New here, but not to being an Ex-JW...

amama2six

Hi everyone! I just thought I'd briefly introduce myself. My name is April, I am a Navy wife and mother of six children, will be 30 next month, and have been disfellowshipped for almost 12 years. I was also reproved two years prior to that. I was baptized when I was 9 years old...in my opinion far too young to make such a decision. I look at my two oldest children now (12 and 8 years old) and know neither would be capable of that same decision. My story is long and has a lot to it, but I won't go into all that just now. I'm sure most will come out as I spend more time on the Forum. :) This is the first time I have outright made a step toward facing what I have dealt with and continue to deal with due to my Jehovah's Witness upbringing and eventual shunning. I look forward to conversing with you all!

Junction-Guy

Welcome to the board, and when you have the chance, feel free to talk about your JW history.

yknot

Yes 9 was far to young! There is no way you could have read the OM book and discerned the gravity of a legal binding membership agreement that is the JW baptism!

I think everyone I know who is born-in got dunked because of their parents.

David might have been devoted to God at a young age, but Jesus didn't get dunked until 'near 30' !!!!!!!

I am so glad you have joined! This site has provided so much for so many !

SuperApostateGirl

Welcome! and Wow to the 6 kids part!

Mr. Majestic

Hi April,

Well you didn’t hang around to have kids, and plenty of them. Well done you……how many are you going for….?? Enough to sail a large yacht I’m guessing…..

Baptised at 9, mother at 17……How comes it took you so long to find here then….???

Really interested to know more about your story……..

digderidoo

Welcome to the board.

Paul

Hope4Others

Welcome to Jwd.....

hope4others

amama2six

Thank you, everyone! I honestly have no idea where to start. I CAN say that most of my childhood is pretty vague or has completely vanished from memory, likely due to the trauma I experienced. Here's a little bit, though. It will be a little random, but that's how my memories go on the whole thing. LOL As you all know it is unacceptable to have friends outside of the religion and unfortunately I wasn't the best at MAKING friends IN the religion so I spent most of my time alone or talking to the elderly ladies in the congregation. Unfortunately they kept dying. :( I think I went to ONE sleepover the entire time growing up and they decided to watch "Goonies", which my parents had forbidden me to watch. SO, all the other girls were mad at me for making them not be able to watch the movie and never invited me over again. Darn me for being the "obedient child" who never questioned my parents until I was around 15 years old. NOW I am the "BAD" child, even though my older brother left home when he was 13, spent years in mental institutions, had two prison terms for theft and arson, and doesn't take care of EITHER of his children. Why? I'm assuming because he was never baptized and therefore never DFed. :rolleyes: My father became an Elder during my childhood but ultimately lost his place and was reproved (we won't go into WHY just now). I left for a couple of months when I was 16, got pregnant, then went back because I was scared to be on my own. I was reproved that time. I finally left at 18 for good...my parents reported me to the Elders for "fornication" and I got a phone call to inform me of the committee meeting. I told them to go ahead and DF me and never attended. Those first few years were extremely difficult and I did a lot of inappropriate things just out of spite for all the time I spent conforming to their every whim. Pretty much everything I was told NOT to do (sex, drugs, drinking, etc.) I did just because I had been told not to. I ended up marrying a man I did not love just because he was obsessed with me and I had no self-esteem. That marriage ended a year and a half later...but I quickly fell into another. I am still with my second husband, not on the happiest terms (not the worst either, though) but at this point there's not much to do about it. Sometimes I wonder if things would have worked out differently had I been raised with self-worth and to believe that my own thoughts and feelings mattered. A HUGE part of why I'm here, I guess, is because of the amount of control my own parents gained over me due to raising me in that religion. I have not had my oldest daughter live with me since she was 4 1/2 (when I had my first divorce). At first it was just an offer from my parents to take care of her until I got back on my feet. From there it was all downhill...every time I indicated my desire to have her back (all the while raising other children) they somehow managed to convince me that she was better off with them and I was not "good enough". They stopped going to Kingdom Hall shortly after I was disfellowshipped, by the way, but were never DFed and still haven't really given up the beliefs. At first they were probably right about me not being in the best frame of mind for raising her, but that was over the span of a few months. After that I quickly cleaned up my act and have gone on to live what I'd like to think is a pretty good life. Nothing is ever good enough for them, though. I used to be VERY close to my father...now we rarely talk at all and when we do it's him returning my phone call from his work so my step-mother won't know he talked to me. I have a LOT of pent up anger that occasionally shows itself but usually I just stuff it down and keep the peace during the very few times I DO converse with them. My daughter has recently begun to recognize their controlling ways and understand what I have been dealing with for all these years...at one point she told them she didn't want to live with them anymore and my step-mother called her best friend since first grade to ruin the friendship. It's craziness...like they learned how to manipulate in the religion and have extended it into every aspect of their, my, and my daughter's life. I'm still trying to figure out why I am good enough to raise my other five children but not her...and am figuring out (albeit a bit late) that they're just dishing CRAP to get their own way. I'm sure there's a lot more but I'll leave it at that for now...lol. Thanks again for the welcome! :D

amama2six

I have a question about the Forum itself...is there a reason I can't see my topic in the section I posted it? To get back here I have to click on my name and search my topics, which is a bit of a pain. Thanks for any help! :D

Twitch

Welcome to JdubyaD!

New here, but not to being an Ex-JW...

Share this