WAS YOUR JW HOME DYSFUNCTIONAL?

stillAwitness

Some days are just worse than others: My mother screamed at me for like 10 minutes because I was running late for the bookstudy! i'm like 'dude? You are asking way too much right now! I don't even wanna go to these things!

And ever since that damn KM that came out a couple months ago telling family heads the importance of having a regular family bible study my father won't even let a week pass by without us all gathered around the living room doing a question and ansewr out of the Secret to Family Happiness Book. GAG! And get this? He insistst that we raise our hand to ansewr as if we're in the KH (keep in mind its only me and my mother as the audience)

Tell me your own stories of what it was like with your famillies and maybe I will feel a little better about my own dysfunctional home!

Satanus

Sure was. It's been a while since i was booted out at the age of 16. For at least 4 yrs, after that, i was in bad shape, emotionally. I did crazy things like playing road chicken, drive on the wrong side of the road at an oncoming car.

S

Effervescent

Oh yes! The Family Bible Study... your description brings back some really gag-o-rific memories!

We had ours every week too, for years and years, until the day I left. We studied all sorts of things... I remember studying the youth book, among other things. We never did the WT, we were expected to do that on our own time after school. You know... all that time left over for persuing spiritual goals other than after-school activities. We had to raise our hands too, and we had to prepare for the study ahead of time, so things had to be underlined and all that.

Boy, I wouldn't take a million dollars to go back to those days. My life was lived under a microscope, and nothing I did was good enough for an aspiring Elder's daughter. Blech!

Good luck with what you're going through. I don't envy you.

Spectre

I remember my mom telling the "friends" about how her family was dysfuntional when she grew up. I (sorta) laugh at that since thats exactly the home that she created when I grew up. Right now I can't think of one particular thing, it's more of just the whole package, the whole mindset that I was expected to have while growing up. I'm not really the pessimistic type but I really don't remember any time of being happy while growing up but the unhappiness stays. I do remember one time similar to yours when I was about 11, we were studying for the ministry school and I didn't have the outline(what where those things called, I forgot) and my step-dad would read the paragraph and then ask me a question and get so mad because I wasn't so totally entralled with every word that he read, but then my mom would finally answer while and read it right off the page. What a way to make a kid feel stupid, Dave.

flower

lol that brings back some memories. hang in there.. there is always that period after a km article or assembly program where everyone starts having their 'regular home bible study' again but it never lasts. i'm sure in a few weeks you'll be free and clear.

if you want a tip..my brothers and i used to make it excrutiating for my father to conduct the study we would refuse to read with any emphasis and would not answer any of the questions. after a while he decided to assign each of us a paragraph where we HAD to answer the question if it was our turn. that way we we didnt sit there half the night with no one answering but my mom and my sister. Then we started just quoted the answer word for word from the paragraph without using any of our own words or emphasis. It was the most boring study imaginable to the point where even my father couldnt take it more than a month or two.

serendipity

I guess I was weird. I enjoyed our family studies. We didn't do them regularly for a long period of time, but on and off for 6 years or so.

My parents became JWs in 1973, and were in fear of Armageddon in 1975. They decided to beat goodness into us so we'd make it through. My dad have up a good-paying job to take a job that would allow him time for spiritual activities. It paid much less and he had less autonomy in the job. I became the scapegoat for his frustrations in life. He always had an abusive streak, but since he was home more, we encountered it frequently. He'd beat me with a rope or anything else for the slightest infraction. He seemed to have a goal to give me a beating after every Sunday meeting. He'd ask me questions to see if I was paying attention. If he couldn't trip me up on that, he'd ask me questions about WT theology in general. Fortunately, my mother saw what was going on and put a stop to it after I said "why bother listening. I'll get beat anyway." My mother was unhappy with my dad being around so much, and took her frustrations out on me. Plus she's just a mean person anyway, a perfectionist, and the standards were higher as a JW.

I actually loved "The Truth" as a kid, and didn't mind being different. I just didn't like what it did to my parents.

blondie

Dysfunctional, I thought you meant your parents screamed at you all day long, calling you stupid and dumb, that you would never amount to anything; that your father sexually abused you; and your mother was drunk all the time.

I thought you meant that kind of dysfunctional.

Blondie

sandy

My sister and I used to fight over clothes. I used to barrow her clothes and we'd fight before leaving for the KH. She'd yell at me to give back whatever I took because she's planned on wearing it.

This went on for years even as adults. LOL These memories are not really the bad ones though. They make me laugh now.

LOL, my dad would yell at us "stop fighting, you guys sound like catholics, not real christians."

I know this was very judgemental of my dad but to this day those kind of comments from him make me laugh.

nilfun

My mother screamed at me for like 10 minutes because I was running late for the bookstudy!

I can relate. Sometimes i would play sick so that I could stay home and watch an old movie/musical.

It was weird/confusing and very distressing to be screamed at to get ready for meetings, and then, like flipping a switch -- ta da! we had to be in "the happiest people on earth" mode by the time we arrived at the KH/bookstudy/field service...."shiny happy people"

DannyHaszard

Growing up dub wasn't the "Little house on the prairie" it was scripted from HBO's "Tales from the crypt" click My Life story as a dysfunctional Jehovah's Witness captured me a newspaper interview. ----------- Watchtower Whistleblower: Danny Haszard Bangor Maine Jehovah's Witnesses are the'perfect storm' of deception-in a word they are the cult of Innuendo

WAS YOUR JW HOME DYSFUNCTIONAL?

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