Welcome to JWD Domina.
I am new
by Domina 27 Replies latest jw friends
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Domina
Okies... twisted my arm lol. It is funny, I still wonder if people reading my posts knew me when I was a 'good witness'. Almost like I am going to get caught, even though I have been open about what I hold to be truth now. Blah... gotta love programming >.< I actually have my story saved, might one day publish it, maybe help others as I have been helped :) I was born into a very abusive household. My mom did not have it in her to stop my dad from being the big bad he was. I understand it now, that they are both broken, but back then I just felt alone and scared most of the time. When I was nine, my dad beat my mom so badly that she had me stay with my sister until she healed up. Enter the witness sibling. She told me I could come and stay with her and her family. They lived in a clean house, where the electric was paid... very appealing when you come from the background I did. She started taking me to meetings, doing family study, the whole nine yards. I wanted so badly to please them, because I did not want to go back to where I had been. Looking back on it now, I think it was not much better than where I was... the abuse was there, but was emotional and mental... much harder to show scars, much harder to heal them. Stuff that I would see in the magazines would be what was happening at home, yelling and being called names. Yet she was a pioneer and he was an elder, so there was really no where for me to go. They were pillars of the congregation, I was just a kid. I was baptized at age 11, and even though I could spout the answers they wanted to hear when being ’prepped’ for baptism, I never really connected to it. I was taken out of school (she says I asked to be... ...) but home schooling consisted of me reading and doing all the work by myself. I was not really allowed to have friends over. I was lonely. I was ill prepared for the world. I would get in trouble because my room would be a sty... and it was. But coming from the parents who would rather buy drugs than pay rent, that kind of training sort of slipped their notice lol. I auxiliary pioneered for the summer months, but was always in her car group, so I never got to associate with anyone she did not approve of (which was pretty much everyone, pioneer or not). I was so lonely I tried to commit suicide... but did it wrong, because obviously I am still here lol. Talk about an ego buster... I could not even kill myself right! I stayed in my room, which was still messy, because I was scared to leave it. Then, because I was such a problem child to her, she shipped me off to visit my sister in the Midwest. THANKS BE TO THE GODS!! This sister taught me basic stuff like how to open a checking account, or get a job (something the other sister complained about, but never showed me how to do) At this time I was 17, and did not have a drivers license nor did I even know how to really drive. Although a sister I have, who is not a witness tried to teach me, until my guardian sister said I could not associate with her anymore. My sister from the Midwest are what witnesses are supposed to be, good people. She is the only thing I regret losing when I disassociated myself. The seven years I spent in the Midwest were growing up times, and she was there for every single growing pain, helping me to be strong. She is the main reason I am not violently nasty towards witnesses now. When I moved back to Nevada, the sister that had raised me acted as though she had done nothing wrong. Enough so that I thought maybe I had glorified what had happened, or villianized it, in any case making it seem more than it was. I tried once again to build a relationship with her. At this point I was not a witness any longer. Her two sons were both out of the truth (one had been able to move back with his birth mother and become semi normal lol, the other had been disfellowshipped). Just when I started to think maybe we had healed enough, she writes me a vile, disgusting letter. She accused me of abusing her son, the one who was disfellowshipped, saying how she always knew I was a bad person and that she suspected I had done this the whole time I was there. One... we did play doctor. They had never seen girl parts, and I had never seen boy parts. That was it. Two... If you suspected someone was abusing your child, would you just let it go??? What the f#@k was she smoking to make her think a 11 year old girl was such a bad person, and then let it keep happening, if she is so sure it was? Three... she was supposed to raise us to be strong in the truth... hmm... no one is still in it with her... what does that say? It took me years to not feel guilty all of the time. I still have that ’what if’ at times. Because of the conditioning I have gone through, it is a conscious effort to not let myself worry about Armageddon. I have been lucky enough to come across some sites, some beautiful people, and actually my healing has truly been over this last year. I am proud to be pagan, that is where I was meant to be, but it is hard for me to beat those ingrained tendencies. I think I will be fighting those for years to come. But, I am free now. And my children will never be forced to make the choices, or to feel the pain that I have because of witnesses in good standing.(Found the namaste while sneaking peeks still as a witness, means so much for one little word) Not saying they are all bad, but I have met too many to believe that it is the chosen religion of a loving god. Anywho, there is my pity party, and glad to say that chapter is closed!
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Domina
I had spaces in there. It would not let me post unless I removed the HTML formatting... for those who now have a headache from reading, my apologies
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Mr. Majestic
Hope you don't mind:-
Okies... twisted my arm lol. It is funny, I still wonder if people reading my posts knew me when I was a 'good witness'. Almost like I am going to get caught, even though I have been open about what I hold to be truth now. Blah... gotta love programming >.< I actually have my story saved, might one day publish it, maybe help others as I have been helped :)
I was born into a very abusive household. My mom did not have it in her to stop my dad from being the big bad he was. I understand it now, that they are both broken, but back then I just felt alone and scared most of the time. When I was nine, my dad beat my mom so badly that she had me stay with my sister until she healed up. Enter the witness sibling.
She told me I could come and stay with her and her family. They lived in a clean house, where the electric was paid... very appealing when you come from the background I did. She started taking me to meetings, doing family study, the whole nine yards. I wanted so badly to please them, because I did not want to go back to where I had been. Looking back on it now, I think it was not much better than where I was... the abuse was there, but was emotional and mental... much harder to show scars, much harder to heal them. Stuff that I would see in the magazines would be what was happening at home, yelling and being called names. Yet she was a pioneer and he was an elder, so there was really no where for me to go. They were pillars of the congregation, I was just a kid.
I was baptized at age 11, and even though I could spout the answers they wanted to hear when being ’prepped’ for baptism, I never really connected to it. I was taken out of school (she says I asked to be... ...) but home schooling consisted of me reading and doing all the work by myself. I was not really allowed to have friends over. I was lonely. I was ill prepared for the world. I would get in trouble because my room would be a sty... and it was. But coming from the parents who would rather buy drugs than pay rent, that kind of training sort of slipped their notice lol. I auxiliary pioneered for the summer months, but was always in her car group, so I never got to associate with anyone she did not approve of (which was pretty much everyone, pioneer or not).
I was so lonely I tried to commit suicide... but did it wrong, because obviously I am still here lol. Talk about an ego buster... I could not even kill myself right! I stayed in my room, which was still messy, because I was scared to leave it. Then, because I was such a problem child to her, she shipped me off to visit my sister in the Midwest. THANKS BE TO THE GODS!! This sister taught me basic stuff like how to open a checking account, or get a job (something the other sister complained about, but never showed me how to do) At this time I was 17, and did not have a drivers license nor did I even know how to really drive. Although a sister I have, who is not a witness tried to teach me, until my guardian sister said I could not associate with her anymore. My sister from the Midwest are what witnesses are supposed to be, good people. She is the only thing I regret losing when I disassociated myself.
The seven years I spent in the Midwest were growing up times, and she was there for every single growing pain, helping me to be strong. She is the main reason I am not violently nasty towards witnesses now. When I moved back to Nevada, the sister that had raised me acted as though she had done nothing wrong. Enough so that I thought maybe I had glorified what had happened, or villianized it, in any case making it seem more than it was. I tried once again to build a relationship with her. At this point I was not a witness any longer. Her two sons were both out of the truth (one had been able to move back with his birth mother and become semi normal lol, the other had been disfellowshipped).
Just when I started to think maybe we had healed enough, she writes me a vile, disgusting letter. She accused me of abusing her son, the one who was disfellowshipped, saying how she always knew I was a bad person and that she suspected I had done this the whole time I was there. One... we did play doctor. They had never seen girl parts, and I had never seen boy parts. That was it. Two... If you suspected someone was abusing your child, would you just let it go??? What the f#@k was she smoking to make her think a 11 year old girl was such a bad person, and then let it keep happening, if she is so sure it was? Three... she was supposed to raise us to be strong in the truth... hmm... no one is still in it with her... what does that say?
It took me years to not feel guilty all of the time. I still have that ’what if’ at times. Because of the conditioning I have gone through, it is a conscious effort to not let myself worry about Armageddon. I have been lucky enough to come across some sites, some beautiful people, and actually my healing has truly been over this last year. I am proud to be pagan, that is where I was meant to be, but it is hard for me to beat those ingrained tendencies. I think I will be fighting those for years to come. But, I am free now. And my children will never be forced to make the choices, or to feel the pain that I have because of witnesses in good standing.(Found the namaste while sneaking peeks still as a witness, means so much for one little word) Not saying they are all bad, but I have met too many to believe that it is the chosen religion of a loving god. Anywho, there is my pity party, and glad to say that chapter is closed!
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Mr. Majestic
Can equate with a lot your story. Suffered myself a little in the past….
Glad that you had someone that was stable and good enough to show you some kindness, but sorry that you had to deal with such an unstable character as you guardian sister. Not surprising she was as she was though with your home front as it was….
Emotional abuse is often thought to be worse than physical abuse. Physical wounds can heal, but when you are the tender age of 11, the emotional scars run deep and mould you to a certain extent. Can sometimes take years to alter it in any way. But it is terrible that religion can excuse some people in thinking that their abusive behaviour is some how justified.
Hope that you continue to post and make friends on the board. There are some really great people here. Have the feeling you’re guna fit in well……
Mr.M
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Domina
Ty... dont mind... but tell me how please to fix!
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jaguarbass
Hello,Domina.
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StoneWall
Hi and Welcome to the board Domina
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sacolton
Welcome to our family!
Hope you'll stick around for all the fun and thrills!
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Mr. Majestic
but tell me how please to fix!
I’m not sure if this is your problem, but you can’t post directly from ‘Microsoft Word’.
Paste it to ‘Wordpad’ and then copy from there.
Hope this helps…..