I remember imagining being tied up and my fingernails pulled out one by one and somebody screaming at me to denounce Jehovah? Anybody else go through this?
Did the word "persecution" scare you as a kid?
by journey-on 24 Replies latest jw friends
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pratt1
Yes, it gave me nightmares.
I started to work out as a kid, so that I would be strong enough to withstand physical torture.
Especially after Malawi it was my worse fear that I would have to watch my mom being raped and not be able to do anything about it.
It was a terrible thing to live with as a child.
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changeling
To an extent. I grew up in the "Malawi era" and accounts of death and torture were common.
changeling
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journey-on
We lived under fear that at any time, THE PERSECUTION, would start. We expected it. We anticipated it. We feared it.
We knew we had to "put on the complete suit of armor" to be able to withstand it. I thought about it a lot as a kid, and tried
to imagine what kind of torture I was going to be put through and feeling afraid I would not be able to endure the physical pain.
(My pain threshold is very low.) Kids should not have to worry about things like this.
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aquagirl
wow,malawi..me too,i grew up in that era..even wrote a letter to an official of malawi..funny..yeah,i always heard of women getting raped,and fingernails being pulled and such..the worst persecution i ever really got was from my dishrag sister and her scumbag husband and their rotten spawn...everyone else is usualy pretty cool....really..weird,isnt it?
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yknot
Nope I was taught a "bring-it on" attitude toward Satan. But I too was warned about the fingernails and other Nazi era tactics.
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MeneMene
I remember being most terrified of the Guillotine and people getting their heads chopped off.
This mess in Iraq & the Middle East brought back those memories.
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journey-on
I remember another thing my siblings and I would do. Ask each other questions like, "What would you do if
they held a gun to Mother's head and said, 'if you don't tell us where the Watchtowers are, we're going to shoot her'?"
This sounds funny, but a small child takes these things seriously!
I've just been thinking about kids raised in this cult lately and wondering just how much deep seated damage is done
to their personalities by this kind of fear.
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Mincan
The Great Tribulation (TM) weighed heavily on my mind often, how we were taught to expect worse treatment than the JWs in the holocaust, always wondering if I would be strong enough to bear it.
This is mental rape.
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beksbks
Malawi generation here too. But no, my understanding of details was vague, and it was made to sound like a wonderful privilege.