Well I guess the thing to do here is to kinda tell your story so that is what I'm going to attempt to here. Even though it makes me a bit nervous.
My experience with the Jehovah's Witnesses was short compared to lots of people here. I was only involved for about 3 yrs. I was young and impressionable.
I was working at McDonalds and one of the managers (Awake & Watching) there was a Jehovah's Witness. I knew nothing about the JW's, I was brought up in a small community church and the thought of another religion kind of intrigued me I guess. I started studying with Awake & Watching when I was around 16 yrs old or so.
She would give me the Watchtower and Awake to read and I would take them home and put them under my pillows to hide them from my parents. My parents found the publications and told me if I wanted to continue to study I had to move out of the house. So I left my house and moved in with A&W and her family. I practically had nothing to do with my family for the whole time I was studying. This was very difficult. I remember wanting to die several times during that time. I wanted to please everyone but there was no possible way.
When I turned 19 I was baptized at a convention and made a few friends in the "truth".
Well the fact that I couldn't celebrate holidays or do what "normal" 19 yr old did was wearing on me. At this time I worked with alot of partiers and they convinced me that I should have fun while I'm young. They took me to parties and bars and got me drunk, I think just to see the "good girl" do something wrong.
Of course A & W heard about me doing all these things and had me go talk to the elders. I was disfellowshipped a few weeks later. It really killed me that I couldn't talk to A & W. I tried to commit suicide a few times after that with overdoses and spent a couple of weeks in the mental ward of the hospital. At this time my family was back in my life and my dad refused to see me in the hospital for the counselling sessions.
I found another church to start going to and met a guy there and we started dating. I figured he was a good guy since we met at church right? Well he date raped me so being the "good christian girl" I had to marry him because we had sex.....stupid. We didn't have a good marriage, I bent over backwards to try to make him happy and he finally told me that he never really loved me. He said he married me just so I wouldn't try to kill myself again. So we ended up getting a divorce.
Well I joined a dating service right after the divorce was final. I dated several guys but knew I had to find a guy that is a Christian. That is what Christian girls do right? Well I found someone and he was head over heels for me from the beginning which really attracted me to him since I was rejected by my ex-husband. He was very religious, he is a Pentecostal's Preacher's Kid. I married him about a year and a half after my divorce.
We have been involved with about 4 churches and I feel like I still just try to make everyone happy by putting on the "christian, good girl" act or "playing church". Try to force the whole "speaking in tongues" and all.
In Sept of last year we had a "falling out" with the congregation of the church we helped to start 5 yrs ago. We are currently not going to a church and I am sort of enjoying it because it is giving me a break from acting if that makes any sense.
Like I said this isn't the typical story you see on a JW site and I'm not really sure how much being a Witness for a short time influenced my decisions later on in life.
Thanks for letting me share here.
ConnieD29