Hi guys,
Well I think I am coming down with something. I have had this feeling recently that something bad is lurking in my body and is just waiting for the appropiate time to make itself manifest. Ive been really stressed out lately which is adding to it. I want to make this rant public and I hope you will excuse me whilst I step onto my soapbox.
I just feel as though I am constantly worried. The gray hairs are shooting through now with a vengeance. I have worries about my life, family and especially money.
The worries I have with my life all basically arise from the whole WT thing. I wish that I could say that I am completely free from it all but I am not now and doubt I ever will be. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to have lots of money, perhaps I would no longer stress myself out about what happened to me when I was growing up in the WT.
I served a hard time in the WT never really having many friends. There was a great lack of youth in my congregation which didnt exactly help me to make new friends. To make matters worse I went through my adolescence in a single sex school, voiding me of any contact with the female kind altogether. I know that some people would be thinking 'well there must have been youngsters in other congregations you could speak to' but that was all a myth for me. I hated the way that certain groups were formed and if you were not in with the elite then you were screwed, destined to be a loner at the meetings. The amount of times I sat at the end of the meeting when my closest friend was not there and felt like a wet cabbage were considerable.
So I make it to 20 and finally leave. This broke of any relationships I had with quote unquote "friends" at the Kingdom Hall. For a couple of years previously I found it a bit easier to break into these groups, but I still wasn't accepted. For a start my daddy was not an elder, in fact, I was one of those awful 'divided household' people. Better stay clear, he might 'stumble you'
The only real good point I got from being a JW all that time was that I was a good speaker. Now I know it sounds like I am blowing my own trumpet here but after years of confidence knocking by people around me you can forgive me if I honk my own horn every now and then. I joined the school when I was 7 and gave over 75 talks, and even whilst unbaptized I stood in for sick brothers and read at the book study. Several older brothers became jealous at my flair of speaking, that I could tell for sure. After all, it was them who were supposed to be teaching me. I remember a Ministerial servant offering me a Bible study at 16, since I wasnt making good progress, I guess he thought he could give me the appropiate spiritual guidance necassary. We used to go through the Watchtower to find me an answer, taking it in turn to read a paragraph. Several times he would discuss the point so much to try to get me to forget who read last so he could read twice in a row. He stumbled his way across the finish line, but it was a breeze in the park to me. He couldn't stand that
So at 20 I joined the real world for the first time. Throughout my school life, my mum had always encouraged me not to make any worldly friends. For this reason I kept my schoolmates at a distance. There were no other boys in my year who were Jehovah's Witnesses. Sport was my passion but I was never confident enough to pull it off, 'you cant show a competitive attitude dont you know'. I shown good form in football when I grabbed it by the bollocks, but most of the time I used to stand at the back in defense and hope that the ball didnt come to me. Left back was my position, even though I was a crap defender and right footed. I just hoped that the ball would not come over, I might get too involved, maybe even win the match, score a goal, be seen as a hero amongst my classmates - not the right Christian attitude.
One of the reason my life is so stressed at the minute is because I never took out a decent education. With the end so near, who needs an education? Give me a dry rag, some fairy liquid and a bucket, stuff the education - it's windowcleaning all the way from now until the 'conclusion of this system of things'. Witnesses love cleaning. It's in their blood. I was also privileged enough to do factory cleaning, a brother offering for me to work alongside him as he cleaning some of the leading hoisery factories in the UK. I am not overly proud of this, but because the people that worked in these places were generally disgusting dirty bastards (some of which spat in the toilets whilst I cleaned) from in particular Asia, I used to use the same cloth to clean the toilet as I did to clean the kitchens.
Since leaving school I struggled to make ends meet with various cleaning jobs and windowcleaning rounds. One mouthy sister commented that I had 'worked with everybody'...a damning statement on my desperation to climb the cleaning ladder. The greatest privilege of my distinguished career came when I upgraded to doing Builders cleans. You haven't lived until you have cleaned a toilet on a building site. The smell of thick bleach and settling plaster can really make your day.
Obviously when I left the Witnesses my cleaning ties were severed. This was a huge blow, but I managed to get into another, far removed genre of work which, as you would have probably guessed by now, was a damn site better than cleaning.
The only problem was that I had absolutley nobody to call or speak with. I had burned my bridges when I left the Kingdom Hall by arguing the case of apostacy to certain people. An elder, who at one time I highly respected, wrote a snotty curt letter, with a scripture 'you were running well. Who hindered you from keeping in the path' or words to that effect... something by Paul anyhow. It had been a few months after I had turned my back on it all and he called at my house to try to get me back. I brought up several points, the one that sticks out in my mind was about the Mediatorship of Jesus, and how the WT says that Christ acts as mediator only for the 144,000. He completely denied that the society had ever said such a thing, and tried to reassure me that he acted as mediator for us all. After a long call, he told me he would come back and discuss it further. 5 years later and I am still waiting. Last Christmas I sent him a card with the scan of the Watchtower magazine questions from readers which confirms their stance on the mediatorship of Jesus. I knew that the reason he did not come back was because he didn't want to admit that an apostate was right all along. Another so called ex friend confirmed my suspicions when he stated that this elder had 'warned me against wasting my time on you'. So much for the one sheep that gets lost.
The point is that I could count on the fingers of one severely severed hand the amount of 'loving brothers and sisters' that came to visit me on my phasing out period. I wasn't expected many, but the results were still disappointing.
At times I feel like Brooks from the Shawshank prison. He was let out after so many years isolation from the outside world, and couldn't make it. I know that I was a mere 20 when I left but growing up in the Witnesses takes it out of you and kills everything youthful, sex being a major factor which is why today I encounter some kind of anti-sexual psyche which I can't seem to shake off. As a youngster growing up in the Witnesses without any form of sexual activity, the only thing one could do was to go for gold in the Olympic wankathon, which led to many prayers begging for forgiveness. I used to cry in those prayers and hope that Armageddon was not lurking around some close corner. This was my reaction every time I engaged in some self-love; - I felt I had betrayed somebody's trust by doing it and felt dirty and ashamed. This reaction to the sexual climax has continued down to this day, unfortunately. After so many years of reacting the same way, I can't seem to shake it off, no matter how far removed I am now from Watchtower teachings.
I wish that at this period of my life my heart was not full of so much anger and hurt. It feels as though I never escaped the teenage years and the feeling of angst which accompanies them. But at the same time I believe that it had to be so, I could not escape my destiny, and it was all planned. I guess that's the only thing that keeps me sane, or else I would sit around and lament, wondering why the whole JW thing had to happen to me.
I struggle for friendship now. I am an easy person to get along with and people comment on my easy going nature. A popular theme at work about me is that as a worker, I am uselessly laid back but as a person I am great. But that's about it, I don't seem to be able to make the after work connection. A few times I have been invited out but even now it is difficult for me go out with 'worldly people', even though as I mentioned earlier the whole WT rules thing means nothing to me now. I find it very hard to adapt, leading to me feeling frustrated with the world around me. I am sure the psychologists out there will have a thing or two to say about that and my love for a conspiracy theory.
Right now I just feel so down. I have money difficulties which rear their ugly head every now and then, and I often become paranoid about the safety of my family. An incident today fueled that paranoia when a member of my family was involved in a bad accident, although everything seems ok now, it seemed bad when it happened. I am very close to my family because they are the only ones I have got; I hope they understand my over-protection of them.
I hope you all dont mind my long irrelevant rant, but it helps to write it down and share with others. Perhaps I sound a little irrational but the events of today have taken their toll and everything seemed to catch up with me. I feel rather ill now and will be glad to see the clock close down the day once more, but I welcome your comments with open arms. Many sincere thanks for reading this long post, I really appreciate it.