Hello,
I am fairly new here. I came across this site a few years ago and tried to join but I wasn't approved as a member for whatever reason. Well, recently I came across this site again and decided to reapply to be a member and it was approved. So here I am.
A bit about me, my name is Lisa and I was raised as a JW from the time that I was around 2yrs old. It was all that I ever knew as a religion although my grandmother would sometimes sneak me into the Catholic church where I was baptized. My mom was very devout but my dad not so much. After a time I guess my mom's zealousness rubbed off because not only was my dad baptized but so was most of his immediate family including the grandmother who would take me to her Catholic church. My mom was a pioneer but thankfully because my dad was never really more involved than was absolutely necessary the religion didn't overtake our lives to the extent that it could have.
Growing up I never really believed, I mean I knew the right things to say and the proper way to act but in my heart something about the entire thing just felt wrong. I remember as a young girl sitting with my best friend and trying to explain to her that the thought of living forever just sounded horrible. What in the world could you possibly do and why would you want to do it? She was horrified and started crying, how could she live in paradise without her best friend if I didn't believe. I promised her that I would try harder, but I guess I just learned to keep those thoughts to myself.
Although we were at the KH almost every Sunday, what nobody really knew was that my parents had issues with alcohol and domestic violence. Being a JW teaches you how live in secrecy so these episodes were easy to hide. You didn't dare talk about what was going on for fear of discipline from the elders or worse being disfellowshiped. At a young age I learned to hide so many secrets and I learned that we weren't the only ones hiding secrets. As long as you did your time knocking on doors and presented to the "world" a good JW, all was fine.
I know that my mom went to the elders for help and they turned a blind eye, wanting to know what she was doing to cause my dad to be violent. After years of this she became angry and bitter and abusive towards us children. Again, we learned to hide the abuse and put up a false front. I know of many instances in our small congregation alone where abuse was well known but everyone turned a blind eye. What mattered was appearances not reality.
Eventually my parents left the religion, my mother by her choice and my father by his actions. When my father was disfellowshipped I was so relieved. Finally I could stop pretending. Thankfully I had never been baptized. My parents never pushed it and knowing that in my heart I didn't believe and would never believe there was no way in hell I was going to get baptized.
So, I easily walked away from the church, it helped that I was considered a rebellious teen who was dating boys and going to parties. In a small community word gets around fast. I always laughed because the JW teens were so much worse than me, but when your dad is an elder things are often ignored. I thought I left unscathed. Imagine my surprise that in the last 20+ years, there have been many issues I have had to work through due to the amount of brainwashing you receive when you grow up in this religion/cult. Even though I didn't lose any family members, they all chose to leave the church behind, I still have a hard time connecting with others. I carry the baggage around and am thankful to have found this group. Hopefully in sharing with others here I can finally leave it behind.
Sorry for the length of this, hopefully that doesn't discourage you from saying hello :)
