Not Saluting The Flag Singing The Nat' Anthem, H

by Celtic 9 Replies latest jw friends

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  Celtic

  Not saluting the national flag or standing up to sing the national anthem of your particular country, how did this make you feel at school and what were the reactions of your class mates?

  In your JW upbringings, any other funny, weird or mad school time experiences to share, where there seemed great conflicts of interest, and again, how did these make you feel? With these experiences in mind, how did it shape you into an individual, and finally which specific emotions did you notice within yourselves as you were growing up?

  Tipsy new year!!

  Mark
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  flower

  there really is no way to describe the way it feels as a child to be singled out as different. its hard enough growing up in school where kids can be ruthless but being a witness in school is about as horrifying an experience one can have. the not saluting the flag thing was actually minor in my experience. i mostly just pretended to sing or half salute. the major emotional trauma comes when you have to go to the library or a different classroom because the class is having a holiday party. or when you are a 5 year old but you arent allowed to make the arts and crafts for the holidays like everyone else, you have to just sit in the corner and color a picture or something. when you are in grade school its mostly holiday stuff that causes you most of the anxiety. its the most exciting time of the year for the other kids..new toys, clothes ect. but you arent a part of anything and that is the worst. not being part of anything. then when you get a little older it gets even worse because then there are dances that everyone is talking about and football games and skating parties. at that point you are suffering severe social anxiety and not able to even make friends if you want to. then there is the severe depression that comes when you are feeling so guilty from lying to kids and making up stories about what you did on the weekend or saying you have heard the latest song or seen the latest movie just so you fit it. knowing that you arent allowed to listen to kids music or see movies. there are so many little things that people dont even realize. and of course its straight home after school when all the other kids are playing sports, or working on the yearbook, playing jumprope out on the side walk. you asked about the reaction of classmates. well for me personally i mostly just stayed out of the light. i hid in the back of the class and kept my mouth shut mostly so no one would talk to me. the few times i did make a friend it was short lived. people mostly thought i was snobby because i didnt talk to them or get involved in anything. i was so lonely in school you would not believe it. you also asked what emotion we noticed within ourselves growing up and for me i would have to say self-hate...if that is an emotion. mostly i hated myself and i didnt have any idea that it was the org that was wrong and not me. i had such guilt. i thought I was just different and all the other witnesses were happy. i thought it was because i lied sometimes. i thought that because i ate someones birthday cake or pretended that i celebrated christmas in highschool that is why i was being punished. i honestly thought just i was different because none of my siblings seemed to be going through it. i tried to kill myself for the first time when i was 16 because of that guilt.

  flower
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  Celtic

  That was one of the most eloquently put together replies I have seen upon this board. You really summed it up in a nutshell. You certainly were not alone, the experiences you described so well, fitted my personal experience and I'm sure of very many others here too.

  Cheers for that matey!! Have a Good 'Un this new year!!

  All the best!

  Celtic
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  razorMind

  Once we got out of elementary school, the flag salute wasn't really that big an issue for us. My folks would give us a "Christmas" and really go crazy with toys each year on a day known only to them. And I was an introverted, book-crazy nerd anyway, so spending the day alone in the library during holiday parties was heaven for me. Usually my mom came to get us whenever we had a holiday party.

  I found field service to be the most horrifying ordeal for me. I remember being in the car, fervently praying to Jehovah not to have to go to the rich neighborhoods, or the ones most thickly populated with my schoolmates. By the end of my JW career, I always made a point to be partnered with those so "fanatically zealous" that they'd take every single door, no questions asked.

  Weirdly, my parents seemed to think that we would never, in our lifetimes, have contact with the opposite sex.(It's funny in sitcoms, but it was strangely REAL with us) When I, after much negotiation, finagled a ministerial servant date for the prom, my parents treated me like I was doing something bad, to the point where it was referred to in hushed tones. No word was ever breathed pertaining to us getting married one day. You know how moms and dads will tease their kid about having a crush? If that type of thing was spoken in our house at all, it was with averted eyes and hushed tones, definitely NOT in a joking manner. Sneaking around with boys was perfected to a art by me and my sis. Especially lying about hickeys, bouquets of flowers, Valentine candy, and X-mas gifts from love-struck beaus.

  Specific emotions, I remember feeling normal as a youngster, then something happened once adolescence hit. I remember extreme sadness, desperation, and sleeping days at a time. I remember CRYING for days at a time. I remember lying in bed for days, in the dark, shades drawn. And MIND-NUMBING, ALL-ENCOMPASSING, B-O-R-E-D-O-M.

  Never having real dates, and the whole field service thing, was the most traumatizing to me. I tell co-workers all the time, "I can live without celebrating holidays, but going out in field service? I could NEVER go back to that."

  razorMind
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  flower

  razor,

  wow at least you got to go to a prom. thats cool. and hickeys, valentines and flowers? see i never had the nerve to 'do' anything. my father i think took things a lot farther than other elders. i mean we were literally scared to even try anything. at least i was, when my younger brothers came along they did a LOT more than me and I realized that they didnt get in nearly as much trouble as I thought I would have. now when i think back i wish i hadnt been so terrified of getting in trouble and just did things. of course now i can say that. i never had a boyfriend or a date or anything like that. well actually this other witness boy and i started hanging out a little my senior year of high school. but it was like a week before school got out so it was only for a week or so that we hung out but i think he considered us boyfriend and girlfriend. of course after graduation he was too scared of my dad to pursue it so it was over and the last i heard the poor kid had gone to jail for murder or something like that.

  yes going door to door was very hard for me as well. i always hated going to territories where i knew kids i went to school with lived. it was pretty bad all around. just being there at the door knowing that they want you to go away and leave them alone. it was so demoralizing having to have people hide and pretend not to be home so they dont have to see or talk to you.

  one of the problems i had with the org when i first started to question things was the fact that my parents never 'replaced' any of the things they took away from us. like you said your parents gave yall a 'christmas'. our folks never did anything to make us feel special. we didnt get presents unless we were graduating from high school. we never went on vacation to make up for the 'family time' that others had a xmas. we didnt spend summers at the beach or do anything that would bring us closer as a family and i think a lot of other witness familys did it was just my dad. if you take all that away you have to replace it with something and i think ive read that in the societys literature at some point but of course my dad the hypocrite took what he wanted from the literature and left the rest. the only fun activities we had as kids was when the congregation organized a picnic or something and that wasnt often enough. we werent allowed to watch tv much either growing up so i know how you felt all those countless hours in your room lying in the dark...i was right there with ya.

  flower
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  xjw

  I have struggled with low self-esteem for years because I felt so different. I felt horribly alienated from other people, terribly misunderstood, and all alone in the world. I thought there was something terribly wrong with me -- I had anxiety in school, I was unpopular, I was constantly watching my every move because I might have "sinned". I took the JW doctrines very very seriously. I never dated anyone in high school. I felt guilty for having sexual fantasies. I felt guilty for a lot of things, and I could never relax. I felt like I was always running scared. I am so angry that this isolation from other kids was imposed upon me. I still struggle daily with feelings of worthlessness because I still don't understand why I'm so different from other people and why I don't have the same experiences and happy memories to look back upon as they do. I still haven't experienced the joys of having a long-term relationship, partly because I have been so scared for so long to pursue something so displeasing to God. I took the "deaden your bodily members" scripture VERY seriously. Now I keep wondering why I have no clue what dating is supposed to look like, and why I feel surrounded by people who have had numerous relationships to look back upon and cherish. I feel so left out even now, because even though the past may be in the past, it still affects the present. That's the whole POINT of childhood -- it's supposed to prepare you for what's to come later on, but I feel like I was never prepared for anything and I have been thrown to the wolves to learn everything on my own. I feel so very cheated by my childhood isolation.
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  Englishman

  We don't ever salute the flag in the UK. We used to, as school children, on Empire Day only.

  It's now be downgraded to Commonwealth Day.

  Englishman.

  Bring on the dancing girls!
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  razorMind

  flower,

  QUOTE:
  "like you said your parents gave yall a 'christmas'. our folks never did anything to make us feel special. we didnt get presents unless we were graduating from high school. we never went on vacation to make up for the 'family time' that others had a xmas. we didnt spend summers at the beach or do anything that would bring us closer as a family..."

  See, THAT'S THE KIND OF BULLSHIT I'M TALKING ABOUT. I talked to a co-worker who remembered a Witness family living on her block, and how they used to stand forlornly watching her and the neighborhood kids go trick-or-treating. Also, my husband was watching some TV program and the kids were having a class X-mas party and the lone Witness kid had to sit at her desk apart from the others. And she was crying, having to sit and watch her classmates gorge themselves on candy and cakes and gave a great time.

  IF YA GOTS TA BE "NO PART OF THE WORLD", WHY NOT AT LEAST HAVE THE DECENCY TO LET YOUR KID MISS THAT DAY OF SCHOOL? OR TAKE THEM OUT TO ICE CREAM OR SOMETHING TO MAKE UP FOR THAT SHIT!!! As staid and staunch as my parents were, if nothing else, they'd at least come get us from school. They'd at least let the teacher make us up a bag of goodies to take home. Why let the kid(s) just sit there and feel more miserable?

  But I know all Witness parents don't do that. I think its abominable.

  And as far as the "congregational picnics", I always found it interesting how some congregations have social activities going on every 5 seconds, but some (like ours) would only have something once a year, if even that. My sister tells me that our cong. was known for its "straightlacedness". I find it riduculous that they can't socialize with evil "worldly ones", but never get together with EACH OTHER.

  My sister was the true rebel; whereas I'd hide my Valentine flowers under my bed, she'd display hers proudly on her dresser. She'd boldly go to "worldly" boys' houses, with a Witness living right next door.

  xjw, I feel you on that "running scared" feeling. I had 3 eyes always looking out for someone I knew at the Hall. We had the extreme misfortune to have an aspiring elder heading the janitorial dept at our high school. My sister and I called him "Officer JW Watchdog"; he's always the one running to tell JW parents their kid's business. To this day he continues his "runnin'-and-tellin'". (He prowls the schoolyards and parking lots in his familiar battered blue van, watching) And I totally agree with your last 2 statements. JW children truly are "thrown to the wolves" upon reaching adulthood.
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  unclebruce

  phew, you folk are causing flashbacks .. lol,

  I grew up in Adelaide SA and in the 60's was often cained and 'persecuted' in other ways for being a young JW. The fashion back then was to have a school flag raising ceremony every monday morning in the school quadrangle. My fate was to stand resolute and silent beneath the flag while the 700 or so students sang "God Save the Queen". In 1967 thier tune changed to "Song of Australia". (funny thing is I can remmember the words to those songs yet many of my contempories can't lol)

  I've never trusted asuthority and didn't tell my parents or anyone else the things i went through 'for the truth' at school. This is one reason I go right off at "johnny come lately watchtower defenders" .. going 'through the fire' as a child gives one a deep toughness that can't be explained or beat. (One of the few good things to salvage from the fires of a watchtower upbringing? ;)

  cheers, unclebruce

  PS: Not long ago I told my mother some things my primary school teachers put me through and she was horrified (i thought of it as a private battle between myself and satan .. dad would have seen it differently and gone down there ready to knock heads back with clinchedd fists .. and mum jealously guarded the right to belt her kids ;)
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  aqwsed12345

  The Watchtower frowns upon civil involvement. JWs are not allowed to vote, join trade unions, salute the flag, or serve in the military. All forms of patriotism and political activity are forbidden, on grounds that these activities are "worldly." The Bible commands no such thing, and advises Christians to be in subjection to civil authorities (Romans 13:1-7). The Apostle Paul even appealed to his Roman citizenship and to Caesar in order to fight an unjust accusation (Acts 21:39, 22:25-29, 25:11). Christians are to be the "salt of the earth" (Mt 5:13). Salt in the ancient world was a preserver. We cannot preserve, let alone transform, the institutions of the world if we withdraw from them. Charles Taze Russell, the JW Founder, would today be disfellowshiped for his view on military service:

  There could be nothing against our conscience in going into the army.

  (WT, 15 April 1903, 3179-3180 in reprint)