Alright, well, I was about 14. All of my friends were getting baptized at this one particular convention. Plus, there was nothing I could ever do to make my father proud of me. These 2 factors were the most crucial to my wanting to be baptized. Oh yeah, and I loved Jehovah. ;-) I really did. I thought He was real because that's all I'd ever known. I just wanted *somebody!* to be proud of me.
I was used to my father saying "no" to ever single request (Michelle, you can attest to that, lol)....so when I asked him if I could get baptized & he said NO, I figured it was just yet another challenge . My mother was always sleeping and depressed or manically high, and I was at the stage in life when I would yell and curse at my parents daily. It was weird..... if I said "crap" or "butthead", I would get the 3rd degree from my father. But then I would call him a fu(king a$$hole, and he wouldnt do anything. I called my mother names that embarrass me to this day.
There was a lot of verbal abuse in my house on a daily basis. My father smacked the crap out of me one day when he was driving me to school, which was just 5 minutes away. He told me to put my seatbelt on & I said "but its not the law if you're in the back seat." Next thing I knew, I had the $hit beat out of me, I was crying, and then he pulled up to my school and told me to get out. This is just a tiny example of my lovely teenage years.
The elders were quite aware of all of this. They would constantly quote the scripture about "obeying your mother and your father" blah, blah, blah. The point is: THEY KNEW exactly what was going on.
I was allowed to go through my baptismal questions, and I was so excited. The mixture of having my father's approval, sitting with all my buddies, and having Jehovah's blessing was overwhelming. One slight glitch: I was pretty disappointed when I asked my father if I could have a new dress for the occasion and he told me NO.
The morning of my baptism, we were in the hotel and my mother started in on me that i needed to clean my Caboodle (girls, you know what I'm talkin' bout, right? Boys, I swear its non-perverted ). Being the person I was at the time, I refused, saying it wasnt that dirty. It progressively turned from incredibly verbal to physical, and then I unleashed a whole slew of name calling on her. She started bawling and got under the covers...she didnt attend my baptismal day at the assembly. -----> I'm not even lying...this was "normal" in my family and the elders were aware of this.
So I'm sitting there with my friends who were also getting baptized. My nerves were all crazy & I couldnt stop smiling. I was so excited. The next thing I know, somebody tapped me on the shoulder and asked me to go with him to a private room, where my father and two elders were waiting. I'll be honest, I have blocked a lot of what happened in that hour. All I know is: it was the first time that I saw my father cry like a baby. I was bawling as well. Somehow, I was manipulated into "making my own choice" to not get baptized that day....meanwhile, all the baptismal candidates were changing into their bathing suits. I actually forgot about that part until my mother re-hashed the story a couple weeks ago (we get along much better now).
After that episode, I convinced myself that my father's tears were a symbol that actually *did* want me to get baptized, even though he wouln't acknowledge it. So I studied & went through the questions again, and passed. I was baptized the following year. Three years later, I thought to myself "WTF was I thinking" ....
I am in the process of having the elders officially consider my baptism null and void. It appears that it will actually happen. I'll keep you up to date.
