I haven't been one to start a lot of threads and I've actually been gone from this board for about a year only to return after the Conti case blew open. I stopped coming here because I had moved on with my life and really started to put being a JW behind me and stopped concerning myself with it.
My anger and hate of the WTBTS had come to a simmer, I don't think it will or would have completely cooled, but then on one fateful morning I awake to an email from my mother. I haven't talked to my mother in about 6 months as our last conversation was her spouting off how great of a time she was having serving where the need was greater and it was all about her and her husband and Jehovah this and Jehovah that. Made me sick. But I digress...
So the email said nothing in it. It just had the link to the Conti case on msnbc. I opened the link and read. When I stopped reading, I read it again. I couldn't believe what I was reading. There was a certain sense of joy, joy of seeing the WTBTS being exposed and losing. Joy in seeing some justice being done for this young woman when she was only 9 years old. Then the anger started to boil. Reading this case and the responses from the WT rep made my anger and hate raise to a level I had never felt before.
This incident opened the floodgates, a wave of emotions of my own experience of abuse as a child. Growing up my mother was suicidal and in a deep depression. She was just not there when you looked into her eyes. There was this glazed look and bewilderment. Her husband at the time was from an abusive family himself, one where all of his brothers and sisters were molested by their father. In fact, they were so twisted being raised this way, this man, whom my mother married, openly confessed to sleeping with his sister, mulitple times. Unfortunately for me, he was now a part of my life. Unfortunately, he was abusive to me, however, not to the level where I would say rape or anything grossly sickening, but still, groping is still abuse.
Although I didn't experience a level of abuse as some, it still exposed me to the policies and procedures of the JC from an early age. Because there were no "two witnesses" to my accusation, there was nothing the elders "could do" to bring this sick man to justice. Believe me when I say I know firsthand the story is true, the WTBTS does nothing to protect it's children. They still let this sick man roam the congregation freely, letting him be in the company of children in service and the parents have no idea what a predator this man is.
Through the years, I'm now in my mid-thirties, I've attempted to confront the elders and get this out in the open, even after moving through several states and countries. In all cases, sitting through a JC and rehashing all of those sickening details all over again. Through all of this, my mother has always been the one, even though there was nothing that the WTBTS could do to "out" this man, she would bring it up every 4-5 years and try again.
A little history of my mother to help understand the f**ked up situation I grew up in. My mother was abused when she was a child in the most severe way you could think, and then some. SRA (Satanic Ritual Abuse) is no milk and cookies. Especially when that SRA was being performed by a CO! This caused her depression and suicidal tendencies when I was a child. My mother was basicly not there to raise me at all. My grandparents were my support system, my fathers parents were amazing, healthy, positive and caring. They instilled everything good in me, they helped me to see the world as it is, not great, but not bad either. They were JWs too, my grandfather was an elder for years, all the way till his death, but he was the most balanced man I have ever met. He never put the organization before his family. Their oldest son, my father, left before I could know him, he had some issues with commitment and liked to screw around. Fast forward to now and he and I have a decent relationship and a positive one, he is not a JW anymore.
So back to now, my mother is nagging me to bring all of this up again with the elders. As if she has some amnesia, she doesn't remember that the last time I went through this with her I told her I will never go through this again. I have sought therapy, went to counselling and am a healthy grown adult. I don't need to go through this again as it would be experiencing the abuse all over again, according to my therapist. I feel like telling her to go to hell to be completely honest. I feel I need to tell her that she needs to seek out a good psychologist/psychiatrist and get the help she needs. But I can't, I can't because I don't want to or because I can't be honest with her. I can't because she has told me that she doesn't want to hear anything negative about the WTBTS. Can you believe that? She is one of those rebellious JWs. She will actively speak out against the things she doesn't agree with, but if I say something I don't agree with, even if it's the same thing she has issue with, she shuts me down, saying I sound like an apostate. It blows my mind.
I honestly want to walk away from her emotionally, I actually want to shun her. I want nothing to do with her as she is not wanting to get help herself and is using my abuse as an outlet for hers. Isn't that abusive in of itself? I know to shun is wrong, I know that it won't help her. But this far into my life, she no longer is someone that is healthy for me to be in contact with. All of our phone conversations or emails revolve around her, her life, her involvement with the org and what "service" she is doing. She only asks if I am going to the meetings and what am I doing for the org, even when she knows I'm inactive and want nothing to do with it. Not one question about me personally, not how's work, how do you like your new place, no how is your health, what have you been up to etc. Nothing. It's 100% obvious she has cult group think, she displays behaviour that is very disturbing and is an alcoholic, even though she doesn't think she is.
I honestly have no idea what I should do at this point. Up until this case, I was focused, positive thinking, learning about spirituality on a so much higher level. Then this brought all of that to a halt. I can't focus at work, I can't destress at home, it's like I'm back to where I was when I first "left" the org. I have a girlfriend that is feeling the effects of me losing this focus. I've turned cold to her and can't show her the attention she needs. It is driving me crazy I think. I am so angry right now.
I so much want the destruction of the WTBTS to come. I want them to pay for everything I've been through, for everything every child, woman, man that has suffered abuse in their organization. Because of their two witness rule, their call WT Legal before the police and their protecting the predators within the congregations.
All of the other issues, 607 BCE being wrong, 1914 wrong, chosen people today wrong, UN involvement, Mexico/Malawi, blood stance, tax evasion, everything else pales in comparison to what they have done or not done for the victims of abuse. Their silence on the matter is deafening.
I want them to pay. I want them to bleed. I want them to become obsolete. But most of all I want to bury this hate and anger and move on with my life.
Any advice any of you an give me or any words of guidance, no matter how small or seemingly uninspiring it may be to you will be so much appreciated by me. Thank you for listening, thank you for letting me vent, and thanks for being "there" to listen.
