NO ROOM TO GROW
Young people are expected to associate only with fellow JWs. If attending School, then involvement with any school activity or association outside of school hours is frowned upon. Talents an individual may have cannot be expressed if it is going to take time away from "theocratic activity".
Further education when leaving school is also deemed unnecessary, only to be pursued if a person has difficulty finding a job; but his motive for doing so is so that he can further the Kingdom interests, (increase his contributions)
This type of “Kingdom outlook” makes it extremely hard for those who are not "ministry minded". It also isolates individuals who do not lean towards Kingdom interests. Separation among the “blessed” and the “less blessed” becomes apparent. Everyone wants a pioneers/Servants at their social gatherings and of course the perfect marriage partner must come from that group also.
My son began to suffer with depression, he had developed severe Acne and become very self conscious, not able to venture out the house. The hospital prescribed a vitamin A derivative drug called Roaccutane,to help his skin condition. The depression got worse, he felt the only way out, was to end his life. Two serious attempts at suicide followed. Regarding Roaccutine, we have since discovered, that a number of suicides have been recorded while people were on this drug.
On the second occasion, I remember waking up in the early hours of the morning, finding him collapsed on the sofa, shivering and shaking violently as if he had fallen into an ice cold pond. He had taken 28 high dosage capsules of Paracetamol, washed down with a bottle of whisky, this plus slug pellets, left the physician at the hospital giving us little hope of his recovery. Lying on the Hospital bed, my son was in agony but found the breath to say that things would be O.K, he would see us in the new system, in Paradise.
The speedy trip to the Hospital and onto a drip had saved Aron. It would be some weeks before he would recover fully, but it was during this period that I had some time off work, a long overdue time to reflect at what had been happening to my family. My mother had died the year before under distressing circumstances and I was thinking about all the things we could have done together when she was alive.
Now I had nearly lost my son, This had a profound affect on my wife and I, it caused me to do some real soul searching. This religion was said to be a "protection and blessing", yet 17yrs of religious "Cult like" separation from normal social contact, had taken its toll.
The months passed and very few called by our home to ask how things were. To make it worse the presiding overseer suggested that my son have a Bible Study!!!!!
Well during those weeks at home I began to search for answers. the events over the past year had jolted me to my senses. Questions that you push to the back of your mind as a J.Witness, and thoughts that you do not permit yourself to entertain, now began to surface. I would no longer look at this religion through rose coloured spectacles.
I wanted to learn exactly what the "truth" was.
part 4 tomorrow
Radar