Hi y'all from ChimpGirl in the UK. Have been posting on Support Board for exJWs for a year or so now and someone there pointed me in your direction. Glad I found ya!
Well, this is just by means of an introduction. Potted history follows: father was CO when my mother fell pregnant with me and they had to settle down. He has been PO of any congregation we've been in. Moved to Ireland in 1973 to convert the evil Catholics before Armageddon. Strangely, I found more evidence of Christian behaviour amongst the Catholics than I did in the congregation.
Started asking way too many questions after 1975 came and went, started noticing the hypocrisy and backbiting, the rivalries and snobberies. It didn't help when a (rather cute) married MS snogged me at a party. I was 14. An elder tried to get off with my mother and the teenagers were involved in all sorts of 'loose conduct'. I didn't judge anyone,but somewhere along the line my mind just flipped out. Started truanting from school, smoking, stealing, sniffing glue, drinking, cutting myself...my mind couldn't cope with it all, I was just exploding.
They DFd me when I was 15, basically because I knew too much about the corruption that was going on, but I didn't care coz I wanted OUT! What followed was years of excessive behaviour followed by bouts of deep, suicidal depression and incandescent rage. I'm bipolar by the way - manic depressive - but they didn't realise that then.
Left home at 16, living in Cork, Ireland, and was largely looked after by the gay and theatrical communities there. Had a hoot, actually, but also did a lot of things I regret. Moved to London when I was 19 - met a boy in a band that was touring Ireland and it was lust at first sight - and got into the whole drugs and occult thing. REally it was alternating between still looking for truth, and seeking oblivion. Very into the Blake thing of the path of excess leading to enlightenment, etc.
Gradually calmed down a bit over the years, on and off anti-depressant medication and tranquilisers, got married four years ago to an incredibly kind and patient man, and between therapy, self-help and medication, have more or less come to terms with the past. Have some contact with parents, who live in hope of me returning to the cult, but I try to appreciate what we do have together rather than mourning what we will never have.
Was a bit of a career girl, working in Mayfair as creative director of a marketing and publishing company, but had a mental breakdown last year, then got hospitalised earlier this year, and they finally sorted my dianosis out properly. Am now busily informing myself (and others!) about bipolar and have been accepted for voluntary work in the mental health sector. Do bits of freelance editing work, but not a lot - overload too easily.
Used to be a music journalist and continue to be possibly obsessively keen on music. Drink too much beer but manage to stay slim. Favourite passtime is bar room philosophy. I paint and draw, write sometimes, although the creative writing urge kinda died when I was doing it for a living.
I'm a Christian now, to my utter amazement, having taken every opportunity possible over the years to attack Christianity as The Enemy. No particular denomination, although I attend an Anglican church. It's got a really easy-going attitude - I turn up in jeans and t-shirt and my big hair extensions and no-one bats an eyelid - and full of love and energy and spontenaity, in the way that the dreaded Kingdom Halls never were. It's across the road from a KH and when we spill out around the same time on a Sunday, the contrast is something to behold; we're all giggling and laughing and headed for a pub lunch, wearing all sorts of motley clothing, and they're in their suits and stuff looking miserable. Poor sods.
Isn't it amazing the way you can spill your guts on the internet to a bunch of total strangers? Still makes me feel a bit nervous, though! Think I'll shut up now - just wanted to introduce myself! Thanks for listening. xxxxxxxxx :-)
