This is a nice big open board, thought I'd throw myself out there.
Recently I had been a part of the "e-jehovah's witness" board. It's run by Robert King (or was anyway...). I don't know how many of you know him, but he does the e-watchman articles online. He's a really smart dude, and has some pretty interesting ideas, and everything he believes is always backed up by his faith in the Bible...
The board was pretty much cancelled recently which sucks. But what are you gonna do? Anyway. So I've been looking around and decided to come here.
My story is really too long to tell. I get tired of telling it, it almost sounds pathetic to me. Especially as I don't think I even care that much anymore. So cold I guess.
Ok so here we go. I will give the cliff notes version. I was raised a JW all my life, I never had a problem with it, and frankly I liked being very unique in comparison to all my fellow school mates. Never had a restricted childhood IMO. My parents saved as much as they could and we went on trips all over the US. Visited at least 40 states while I was growing up, had a great time.
Well, childhood was great, till I was 11 years old, pretty close to turning 12. Something happened that changed me and I was never the same, never got past it, and it's always with me now. My brother molested me and did more than just that to me as well. Raped me once. Of course I buried all this, eventually I got bigger and stronger and could fight my brother off and he stopped. But I just buried it, like it never happened. I'll just block this part of my life out like it never happened and move on.
I can relate all too well now that I know more about what goes on in Congregations. I feel so ashamed. People that have been hurt inside the congregation. The SilentLambs website has some good news articles on just how widespread this sort of thing is and how one sided it can be. Entire congregations defending pedophiles in court.
My brother is only a few years older than me, but he was much bigger than me. There's not much recourse against that as he was a minor. But I don't really care.
So I buried it and lived my life. Fortunately my mom and pop have always been what I would call liberal JWs. I was allowed to play sports as a teenager in highschool, I went to college and got a degree in Mechanical Engineering from a great school. I partied a lot after I turned 21, joined the "Sailing" team, which was a real big excuse to drink and party. But you know, the whole time I held onto what I considered very personal morals for myself. And I believe in the Bible very much, so I do agree with the standards that Jehovah would lay down and the life that Jesus lead demonstrated how strongly he felt about doing his fathers will. There were lots of girls around, but I never did anything with any of them, even when they were falling down drunk and it would have been real easy. I was never into "dating" or having fun with "relationships" I figured, I have friends for fun, if I want to marry someone I want it to be because it's important not just a joke. (Not to say that people just date for fun or anything)
Well, I ended up getting involved with another witness girl. I was about 23 then, I knew pretty much what I wanted. We had been friends for a pretty long time and I knew her fairly well. For some reason there was just a huge attraction between us, I had been around really beautiful girls before, but I just didn't want them. I wanted her a lot, so I went for it. We got physically involved and eventually had sex. We kept a tight lid on it, but we weren't just joking around either. We really cared for each other. She was my best friend and I was hers. We hid so many things from our past from our families, and friends, that we would never want them to see. For fear if they saw how damaged we were they would see us as something ugly, something less than desirable. But I opened up, told her what happened to me all those years ago, which I had never told anyone. I never even prayed to Jehovah about it. I wish I had, I wish I had more faith that Jehovah would hear me.
Eventually I got a good job and we started looking at houses, and I bought a ring, and proposed to her. Even went out with her parents her sporting it and everything. It was all good. About 3 weeks after she said yes, she cheated on me. I was blindsided. We had some struggles and some near break-ups before. But we always talked it out and I knew for sure we cared about each other. But somewhere in her, it didn't matter that she cared about me, she just wanted to feel good. Apparently I wasn't enough. She had a very similar thing happen to her when she was young, just like me. But she didn't internalize like I did, she lashed out at people to put the spotlight on them. For fear it should be on her and her front crumble under it. I still loved her anyway, I just figured she did that cause people didn't bother to try to give her a chance and if I showed her I was just like her she would get past that, and I would too.
Well, she came crawling back after about a week. Begged for me to forgive her, said it would be different, we wouldn't have break-up scares anymore and she'd be with me forever. Well, 3 weeks after that she cheated again, with a different guy. And she left me this time for good.
**Oh BTW, she told her mother what happened to me when I was a kid, and then her mother being the gossip she is was telling other people my brother was a danger to be around their children. While I have my issues with my brother, he would never hurt a child, we was a kid too when all that stuff happened. It's ok for me to have my feelings, but that woman had no right to do that, neither did my girl to just talk about it. Anyway, I had to talk to the elders about it. Can you imagine describing what happened to you to a group of 3 men in a closed room? It was easily the most humiliating experience of my life. So I'm dealing with all this during the proposal, cheating, and breakup**
Well. I have no idea what to do, I quit goig to our meetings of course. She and I are still trying to be something...she keeps telling me I can't just never speak to her again, she's like "you're still my best friend and you know more about me than anyone" About 3 weeks after that I lose my job. Partly because I found it impossible to focus with all this crap going on.
Finally, I decide I don't know what I'm doing anymore, and I didn't want to go on being a JW. I talked it over with my parents, and feeling like I feel, I just felt wrong, and out of place. Even though I know a lot of people who do wrong stuff and keep pluggin away like they are the holiest people on earth, for me, I have my standard and my vows. And I felt like I broke them, so I needed to do something to change that. So I confessed. I don't know how on earth I brought myself to do that. If anyone can imagine what it's like to love someone, who knows all of you and knowing how much you love them...but if I do this thing that person will hate me as much as I ever loved them. And that's exactly what happened. She hated me. Hate like you have never seen. It was ugly.
She started to text me, harass me, she trapped me at my apartment once by blocking my car. To scream at me, telling me how much better these other guys were, telling all the details right in my face, and I was just broken. Nothing.
So I get disfellowshipped. And eventually get another job, in another town. I have to rent two places cause I have a lease I can't get out of. And so May strolls around last year. And I start getting phone calls. Blocked, private, but I know it was her. And guess what, she is calling ON HER WEDDING DAY! She married the second guy she cheated on me with, why she married him I don't know. It struck me funny that she even believes in marriage at all, cause according to her god doesn't even exist and we should all have as much fun as we can.
Now, I know a lot of people who are disfellowshipped, and I respect everyones view. But I know what I want for my life too. I am trying to go back and always have been. Don't judge me for it, I don't judge anyone who makes the decision to leave. But anyway, so I am attending meetings at my old KH, it's about an hour drive, but since I was DFd there I figured it would show more to the elders there about being willing to go. So the week after she gets married, she shows up with the guy at our KH. Which they do not go to. And why they would ever want to come back is beyond me. They mock everyone there and don't care. I say if you really feel that way just leave, don't be pathetic and act like you want to do something just to have friends or whatever, do what you believe in.
But of course after the meeting I live and they are following me out, laughing at my back, I feel weak but I manage to make it to my car and get out of there.
Well, eventually she stopped harrassing me. Cause I never responded and never gave in. But I asked for reinstatement before I moved to my new congregation in the new town when my old lease was up. No. But they did say as long as I keep doing what I'm doing it won't be long. I was like OK good. It hadn't been 1 year yet, I'll just ask again at the new congregation after one year.
Both times, no bibles, no questions about how I feel about Jehovah, what I'm doing with my life. Nothing. I've been at every meeting I could physically make. And they were just like "with a sin of this kind and it went on for this long, etc, etc" we just want to make sure you're ok. I was like...SOB.
Has anyone of these men read about the Man in Corinth at all? Or ever for that matter. We just had an article on this 2 weeks ago. "Accept Jehovahs Discipline." The man in Corinth is said to have been committing sin "As not even seen in the nations" and secondly was reinstated in less than 1 year, Paul wrote the letters to the Corinthians in the same year.
I had a long talk with my father. And his of the same opinion and finds this really ridiculous. He told me "You know I raised sheep when I cam back from Vietnam. On the Farm. These men don't know anything about sheperding a flock. You know they have special fencing for sheep...most people used to use Cattle fence. But what would happen is a sheep could just poke its head thru those square holes and get stuck. And if you didn't watch them, it would try desperately to get free and eventually cut its neck on the fence and die. The sheperd would come over and get the sheep out before that happens. Or at least they should."
I like my pop. He's a real man IMO. But I don't even know what I'm doing right now. I missed a few meetings. But I'm still going. It just pisses me off to have to listen to some of the nonsense. But I'm pretty good at blocking it out now. What I find real funny is I'm probably the best attender in the whole congregation, yet I'm disfellowshipped.
But I mean, when you say, ok, I'm sorry, I'm truly sorry for what I've done. I'm really sorry to Jehovah most of all. And you tell people how you feel and they throw it right in your face and go, No. Not good enough. It's crushing...and I'm so tired...and I've already had a life that makes me question the value I have everyday. It's not like I need one more thing to press me down and make me feel less that worthless. But anyway.
Sorry, I said this was the cliff notes. But that's as short as I could make it. Think it's time to drown out some sorrows.