I know of 4, two while I was in the Org and two after I was out.
Shame that this religious cult instigates these kinds of things.
The Watchtower Corporation is in the brainwashing business not the mental health business.
Suicide - How many do you know within the JWs
by Lady Lee 234 Replies latest watchtower scandals
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Finkelstein
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TTaTT4U
BTTT
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mentalclarity
My JW uncle- they claimed he had mixed his meds by accident, but there was a note so everyone knew.
Three JW cousins of mine, 1 sibling all attempted while JW. My one cousin was publicly reproved a couple of decades ago because of it. All are still JWs.
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millie210
How horrible to be publicly reproved for a suicide attempt.
Words fail me.
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mentalclarity
@millie210- yeah it happened in the 80's but I learned about it a decade after and it was seen as a huge mistake on the way it was handled.
I remembered another suicide of someone who had been df'd in his teens. It was probably 15 years after so I really don't know what prompted it but his family were all JW so just makes me think maybe he could of reached out for help if he wasn't being shunned.
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millie210
By the way...I meant to add welcome to the group MentalClarity!
On the matter of suicide, I know an elders wife who has attempted it a couple of times. Each time it gets hushed up and covered over by the elder body.
The bulk of the congregation knows too but its not openly acknowledged.
An unhealthy environment by any ones standards~
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Chook
Counting .... Kevin pills, Jordan bag over head, Steve rope in tree ,elders daughter forget name anther rope in tree, sister of a MS jumped off bridge bad marriage I think, elder son drove head on deliberately into the path of a truck .
Brother kevin was gay, Jordan was also very feminine, Steve struggled with being DF twice he got kicked out for sleeping with his fiancé. Elder daughter had acceptance issues , bridge jumper was in bad marriage , truck bloke was bipolar.
Each person that dies is someone's child , sadness caused by the church's rulings is huge.
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JW GoneBad
I learned recently that active elders are not immuned from committing suicide. I read in the exjw reddit forum that an elder in the Shorecliff Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses in Southern California took his own life by hanging.
The stress that 'Mother' puts on a guy, even an elder, can kill him...literally!
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problemaddict 2
I never knew anyone, and I lived in a very high density area in southern CA. Maybe the sunshine helped offset some of the culty type feelings? Not saying this doesn't happen or is a problem, but I never heard of it. Particularly with anyone disfellowshipped.
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dropoffyourkeylee
The suicide rate in the US is about 13 per 100,000 people per year, with the rate for men being higher than for women. I would say I know about 500 JWs in my circle of JW friends and acquaintances. These are people I know by name, who have been to my home for meals, we've talked at the KH, etc. So the way I see it, I would expect about 0.065 (13/100,000 * 500) of my JW friends to die by suicide in a given year. Another way to look at it, I might expect to see 1 suicide in about 15 years among my JW friends.
Just this week I saw the fifth suicide in only 10 years. Four men and one woman.
At least from my perspective, the rate of suicide among JWs is much higher than the general population.