I bumped into this old threat, but I heard a case in Czech Republic around 1995 when family drove with their car to the river south of Prague, put plastic tube from their exhaust pipe into the car and turned the engine running. Family of four had died, JW man, woman, and two their children. It was also widely reported by the press.
Suicide - How many do you know within the JWs
by Lady Lee 234 Replies latest watchtower scandals
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yadda yadda 2
I know of two, both leaving young children.
Is there are hard data to show whether suicides occur more amongst JW's than in general society?
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joe134cd
I have heard of 5 in the surrounding area over the years. Of those 5, 2 of them I knew personally.
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Julia Orwell
An ms I'd known for years who had depression and a whacko jw wife hanged himself in his own home. A young man raised as a jw but who never got baptizedand got into drugs killed himself in his parents' bathroom. Another one, the jw brother of a I knew in another cong. He had schizophrenia I think. Two jw housemates of mine attempted it. However many we know of, it's far too many. Seems to happen more than among non jws.
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konceptual99
I know a sister who had a history of depression and mental illness who killed herself.
I also know a guy in his twenties who hanged himself in the New Forest after being exposed as having child porn on his computer. The sad thing is that this was just history repeating itself as he had been abused himself.
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adjusted knowledge
Do you know of cases like this? If so then can you answer a few more questions.
Yes
Had this person been DFed or in real danger of being DFed or whatever the equivalent is if they were never baptized?
No, she was in good standing and liked by most in the Hall.
Would you consider that any shunning of the person might have pushed a person over the edge?
She was never shunned.
What status did they have in the cong - baptized or not, elder, MS, woman, minor, active or not, any abuse issues, possible discipline coming up. . .
She was baptized for perhaps 15 years.
She was a very beautiful woman of the age 29 or 30 at the time of her suicide. Her JW husband left her for another christian sister several years earlier. He was DF but quickly reinstated the same year. She was severely depressed and would comfort herself with booze. Her sister lived beside her and went in her house to find her nude hanging from a rafter.
This happened I believe in 1999 or early 2000. So sad and what a waste of life. I left the religion shortly afterwards so I have not much knowledge of other suicides.
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kaik
I had actually browsed old news Czech media and exactly the same suicide happened in 2003 when entire JW family (parents and two children age 9 & 11) died by exhaust pipe put into their car. I wonder if these two cases were interconnected and the families knew each other and later the other imitated the same end. However, both families were from different congregation and lived 100km apart. The case I remember happened around the time I left cult in 1994, the other happend 8-9 years later. The difference between these two cases was that in the first one family had very young children-infant and toddler, while the other were more mature children.
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Watchtower-Free
BTTT
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never a jw
I don't think the religion's policies are entirely responsible for the apparent high suicide rate of JW's and ex-JW's. I think rather the religion pushes those people who already have some predesposition (genetic or life experience) to depression or suicidal actions. I, however, think that religioous leader have a great deal of power to save those people from themselves. That's where the guilt of the Watchtower resides; having the ability to save someone, rather decides to push them over the cliff.