Yes, I'm aware of several.
Did You Personally Know Any JWs That Were Sexually Molested By Other JWs?
by minimus 147 Replies latest watchtower child-abuse
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Lady Lee
Min
Still, in one's limited experience, it might be what they've seen. I dunno.
Exactly. The people without problems will go unnoticed. They wouldn't be having problems serious enough to go to the elders.
In my case the elders knew my past. One of them was the same PO that had told my mother to send my aunt to live somewhere else and send me to foster care while keeping the abuser in the home. So they knew.
It is well known that many survivors have some serious problems due to the abuse. What is less well known is that there is another group who try to compensate for the abuse and try to become "perfectly good" as if somehow this will erase the effects. This is the group I fit into.
I tried to be perfectly good. There were things that slipped through sometimes but I tried to keep them hidden. I tried to be a perfectly good wife, mother and JW. In the end it almost killed me but I held up the facade for many years and as Mouthy call tell you the facade looked good on the outside. But in 17 years no one would have guessed about my past. In fact people who didn't know were shocked when I told them.
I was not alone. Many of the women I worked fell into this category. For years they functioned at a very high level and no one knew until they finally realized the damage and that it had to be dealt with.
I'm not saying they didn't have problem. I had problems but hid it well. So did these women. But you would never have seen them in a hospital ward. You never would have seen them going to elders about their abuse.
If I had chosen to just walk out on my husband and forget about the stupid blood-guilt thing (in case he committed adultery) no one would have known why I left. If I had never told my husband to be about the abuse he never would have known. Our problems would have been attributed to something else. It would have been so easy to stay in denial about the damage caused by the sexual abuse.
Labeling us as doomed to a future of psych wards in hospitals is insulting. At least in my books
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minimus
Lee, I appreciate your comments. I understand your insult, I really do. I, obviously consider you a very smart, sharp minded woman. You also seem to me, to be a emotionally charged person when it comes to this issue.
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Lady Lee
You also seem to me, to be a emotionally charged person when it comes to this issue
Yea I hate being labeled and put in a box. I admit it.
You know Min I learned many ways to cope through the years. And they worked well for me and most likely would have continued to work well if my husband wasn't abusing me and we weren't living in the JW box. So there were two other controls over me plus I was living in a province where English speaking people were treated as second class citizens. So even going out to get a job was an issue because I could not learn French. Not that I didn't try. I took college level courses and passed them but it was something beyond me when it came to real life. So my whole environment was controlling me and eventually I couldn't take it anymore.
Leaving the JWs and my husband at least gave me room to begin to build my life around my needs. And like many others I did better than I thought I would. Since then I have never thought about suicide. I have never gotten back to that depression that sees no way out.
Life is so much better than I ever thought it could be.
I've been honored to watch women discover they have the power to make their lives better and then use that power to recover.
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Gayle
Yes. My friend, Mary Borg, has just written a book about her experience, being molested by her step-father while being raised a JW. He, some years later, even became an elder. I am only half-way through the book yet. It is Letters to my Mother, by Mary Ruth Borg (Author House, www.authorhouse.com). I knew her in the '50s and '60s and then lost touch.
Then, we heard from her and her brother in 1995/96 and they told us their story and, needless to say, we were so sickened as we didn't suspect such a thing all that time as they were very involved active JWs all that time. I recommend the book as it shows the emotional turbulence and many rough years caused by the molesting of the very sweet girl I knew then.
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Leprechaun
Humedad de Jehová es demasiado miedo y estúpido proteger a sus propios hijos; me hace enfermos hasta el punto de vómitos.
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Lady Lee
I get the gist of what you say but English please
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mouthy
You also seem to me, to be a emotionally charged person when it comes to this issue.
Mini excuse me for jumping in on this page.But if you KNEW Lady Lee in person you would
realize she is a REAL BRICK..... I saw this gal when we were JWs ( she is the neice of my daughters ex hubby)
She was a WONDERFUL JW... she did the sign language at all assemblies etc:
She smiled sweetly a shy,quite little gal.
I knew her hubby( I am so sorry to judge) but in MY opinion he was "puffed up"
I have not read all the threads as ,I was married to a man that
messed with a couple of girls. So I get sick, remembering it.Just wanted you all to know LL is a great survivor
my 2 cents
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No Longer Held Captive
Labeling us as doomed to a future of psych wards in hospitals is insulting. At least in my books
Lady Lee, nobody is condemning you or anyone to anything, I think you have a problem in interpretation, and maybe take things personally what people say, which are by no means meant personally. I have read your story, and find it tragic, but there are literally 1000s of them in this organisation and others. And here we must be careful, we cannot be so direct, we have to generalize, because if we are direct then it causes all kinds of legal problems. We can be direct, but in a subtle way, so as to get others to draw their conclusions from what wbts say and the harsh realities backed up by hard core facts by showing what really goes on behind those closed doors.
Psych wards while being places of security and safety for some, and a way in to therapy and healing, they are not a long term soloution, and many memories will remain, but to bottle them up and keep them hidden, well at some point like a pressure cooker, it will all come out and burst out and it could be in any form. Yet, the wbts takes no responsibility, they blame the victims, the elders or men who do the abusing are sent to new congregations and the cycle never stops, and it will go on until someone high up twigs about this organisation and actually does something to stop it. Its very heart breaking and sad.
But, now there is a tool, the internet, and the elders cant disfellowship it, they have no power over it, and we have discovered new things, some things are yet to be discovered to shame, name and disgrace this organisation of evil.
They say they are Gods representative, but so do the catholics, and like other evangelicals, proclaim a good news, but not according to accurate knowledge, you can see this in their policies. Would jesus do the things they do? most likely not, and thats how we can tell the fruits of the trees. I am glad, by re-studying, boards like jwn, that I made the move to get out of the burning house, and would hope the 7 million other prisoners would some how wake up, question it all. and come to a conclusion and do the very same.
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truthseekeriam
My opinion ...Lady Lee wants victims to look at their situation as something you can recover from and wants so much for families to see there is hope. I respect and needed to hear that from someone who has been there and knows what she is talking about.
I for one was frightened by what NLHC posted... I know he/her meant no harm and was only giving their experence of what they see but I can see how LL would be offended and want to strongly offer her experence as well.
I'm only a few years into the nightmare of my child being molested by a fellow JW, and trying to do all I can to make our family get back to some kind of normal (not working very well) I prefer to hear positive outlooks. I mean, I now down deep inside that we have no way of knowing how this will effect our child years down the line but we really need to think positive and hope that rubs of on our children.