was very strong willed which got me into lots of trouble,
making the abuse seve re. I ran away from home when I was 15 and lived
in-group homes until I became of age. I always had a love for justice
and it was only a matter of time before I too followed suit and became
a J.W. along with my older sister. Because of my abusive background
left me with the inability to cope with many problems and caused
severe depression that took years to over come. Without a doubt there
were some definate positive benefits that came with becoming a
witness. I worked through a lot of my irrational fears, stopped
smoking and messing around with drugs (a bad habit I picked up from
the group homes) however finding real friends were a problem. I found
that J.W. tendencies are they don't want to be your friends, they want
to control and manipulate everything you do. We had the congregation
try to prevent my husband and I from getting married. I've been
criticized for having children, owning pets, and investing in real
estate and a new van. I am a very out going bubbly person and have a
good sense of humor, and speak my mind, which has caused me to be
rebuked and marked (which follows everywhere you go). I always tried
to keep an open mind, I didn't agree with the Society when they said
that our children were J.W.'s just because we were and told my son's
teachers that very thing and to please respect what ever decision he
made. Along with this, I saw nothing wrong with playing with squirt
and cap guns, and toward the end of my being a J.W. I even bought some
raffle tickets because I did not see any Scripture that said,
"thou shall not" Which has caused me to be harshly judged
all the time that I was a J.W.
When I was 21, I married and my husband moved me from Anchorage,
AK. to a small town in Southeast AK.
At first things were o.k. , I aux. Pioneered for a few years. I
began to see the hypocrisies and double standards for the privileged
vs. someone like me. I always tried to do things the way the Society
suggested. For instance, when working territory you are supposed to
work ALL the houses unless marked as "Do not call" but in
our small congregation, it was done differently. You were not supposed
to go to the houses that were someone else R.V.s, but the Society said
to, so I did. Even though I never took them as R.V.s., I was called an
R.V. thief. There were many things like this that happened all the
time. But things began to take a turn when I got cancer in 1987. The
congregation refused to help emotionally or physically until the
circuit overseer came through and told them to help us, only then did
they begin to bring my family meals, still leaving me with caring for
an infant son and aged mother-in- law on my own. The chemotherapy left
me with bipolar effective disorder which caused me to bounce from
depression that was so severe that left me feeling suicidal to being
very energetic and flighty for many years. Of course Christians are
not supposed to be depressed, it shows a lack of faith (which was far
from the truth). After I was given a clean bill of health a year
later, we had a new elder move into our town that was charismatic and
very controlling. He had the congregation wrapped around his little
finger. He did and said things that really made me begin to question
why Jehovah would allow him to be in this position for so long. He
loved having power over people. He would get on the podium and say
things like "if you are not regular at the meetings or in field
service then you are an apostate" . This caused me a lot of
anguish because I could not make all of the meetings and go in field
service regularly.
We had a successful janitorial company that employed up to 7 (which
3 were J.W.'s) people, this elder demanded that we give some of our
good contracts to "friends" he was bringing up. Of course we
wouldn't because it would cause our business to fail. From this point
on we were on his shit list. When we needed a place to stay during a
housing shortage, this elder would not put us up in his hotel he owned
(and money was not an issue for us) even though he had done it for
others and constantly put up overseers. When we finally got our house
he instructed everyone not to help us, but when a new elder moved to
town, there was an abundance of help.
As the years went by I continued to struggle with depression and
now the cause was because I was a witness. I could not live up to the
constant demands; I was becoming suicidal because of the lack love and
inflexibility of the congregation. We did our best to be good
Christians and helped people financially when we had good contracts.
We helped families to assemblies out of town, we helped a brother
paying a couple thousand of dollars to pay back taxes and get him
credit so he could eventually buy a house. We have also paid to get
peoples cars repaired, and for haircuts, not to mention, we drove 10
miles out of our way to pick up a brother for work for almost a year.
After all we did, when we needed help it was not there!
We found that our second child had autism and was possibly retarded
when he was about 2 years old. The congregation was just awful; I was
accused of being abusive because I gently sat on him to keep him from
harming himself or others. I had a sister tell me he was going to end
in up jail, and numerous people who thought they could give me advice
such as "he needs a good spanking." I found a worldly
support group to be more understanding a helpful.
The elders instructed the congregation not to help us; no one could
study with our 6 year old son because it was our responsibility even
though we were consumed with the intense problems with our handicapped
son.
So instead of getting help or any kind of understanding from the
congregation, we were told not to bring our son to meetings because he
was disruptive. Which would not have been a problem if they would have
let us have a key to the kingdom hall so we could practice sitting in
the main hall before the people came.
The elders exasperated the problem by not leaving my son and me
alone when I was trying to calm him in the library. So I was forced to
stay home with him, in the mean time no one came by or called for
months. We requested a telephone tie in but weren't granted it even
thought the overseer told them to. The Branch overseer requested me to
write the Society about our special problems but I was not allowed to
write anything negative about what was happening in the congregation.
Even though we were treated badly we continued to serve Jeh ovah
the best we could. I did a lot of letter writing and informal
witnessing and would put in 30 or more hours a month. This controlling
elder would call me and tell me that I was not allowed to write down
so much time and would delete most of it. When my Natural father (to
whom I was not raised with) passed away, the congregation mistreated
me because I went to a worldly funeral. Also this elder on a
shepherding call told me that I would not see my father in Paradise
which caused me a lot of anguish during a very hard time. We still
remained faithful not knowing how much more we could stand, I kept
praying and asking if this really were the truth.
The answer took a couple of more years but finally materialized
after a sister we were very close to (who also was mistreated because
she was going to college) was raped and murdered. She had bought some
property outside of Anchorage and had plans to build a home. We bought
the lot next to hers and were making plans to build also. She was in a
bad marriage. Her husband was abusive, raped and killed her on the day
we were to come home. I was the last person to see her before she was
killed. I was so numb that every moment of my life seemed unreal. I
had horrible nightmares, I would dream that I kill ed her husband over
and over. I confronted a sister who told me I had to stop dreaming
these dreams because I would be held accountable in front of Jehovah
as if I had committed this action! I began having a nervous break down
and the congregation once again did absolutely nothing to help us.
After we had returned we found our contracts that we left in the care
of two ministerial servants were in such bad shape that we almost lost
them. We had been gone for 6 weeks and had been paying them every two
weeks trusting they done the work to which they did not. The elders
did nothing to help us to rectify the wrongs; they would not get
involved. One of the servants had a habit of lying to us and stole
from our contracts on 2 separate occasions; the other was rude and
insubordinate. We did not fire him because his wife was going to have
a baby. In the end they called us cheats because we let him go at the
end of the contract. We requested them to read the articles that the
society put out but they would not (including the elders).
In the mean time my nervous break down was almost in full swing. No
one came by and no one called to check on us, we dropped out of sight
for about a year and no one cared. I pleaded for help and there was
none. To make a very long story short, what we saw was so vicious and
cruel that I could write a book on the amount of inhumanity that the
congregation displayed. In our isolation we did a lot of research and
found many historical facts, such as the 607 date being incorrect and
many other t hings that I began to look into my great grandmothers
literature (to which I have lot of) and was very surprised at what I
learned. My sister had been disfellowshipped after her husband
abandoned her and she remarried after 4 years of trying to get her
witness husband to take care of their family, sent me Ray Franz's
book. It was then my eyes began to be opened, the things I learned I
found I had to tell someone. I made a brother swear to secrecy about
all the dates of prediction (I witnessed the 1975 when I was a young
teen) that didn't come true, and the 607 date being off by 21 years
among with other things. He went straight to the elders and before the
weekend was over I had the elders (who had not come by for a year)
questioning me. I was at the peak of my break down and did not want to
talk to them, they would not stop harassing me and I even had one grab
my wrist to which I kicked him wear it hurt the most to get him to let
go. My therapist was horrified by their actions wrote them a stern
letter about their actions being counter productive and to not keep
coming over to my house. After a year of playing cat and mouse through
the mail I was finally disfellowshipped on the grounds of apostasy.
It's been 3 years and I have been reading the Bible on my own since
then and go to a nice church down the road from me, who so far has
been very supportive and curious about my Bible knowledge. |
