(((Sundawn))) - Welcome to this community and thanx for sharing your story. I am terribly sorry for your humiliation by the stupid elders. (Like someone else told me last year, someday, someone is going to take those guys and give them what they deserve - a big hosing with silly string. They're such frigging voyeurs, aren't they?) I'm also sorrier about the situation with your parents. It always hurts to be treated like that, but keeping a good deal of distance from them, after a while, I have found, helps to ease the pain. The more I try to be close to my JW family, or to please or appease them, the more unhappy I am; that's because they are sick and because their sickness helps me to become sicker, too. Staying away and accepting that it is healthier for me has been the best course of action, for me. I am not subjected to their degrading ideas, opinions, superstition, mistrust, denial, and unsupportiveness if I stay away. After all, that's what they want me to do, so as not to contaminate them with healthier ideas which create cognitive dissonance (=pain) for them. Believe me, I've tried to be around them, hoping they'd change and accept me and love me as I am. But as long as the WTBTS has a stranglehold on them, they will be incapable of that. Maybe your parents are the exception, but based on what you've said, I feel doubt that you will be able to change them, no matter what you achieve in "the world," because they view "the world" (what's outside the bOrg) as a "sinking ship." I'm sure you've heard that analogy among the JWs before. And in their minds you're on that "sinking ship." But all of us here realize the opposite is true. The WBTS is a sinking ship, as it should be. Maybe you will be able to be there for them when they finally realize that ironic fact; until then, we are here for you. YOU should be proud of YOU! And of your accomplishments. I hope and trust that you are! Hugs to you!
