List of family/friends lost to the Watchtower cult? (suicides)

by hubert 90 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  hubert

  After reading about Puternuts (Ari) suicide, and also reading about sabine and js losing their daughter to this cult, I think it would be a fitting memorial, so to speak, to write a list of all the people we know who died because of this cult. I also know that Cruzanheart lost her Dad to it, too.

  I'm sure there are MANY here that can make a list of suicides brought on by the shunning/threatening policies of the Watchtower cult.

  Just make it short, like .....(example)

  your screen name...... daughter.......age........reason for suicide (df-shunned-etc) .... date

  I don't know of any personally, because I was never a j.w., so someone will have to start. Lets see how long this list will end up. (unfortunately)

  We can make "marters" of them, like the Watchtower does with the children who died of the "no blood" policy that are on their cover of the Awake magazine.

  I don't know if this has been done before. If it has, will someone please bring up the link, and you can add to that one, instead.

  May they all rest in Peace.

  Hubert
• 

  Lady Lee

  Lady Lee

  (listed in order of deaths)

  • my aunt Suzanne commited suicide when she was 13 yrs old by drowning. She had been sexually abused and was removed from the home while the abuser remained free. Was a baptized JW
  • Sandy - a close family friend suicide by drowning in her 40's. Abused wife - the elders pushed her to marry him. She really needed psychological counseling which the elders discouraged. She felt like such a failure because she could not be the good JW and get to meetings and do service. Left behind 3 children. Was a baptized JW
  • my sister, Robin, this past Nov 7, 2005 42 years old. drug overdose. After years of believing she wasn't good enough to be a JW decided to be a bad anything else. Lived a sad life of alcohol and drug addiction to cover up the pain of her abusive childhood. left the JWs before ever getting baptized.
• 

  rekless

  son, leukeimia
  wife from thrombocytopenia
  daughter that shunns me.
  
  what did I gain? two sons and a daughter that still loves me,we are all out.
• 

  myself

  I don't want to disclose names due to respect to the victim's and their family's privacy. I knew two friends one a young family man who jumped off a building after being df'd. He had a kind personality, he went through a lot throughout his life, yet he was positive towards others. Too good a person to be in such a destructive cult.

  The other was a friend through my teen and early adult years. She was the maid of honor at my wedding. There were a lot of sad circumstances contributing to her suicide. She had been df'd multiple times, but all she knew was the jw environment. She had problems with bi-polar disorder. The circumstances that probably contributed to her suicide were pure hypocracy. I may start a thread on it sometime, her story should be told.

  I know of a third suicide, it involved an elder (my jw brother's best friend) caught in an affair. He saw the curtains dropping and opted out.
• 

  Sunspot

  I have been out of the loop for seven years and of course no JW talks to me, so my list will not be very current....

  Dianne...early 40's...just moved back to our area a day or two before shooting herself in the head. She was active and "in good standing" in the congregation. Left one teen-age daughter.

  Joel....early 40's....had been DFed and was "working on" re-instatement for years...finally overdosed on pills after at least six separate attempts in various ways. Left four children still at home.

  Larry....late 40's....had been "studying" for about a year and was fighting a fierce alcohol problem since his divorce...saw him at the Sunday meeting...he had a "visit with the elders"....and went home to shoot hmself with a shotgun. Left two daughters 16 and 18...not JWs.

  These are the ones I am sure about. Offhand, there was one more I can think of, that had killed himself (it was SO hush-hush), he had been a reg pioneer and was listed as a JW in the obit column. I never COULD get anyone to answer me as to what the circumstances were that surrounded his death. Mid 20's, was not married. (Sorry, his name escapes me at the moment.)
• 

  greendawn

  Is there any good estimate on the number of people that died as a direct result of the FDS policies? At least in some countries?
  
  There seem to be a lot more of these than I originally thought (about one per year in the USA) judging from what I read here and other websites.
• 

  blindersoff

  I don't want to be too specific, but I know of one person who came home from a cir assembly and did it that night.

  B
• 

  serendipity

  I gave this some thought, and though I only know of one suicide, there were several attempts.

  In the 70's: K.'s Mom became a JW when K. was 14. Her mom was a blunt, independent single working mom, which meant the family was on the low rung of the social ladder at the KH. Few invitiations were issued to that family and they became isolated. At age 16, K. tried to overdose on pills because of the isolation and because her mom wasn't letting her do normal teenage things with 'worldly' kids. Fortunately her sister found found her in time and K. made it through. None of the family are JWs today.

  Also in the 70's: R. was raised by a JW mom. R. was never baptized, but still felt very guilty for fornicating. She had an abortion which pushed her over the edge, and she also overdosed on pills. Her mother found her and took her to the hospital. Fortunately R. made it through. At her hospital bedside, her mother, being a typical judging JW, condemned her to die at Armageddon because of her suicide attempt.

  In the 80's: After I moved away from home, I ended up going to a congregation that was very cold. Since I wasn't a pioneer, had a college degree, a professional job and a sports car, I was marked as spiritually weak. I had no friends in the cong. My family of JWs didn't bother calling either. Feeling lonely and unloved, I started dating a 'worldly' guy and nature took it's course. I then felt very guilty. One night out of desperation I decided to end it. I looked in the medicine cabinet, and all I had were 8 aspirins. Not enough to do the job. I looked at cleaning supplies and read the labels to see what the effects of ingestion would be. At that point I chickened out because I don't like pain. I knew the most painless method was carbon monoxide poisoning. If I had a garage back then, I'd be dead today.

  In the 90's: J. was injured on the job. His injuries forced him to go on disability and move back home with his family in his late 30's. He felt like a failure as a man and he felt like a failure as a JW. Booze was his companion as he blew his brains out. R.I.P. J.
• 

  Gretchen956

  Alan Swyers, Tucson, AZ committed suicide at 16 because he was gay and a witness and thought he'd do Jehovah a favor.

  Sherry
• 

  stillAwitness

  Mother of 2 children O'D's on prescription pills.

  First thing my mom says: "See what happens when youleave Jehovah's organization?" (She had been D'F and of course shunned by her family.)

  Nobody has offered to take the kids.