The year is circa 1994 San Antonio Texas. I am sitting in a meeting of elders, ministerial servants and circuit overseer Waschak (sp?). The final topic of a form letter from the society is sexual abuse. The official instructions are to call the legal department if any sexual abuse is reported to the elders. All media inquires are to be ignored and routed to Bethel. The co goes on to relate a local case of a teenage girl who falsely reported to the authorities being abused by her father, to get even for his disciplinary actions towards her. He then went on to generalize how we had many teenage girls in the circuit who were just trouble makers using sex as a weapon. The rest of his comments were out of context and over generalized defending the society.
The manner in which this topic was covered is an example of social denial at it’s best. Just like a dysfunctional family denies any abuse to outsiders this was a dysfunctional religion hiding any abuse to outsiders and insiders to protect its image. The servants were oblivious to the mind programming being done to them to automatically react to defend this abstract society instead of having an open mind to any sexual abuse reported to them.
In working in field service that week with Waschak I got to know his personal philosophy of being anti therapy for any psychological problems. He was a victim of victimizers a follower of followers, a blue-collar worker from Arkansas who browned nosed his way to the top. I often wonder of the lives affected by this bubba mentality that repressed victims denying them professional help by their critical bias towards mental health professionals. It is no wonder JW apologists defend tooth and nail an ideology that was programmed into them.
“Few are they that look through their own eyes and feel with their own heart” A Einstein