firstly some background.
When I was 21 I went to live in Sydney and left my congregation in Tasmania. Until then I had never seen the bad side of the borg. Being new in town and staying with my non JW sibling I immediately checked in with the local congregation and soon found a fellow witness to share an apartment with. She had moved down from the country, elder's daughter, aux pioneer and me with only my sister in the "truth". Bad move from the start.
My flatmate got very friendly with an elder and his family who I will now call Mr Friendly Elder (or FE) who her dad had asked to make sure she settled in well. I got ill and was having trouble making it to evening meetings as I was coming home from work, having dinner and going straight to bed (some nights didn't even make it to dinner) but, or so I told myself, Jehovah will understand and I still make Sunday meetings.
I then started to notice a change in people's behaviour to me at the congregation, especially FE's crowd. I wanted to go to a international convention the next year and had a meeting with FE and the PO. FE kept at me about "am I sure I can make the commitment". I kept saying yes and he kept saying "are you sure" until I finally got the hint that I wasn't welcome to go. Luckily I had made friends with one of the pioneers whose hubby was a MS and I asked her if it was me or was something wrong. Her MS hubby looked me straight in the eyes and said "You didn't hear it from me but there are some rumours circulating about you" and proceeded to tell me what FE was implying about me. I finally worked out that apparently everytime my lovely flatmate did something questionable she blamed it on me. For example she'd mention a some scene in a movie she'd watched while I was in bed/out/at work or some album she'd listened to. Someone would query about why she had watched it/listened to it and she'd immediately say "Oh I didn't do it, Lani insisted on doing it. I was out doing the laundry/studying/cooking and I couldn't help it."
After a few months of this the sister I was living with announced she was moving in with FE and his family. I was left with a place I couldn't afford. I was tired, ill and I really missed my former congregation and my sister so I decided to go home. To help me out in leaving quickly my soon to be former flatmate and FE offered to store my furniture because he told me he was having a garage sale and he would forward the money on to me. Silly innocent me believed him and went home.
About four weeks later I got a call from former flatmate regarding the bills for the place, power and phone. It was about $75. Knowing how much my furniture was worth (lounge suite, television, bed, wardrobe, dresser, table and chairs, microwave) I said well take the money out of the money you got from the sale and send me the remainder. I got told that flatmate decided to keep it as I had abandoned it, they said they never were planning a garage sale.
Nice huh.
I refused. I said it is worth at least $500 if not more. FE then said either I paid the money or they would keep my reading glasses that I had left behind accidently in the dresser. I refused again.
Well a couple of days afterwards I had a knock on the door and two of the brothers of my home congregation were at my door. I thought they'd dropped by while on field service and offered drinks etc but was told no, they'd come on an official elder visit...... Apparently FE had rung my home congregation, told the PO I had skipped out of the congregation one jump ahead of a judicial committee meeting and had been about to be disfellowshipped. I was instructed to call him.
I knew enough by then not to ring him directly as my elders had requested and instead rang the home of the presiding overseer of the congregation.
Conversation went something like this
PO: Hello this is XXXX
Me: Hi, it's Lani I'm calling from Tassie.
PO: Oh hello, how are you. I hope all is well.
Me: Oh it's fine but I just had a visit from my elders. They said they had been requested to get me to call. Something about a judicial committee meeting I missed and I was being disfellowshipped for something? (surprised query)
PO: Noooooo. (confused).
Me: (acting innocent) Oh maybe its being run by other elders in the congregation.
PO: (sounding annoyed) No, I am PO and I would know of any such meetings. Who called them.
Me: (sounding even more innocent) Oh it was Brother FE. Well if there isn't can you possibly call my PO. They think I'm in trouble and are worried.
PO: Certainly, give me the number and your number and I'll call you later for a chat.
Well to cut what is probably now a really long story a little shorter that my friends is how I was responsible for an Elder being publicly stood down. Didn't last long though. Apparently he was reinstated as an elder within a year or two. After all, lying to your brothers, character assignation and stealing arn't so bad now... are they.
But that was when I first started to see the true side of the borg.