Okay, first thank you to the greastest degree for the warm welcome and insight you all have given ITIS and me since I've started visiting your VERY APOSTATE site. I have enjoyed my fifteen minutes of fame here and a lot of folks here have told me I'm somewhat of a curiousity to those who still have unbelieving mates. I'm hoping I can shed some insight to any who would be interested as to the LONG PROCESS that got me to where I am today. My apologies in advance if you don't feel I've shared as much as ITIS. I think this board has been his saving grace through all this, yet I have had some very close friends from my past that I have found recently that share my experience and my feelings about leaving JW's, so they have kind of been my sponsors thus far.
MY LIFE AS A JW
It starts with my maternal grandmother. Her mother died when she was 2 years old. She never had much self esteem or love growing up. She married my ALCOHOLIC abusive grandfather at a young age and they started a family. My mother was first born followed by 2 brothers, and then a sister. My grandfather constantly drank, which is hard enough on a marriage. Well, my grandma, being lonely, having 4 kids, and an alcoholic husband FINDS the true religion. Love bomb, big time. About this time, her first born son, being about 12 gets hit by a car, (his siblings watching) and dies later that day due to massive head trauma. Everybody goes home. Grandpa drinks to ease the pain, and no one ever talks about dead uncle K*** ever again. Healthy family, I know!! The drinking, and non-communication continue. My mother and her siblings are basically forced to go to meetings, through guilt by my grandma. My mom, the little rebel, wants out but also wants to make her parents happy. She meets my dad in High School. Here's the interesting part. My dad also comes from a very dysfunctional family. Also had a teenage brother that was hit by a car and died at a young age. My grandma being the good Christian love bombs him into "the truth" and gives him the hope of seeing his dead brother again right here on earth! How wonderful! I have to say, for all my grandparents dysfunction I remember very happy Sunday dinners with the whole family around, lots of fun cookouts, and always feeling a lot of love and adoration from both my grandparents. Anyway, my dad being the genuine, caring, and spiritually searching person buys it, hook-line-and sinker. His parents try to talk him out of it, and he won't quit, so they kick him out of the house. Wow! THis must be THE TRUTH, I'm being persecuted just like Jesus was!! He moves in with a loving surrogate JW family and he and my mom get married shortly after. My mother, the psycho, (which will become more apparent later on) told me when I was about 19 years old that she remembers the day she married my father, and she was walking down the aisle thinking "what am I doing? I don't really love this guy. Well it will at least get me away from my alcoholic dad." Great way to start a marriage right!?
So all this was just before the fervor of 1975. I am born about a year after there marriage. My dad told me that that period of time was the happiest of there lives together. My mom thought she had the "perfect family" finally. My dad secured a good job as a caretaker on a large farm and they lived in an awesome little cottage, had a baby on the way, and they were spiritually zealous since Armageddon was coming soon! My dad says it went downhill fast about 2 years after I was born and he told his employer he needed off for the District Assembly that summer. SHe said no, he said "then I have to quit." She said Okay, thanks for all your hard work. They packed up and had to move into an apartment. My mother resented this new place and arrangement. On the farm where they lived, she had no one around for miles, her garden, her house, her own little bubble of a world. The bubble burst when HE had to make a spiritual stand. The resentment started for her. She became pregnant with my next sibling right after all this. She never wanted this baby. She would scream at my father and tell him she was trapped now, in this apartment, with his kids. He never made enough money, she wanted more, he never was a man enough to her. Well here comes along my poor unwanted brother. The kid knew it from day one. When I was about 5 my dad scrimped and was able to afford a real fixer-up for us to move into. "yes, it needs work" he told my mom, "but it's YOUR house and you have a yard again also!" You'd think she'd appreciate this. Nope. The marriage pretty much disintigrated after this. About the age of 7 when my dad could not take anymore, he commited adultery with one of my mom's closest friends. I remember being only 7 and having NO ONE tell me what was going on, but I could see it all. I thought my mom was a total idiot then, and I just felt sorry for my dad. Here's an example of how warped the "judicial" meetings were for them. For some reason, my brother and I sat through some of these meetings. I remember about a week before my parents were supposed to meet with the elders again to decide if they wanted to try patch things up, my mom was talking to my grandma in her kitchen and telling her about this upcoming meeting. My mom said something to the effect "they're crazy if they think I'll go back with HIM!" So, we go in for a meeting and the elders ask my mom and dad if they think they want to continue this relationship....I remember thinking "hey - this is a big question I"d like to know the answer to!" I looked at my poor father with his head and shoulders slumped and he was just shaking his head no. My mother - looking like the "innocent" mate in this regard said as shiningly as she could " I want this to work out, but if HE says no, then I guess we can't." I wanted so bad to tell the elders what my mother had told my grandmother the previous week, but I just sat there. I was only 7......
My mom turned into an ever more bitter, cold woman. She even turned on my brother and I. She worked all the time, and we just felt like a nuisance to her. We pretty muched stopped going to meetings and my dad and stepmom were DFed. I remember during this time, some IDIOT elder sitting me and my 4 YEAR OLD brother down and giving us a list of "proper things" we could talk to our stepmom about. Ex. - we could ask her for a sandwich if we were hungry, but we couldn't talk to her about things that weren't NECESSARY. YIKES!!! what a bunch of insanity. After about 6 months, an elder in our hall at the time loans my mom some money to help keep our house. All of a sudden, she is back to meetings, and inviting this single elder over for dinner and coffee and such. They were married about 6 months later. I remember being pretty cool with it. He seemed really nice. He had money, and that made my mom happy, so therefore she liked me and my brother again. Things changed drastically when they got married. THis guy was the PO (presiding overseer) in our hall and he often referred to our congregation as "his congregation." My mom was SOO happy. She had money, status, and the illusion of the perfect family. New rules when this guy moves in - breakfast 7 am. dinner 6 pm - 7 days a week, no exceptions. 3 meetings a week, family study, service on saturday and sunday. No posters, music, phones, or tvs in our rooms. We weren't even allowed to watch "Different Strokes" because Arnold spoke disrespectfully to his father. He was unreasonable to a great degree. During this time, my poor dad and stepmom, racked with guilt, get reinstated, and always make every effort to still be in my brother and I's life. Things just go from bad to worse as my brother and I enter teenagehood. My youngest sister is born when I'm 13 so now my stepdad has his own kid. We kind of take a backseat. My brother and I handled things very differently from here. He rebeled big time. He was back and forth between my mom and dad's houses. He was always causing some kind of trouble. I, on the other hand, wanted everybody to just get along. I just kept my mouth shut and did as I was told. My mom and stepdad learned to bully me really quickly. Looking back, I never obeyed them or Jehovah out of love, but it was out of FEAR. I was terrified of my parents. I was very unhappy all through my teenage years. Being like every other very restricted witness kid who needs to rebel just to feel sane, I would drink and get involved with guys I never should have. I still had a conscience and really did try to still keep some sort of boundaries for myself, but it was hard to do when you just want to rebel so badly. I was very good at never getting caught, and my brother was always making bigger waves than me, so I never had to sit through any judicial meetings. My grandfather actually got baptized when I was a kid. He also got DF'ed shortly after for the drinking again. He was reinstated on one of his "on the wagon" swings and then got very sick with cancer. Mostly he got baptized to try to make some sort of ammends to my grandmother. My grandmother managed to guilt all of her surviving children to also get baptized, my mom included.
I had gotten baptized when I was 16 mostly because I was feeling guilt over all my indiscretions, and to try to make my mom and dad notice and love me. THey were so happy with me, and that felt SO good. I was on a spiritual high because I felt LOVE from my family IF I was SPIRITUAL. Patterns forming...............
I remember being that age and going to a Circuit Assembly and listening to a talk that basically said "if you've been raised in the truth and you know the right thing to do, yet don't get baptized, then you're STILL accountable!" Well I was screwed either way. I might as well get baptized because I did "know better" and I really wanted to make sure I made it to the new system so I could see my recently deceased grandfather.
I graduated High School and moved to a new state with my mom, stepfather, brother and sister. I didn't want to go, but I had no choice in the decision. We moved to an area that needed "help" spiritually. I was 18 and looking for something to make me feel good about myself, so I started to pioneer. In all honesty, I was so happy during this time. I had friends who were doing the same thing I was, pioneering and working, and I felt that I was finally doing ENOUGH for Jehovah. Of course, my parents and the elders were so proud of me and that felt great. During this time, my brother really started going off the deep end. He couldn't take my mom and stepfather any longer and he says now, that he just knew he couldn't be a witness. He went really crazy for awhile and so my mom and stepdad basically told him, our way or the highway. He chose the highway and also legally divorced my mother and her parental rights from him. It was pretty bad. He became physically and verbally abusive to all of us before he left. So my brother leaves and we never talk about him again. Just pretend it didn't happen.
I met ITIS about year later. He was a good little Bethelite and I a pioneer. You'd think my parents would be thrilled. No. My mom and stepfather saw they were losing CONTROL over me and my decisions and they tightened the reigns even tighter. (They have major control issues!) ITIS and I really tried to do everything they asked for about 2 years while we were dating and then the total unreasonableness became too much and after many discussions with our elders I decided to leave home. I moved out and there was screaming and abusive speech and violence. (Real Christian huh?!) I was actually very proud of myself through all of this, because I did things calmly and the way I was supposed to. I left there holding my head high. I moved with ITIS to his home state and we got married shortly afterward. My mother never came to the wedding (at the kingdom hall, and we were in good standing, a pioneer and bethelite) and didn't talk to me until about 3 years later when I became pregnant the first time. After I left home, the elders in my hall wanted to basically have a meeting with my parents and find out what the heck was happening in there house, seeing as I was the second child to leave under severely bad circumstances. I couldn't take that emotionally at the time and told them, if my stepdad neeeded to be taken down as an elder I wouldn't be the one to do it. If needed to be taken down something would happen that would show he needed to be taken down. About a year later, my sister got in trouble, still living at home, and his glorifying position of eldership was removed. He has never been reappointed since. Karmas a great thing......
I continued to be a good pioneer and ITIS and I were so excited to be young and serving Jehovah together. After we were married I got a first hand taste of how difficult life can be for a religiously divided family. We lived close by ITIS parents and siblings and I couldn't believe how hard the situation was for his parents. We moved to a new state after the first year we were married and then I became pregnant after we were married about 3 years. During this time ITIS's parents decided they'd had enough and his father (a ubm) filed for divorce. It was really ugly. Lies and back biting on both sides. It was really bad. We had a really hard time during all this. We were broke financially, a baby on the way, and ITIS going through his parents divorce. ITIS has always had trouble communicating with me and these circumstances just shut him up into a tight corner that I couldn't get into for nothing. Our first child was born and I pretty much figured we'd be divorced soon. ITIS was so distant to me. We always loved eachother so much, but there was ALWAYS this wall between us and I could never figure out what it was. We struggled along for years, through up and down periods and then our second child was born about 3 years later. Things seemed a little better for us. Financially we were better and I had some hope for us. During all this time I totally struggled with feelings of never being able to do enough for Jehovah. I was supposed to be pioneering, not having babies! Or at least that's what it seemed like all the WT articles and assemblies were telling us! ITIS never took the lead spiritually like the GB says he is supposed to, so I had to. Let me tell you, it doesn't take long before you totally resent your husband if you are in that situation. Even though he loved me, and the kids, I resented him for leaving all the spiritual burden on me. We just celebrated our ten year anniversary recently, and like ITIS said in his thread, it was bitter-sweet. I could tell SOMETHING had been up with him for a long time and yet he wouldn't say anything, which was usual in our relationship. I really wanted my marriage to work, but at this point I was thinking "I can't do this another ten years." Sad place to be.
After about a year of him being totally distant and I having no idea what is going on, I finally confronted him with it once and for all. That was the day when ITIS's thread on "the s**t hit the fan" showed up. By the way, for all you UBM's - a lot of ITIS's threads would have things like "I planted another seed today" were not helpful to me AT ALL! Those seeds he thought he was planting were only pissing me off greatly. I knew deep down that the real issue was big and I was just wanting to SCREAM out "OH WOULD YOU JUST SAY WHAT"S UP WITH YOU!!" I was very aware of all his bible study and I knew it wasn't for the "right" reasons to me. I knew he was only researching to find fault with the WTS. I have to tell you at this point, that there were always things that bothered me about being a witness. I hated the sexism, I hated the hypocrites (my mom and stepfather), I hated the judgemental stuff, I hated being so different when I was younger, etc. However, I could always, somehow, rationalize all that away. I really believed the JW's were the ONLY worldwide brotherhood, they WERE god's channel today, and that I had to look at the BIGGER picture when "little" things bothered me. Besides, everyone I've ever known and loved believed it, so IT HAS to be true. I was in a very low spiritual state at the time, and I decided I'm going to really try to get myself going again and really understand the prophecies from the Daniel book this time around at bookstudy. I started a timeline, on my own, and weeks started to go by. I was totally confused at trying to figure the dates out for things that happened with Jerusalem and Nebuchadnezzar. Nothing added up. That's about the time, I found ITIS's info on his desk from history books about Jerusalems destruction NOT being in 607. I immediately had a pit in my stomach. My husband was an APOSTATE- I had proof now. It's funny that even though I was having trouble putting my time line together, I just figured I wasn't understanding it yet, not that the WTS was making up dates. When I finally had enough, I did confront him and pretty much made him tell me what was going on. (You can read this thread in his posts) It was seriously like a bad dream. He actually handled himself so well. Very calm, and sincere. One thing I wouldn't recommend though is he threw a lot of things at me at once. 607, the Trinity, the cross, falsifying growth from the GB, and a few other things. I wished he hadn't given me so much, but he really needed to get a lot off his chest also. We talked for quite a few hours and honestly I was more mad than anything. I really truly felt like this was a further excuse from him to justify neglecting me further and giving himself an excuse to not do spiritual things. I went to bed with one thought in my head - "it's either my marriage or my faith." Either way, I didn't see any easy way out. I didn't sleep at all that night. Tossed and turned. The next day I tried to get up and couldn't face things. I basically turned into a zombie for about 4 days. I would get up to take a shower so I could cry as loud and as much as I wanted and I could pray to god. I prayed so hard. Gut-wrenching soul searching prayers. My husband left some of his "information" out so I could look over it if I wanted to. I told myself I at least owed it to my husband, who has always been a reasonable person, and to our marriage to at least listen to his reservations about the WTS. I was crushed at what I was reading. All the false dates for Armageddon, right there in print. It threw me down so hard I really wondered if I'd ever recover from this. The next few weeks, I just read, researched and talked to my husband. He was great about not pushing me or giving ultimatums. It's only been a few months so far, and I feel like I've come so far, and yet it amazes me that I could leave "my faith" so quickly. Just shows how deep it really was. Not that deep........
One other factor that has played into this all coming to a head, is that my youngest sister has finally escaped from my mom and stepfather also. She's done some pretty serious self destructive stuff lately, but she finally moved out with a fully paid college scholarship, a good job, and a good group of "wordly kids" she's rooming with. The same thing has happened to her as with my brother and I. She has basically been written off. I finally recently have confronted my mother with the issues I had about her and I and she is in complete denial. She and my stepfather will not admit to any error or pattern with their 3 children. I got to thinking about how my mother caOne other factor that has played into all this is that my youngest sister now 19 has finally also had to escape from my mother and stepfather. She and my brother were never baptized and my sister has done some n justify writing all 3 of her children off? The only answer I can come up with is her religion has told her it's okay to cut even your children off when they displease you. That just doesn't sit with me. I could never treat my own children that way.
This is still a process for me. It's still very new. I guess you could say it took me 30 years to "see the light." I range from anger to deep sadness to tremendous power and freedom. It changes every day. I do think it's very difficult for someone who is raised a JW (or Mormon, or SDA,etc.) to break from the very controlled and rigid mindset. It's like trying to convince someone Red is Red when all there life they've been told Red is Blue. It's almost intellectually an impossible jump. I do think you have to be a bit of a free thinker and have courage to check and see what's outside the box, even if it's just a peek. In my opinion, being a JW my whole life up till now, people who come to this religion later in life come because of a tragedy in their life, death or something like that, or they have something missing. Then WOW, JW's show up at there door answering all their questions. It has to be god, right?
Hope this has given some insight to all of you who are looking for it. Thank you for listening to this, it's actually been very therapeutic for me......
so......questions? comments?