this is a truthfull account of what i went through,it is a work in progress and there is much mor to come.
all i can say to anyone reading this and are contemplating joining or are still a jehovahs witness is DONT join and those that have,LEAVE asap!
Jehovahs witness,my story.
My first memory of the name Jehovah is my mother explaining to me that it was gods name and that it was very special,i was 7 and that was as far as it went.By the time i was 9 i was living in a chilrens home in Salisbury called ‘riverside house’,my mothers health both physical and mental was very poor and so i was there in this alien Victorian building surrounded by strange people,i was the youngest there by a number of years.
On one of my visits to see my mother she mentioned that she had had a visit from a ‘brother’ at her request after a drug induced hallucination which scared the life out of her ,i thaught she meant a monk and was disappointed that it wasn’t ! little more was said of the affair until the spring when i was sent home to my mother again,this time to stay. The first night home she sat me on her bed and told me about Samuel and how his mother had promised god that if she was given a son she would devote him to god,my mother continued to explain that she had done rthe same and had promised me to God if only i could be returned to her. Then for the next 6 hours until 2am she made me read over and over the quote from the bible the parable about the tree that didn’t give fruit being cut down,explaining that if i didn’t show fruit ,ie joining the jw’s that i too would be cut down at Armageddon,well i was scared and given the time of day and the prospect of school in 6 hours i agreed ,i would have agreed to anything,i wanted sleep and more importantly the love of my mother which was made clear was dependant on my jouining the Salisbury congregation.
Within a short while i was attending the meetings,my mother attended a few but then decided it was a drag and that i should write notes of the meetings and tell her all about it when i got home.
As we had no car and couldn’t afford the busses i would usually walk the 2 mile round trip ,rain or shine night or day. I remember being scared shitless walking to the hall on the wilton road in the depths of winter on a Friday night ,often not getting home till 9pm!
I was offered a bible study by a kind brother (names changed to protect the not so innocent!!!!) he had a family with his second wife and would take us swimming and give me a meal,i had to walk the 6 mile round triop to his home in Dews road from mine on bemerton heath,but it got me out from the oppressive regime of my mother and so that was good. This lasted until it was stopped by my mother due to Br singers allowing worldly music to be played in the house!
So then i was to study at home ,my mother would make sure that we never missed pre-study for over 5 years,i was made to study the watchtower study article for up to 4 hours on a Saturday morning when all ‘normal’ kids were out playing in the streets,every scripture looked up and read,the aid book came out every time and that realy made it drag! Sundays i would have to spend the evening ,usually 3 hours studying the book that was being used by the book study group,and Wednesday evenings were a hell that combined all the theocratic schools study articles and the bible readings. In addition to all this was a personal study lasting 2 hours and all the magazines had to be read out loud, so as a child i was spending over 10 hous a week in deep study and then there was the meetings lasting a total od 5 hours. In more recent times i saw the report from the social serviced report that said the social workers had grave doubts that this was in any way good for a child of my age .
At some point early on my mother was offered a bible study with Br Queer,this lasted for 2 years,it was good to have another person in the house once a week. The main problem ‘we’ had was that my mother was a smoker,and this proved to be a major problem,after many attempts by the Elders to stop this my mother was given the ultimatum that either she gave up or she would be come a ‘undisireable associate’,and so she chose to be the bad girl of the hall and continue the smoking.
The night it was announced that my mother was no longer a desired associate at the service meeting on Friday night ,i was dreading it. After the meeting i was treated like a disfellowshiped person,i was about 11 years old,the friends i had at the hall kept well clear of me,the mile long walk home in the dark was hard i cried all the way home.this shunning continued for a long long time eventually i was invited to social gatherings by br Queer to show it was ok to speak to me even play!
Things went the same for a long while,doing all the jw stuff,in addition to the meeting and the study came the field ministry,i realy didn’t want to do it but i was made to,’remember the tree ‘ i was told!
In time i got to see that i could enjoy being in the company of some one other than my mother and see that some folk were nice. The whole day nay life was one big theocratic drama,if i wasn’t studying i was at meetings,or on the work or doing chores for elderly brothers and sisters,there was no time for me,no books were allowed in the house bar the societys literature,all music banned form the house bar the ‘kingdom melodies’,if music came on the telly it would be turned off! And radio was some thing you listened to on a pocket wireless at night under the bed clothes! But then the next day i ad to deal with the guilt.
One highlite was the assemblies,not because it was fun but that it got me out and away from my violent abusive mother,the physical and mental abuse i received from her during all the years i lived at home were unbelievable and the ffects last till this very day,psychologists have expressed wonder at how i have remained reasonably sane and not commited suicide as so many other abuse victims have,one shrink said that what i related to her was some of the worst she has come across in 30 years in the field.I was beaten mercilessly,literally tortured ,and subjected to what i now know to be sleep deproivation,white noise and stress positions some time for a whole night. All this was justified by ‘spare the rod and spoil the child’ scriptures,and others like be obedient to your parents’,i was told that if i told it would cause gods name to be bismerched ,and so i continued on silent,often hovering over the seats at the kingdom hall as i couldn’t sit due to the bruising.
Back to the assemblies,many say they were a terrible bore and a hell to go through,Friday throught to Sunday 7 hours a day,but to me it was respite. Sitting on a hot summers day at twikenham stadium watching the planes or the bible drama was good for me,i was safe ,the only draw back was that at the end of the day i had to go home.
And so life went on ,i got older i believed what i was told,but i was rotted through with guilt for my failings and full of fear of dying at the imminent worlds end,and i was sure i would,on the outside i was a zealous witness a youth held up as an example to the others of how to behave and conduct ones self within the congregation.Often this would lead to friction from other witness kids who would hate my ‘holyness’,one sister was always brow beating her kids asking why they couldn’t be like me,i liked sister silverester very much she was kind,on more than one occasion her son beat me up over my being held up as an example to him.