Anyone else an Ex Bethel "volunteer"

by BackseatDevil 127 Replies latest jw experiences

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  BackseatDevil

  OMG Thank you so much for the nice words. I am an artist and I am SO insecure about everything anyway (LOL) so I was really scared about putting this story out there. So thank you, and please feel free to share with anyone who might be fighting with what they are feeling biologically verses what they are being told is right. And I hope the human emotion and common relatability come through... despite the gay stuff.

  @Julia Orwell This is all real and happened to me. I first wrote everything down in "movie script" format about a year or so after it happened so I could remember conversations that took place and the emotions of the scenes. and then about 10 years later when I was mentally able to make a connective story through two very different parts of my life (Houston/The Farm) then I sat down and started writing. It is in 3rd person and written in real time (as if it were happening now) because that was a very VERY different James and creating the story I decided the writer should be the observer and not the participant. It also allowed me to go through a bit of JW dogma and beliefs objectively and not come across as if I personally were attacking them.

  @darth frosty It is amazing how the memory worked, but THAT quote was the worst face I had ever seen on my father, and it was so confusing... and as described here the golden child is acused of... apostacy really... it was hard for him to start that conversation, and or that it was difficult to digest. Like, I'm okay now... LOL, but I forgot how heavy that conversation was. it was all so bizaare. and I BEGGED to read that letter. They wouldn't let me anywhere near it.

  @jwfacts " The place was soul sapping, a cult version of Stepford Wives. Despite many nice people, there was an equal amount of weirdos and the power hungry." That is an excellent way to describe things. The people who were so used to the day to day routine and basically living their life looking at their shoes, never looking up... are best described as "weirdos". Seriously. Both those sentences hit the nail on the head. And thank you for the complement.

  @ Heartofaboy If you want the REAL gayness, it's all in the first part of the book where there's a dungeon master and crack orgy (LOL). The reason why s because I had (and this is real) this idea that I was going to go out and find problems with the world... especially the gay world... and that I would be "scared straight" and for such be able to focus on Bethel with more conviction. The more I got involved, the more about humanity I was learning, from gay and straight men and women. I realized that we all have the same emotions and feelings... we are not any different in our emotional triggers and so I described them as such. things like (in chapter 13) 1 Cor. 7:9 never made sense to me for the first time... stuff like that. But seriously, first part... pretty f'n gay hahaha!
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  BackseatDevil

  @ Heartofaboy BUT NOT GROSS. I didn't write porn, for christ's sake. LOL.
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  darth frosty

  The reason why s because I had (and this is real) this idea that I was going to go out and find problems with the world... especially the gay world... and that I would be "scared straight" and for such be able to focus on Bethel with more conviction.

  I fully get this. I approached it from a different angle. After arriving at bethel and a combination horny young man and lonely with no one to connect with to explore said horniness, I remember going to the 124 library seeking out a justifaction to fulfill my natural sexual desires?!?

  HOW FUCKED UP IS THAT?!?

  I can relate a lot to your story because even tho different we both had a desire that couldn't be satisfied. My gawd like you said take young men coming into their prime, stuff them all together but damnit there is no release for natural feelings as they build up. Than throw in all the commuter sisters and you had a powder keg of guilt shame and unresolved frustration waiting to blow.

  Here's another roomate story for ya:

  My 1st asshole roomate would lectur me after the mon WT study. One day I come home from the school service meeting and he is sitting there in lecture mode. Goes on to say how we need to talk about the cleanliness of my portion of the closet. Takes me there ask me to pull back my suits which were hanging on the bottom rack to reveal my dirty laundry bag and tells me that it is not acceptable to leave the top of the dirty laundry bag open?!?

  Thats when I knew the asshole was going thru my shit!
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  Julia Orwell

  I can't believe how they do 'room searches'. It's so like a totalitarian regime it's ridiculous. No sense of privacy or respect for you as an individual. Like a totalitarian regime, the leadership buts into every area of private life like they own you.

  is it true there are over 1000 rules in Bethel, and Australia bethel too?
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  darth frosty

  Over 1000 rules?

  Key is the rules are not necesarily written.

  Thats where asshole roomates with a hard on to make a name for themselves come in. I have a theory on the breakdown of your time at bethel:

  1st year adjustment hell More n likely you were a shinning 'star' in your home congo and expectations are high. Your 1st month is like a form of boot camp of the seniors tearing you down helping you to appreciate that you are nothing special now that you are at bethel. You most likely have a crappy job that no where suit your talent or attributes/strenths. I mean its soo fucking bad I've seen dudes who ran cleaning businesses come and be put in the factory and I SHIT YOU NOT dude who worked on presses come in and be placed in cleaning?!? KH a hit or miss scenario friends are loving but apathetic cause your just another body passing thru and they dont want to get too attached. Roomate most often some neutered drone who has been properly broken and now set up as your example of whats in store.

  2nd-5th year If you last this long you are finding your way. Its like 1 of 2 paths you can take you can take the happyt go lucky just trying to get along route or you can start the process of becoming a good career bethelite.

  6th-10th year eew you made it this far and now your sad miserable future is before you. if you took the career bethelite route you are probably and elder now in the local hall and a master ass kisser. if things really worked well for ya you got transfered out of your initial crappy job and now have a not as crappy crappy job. If you took the happy go luckey route the road is starting to get rough. you thought you had a nice balence between KH and bethel but at this point certain things are expected. If you are any kind of normal you would like to get married. Marriage and staying at bethel was a tricky proposition. If you had enough time and a job of specialized importance you could probably stay if you had a highly recomended pioneer sister or found a commuter. sadly this is the fucked up way you start to think and look at things. Everything starts to get viewed and weighed thru the lense of if I do this can I stay at bethel? You start looking at stuff like room bids and the day your seniority will allow you to bid on a room that has its own bathroom in it!

  10th-25th yr AW SHUCKY SHUCKY NOW!!! at this point you have weathered most of the bethel storms and traps and are a good career bethelite. Notice how no matter which path you took you end up here once past your tenth yr. At this point you are probay a bethel elder, got a room with its own bathroom by now and may be married if you so desired. You are probably a table foot and look forward to the times when the table head is away on vacation or speaking assignments and you take the table head position. You are revered in your KH cause you stayed and at best you are overseer in your work department. You are an almost perfect drone any light and hope is gone from your soul and you feel somewhat secure in your position of tenor at bethel.

  over 25 years there are 3 major milestones acheived at bethel 1 getting thru your 1st yr, 2 making bethel elder and 3 ohh baby 3 when you pick up the moniker...

  BETHEL HEAVY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  Yeah they can talk all they want about how there is no such thing as a bethel heavy but if you survived 20 + yrs chances are you're a heavy (or at least aspiring to be one) what are some of the perks of being a heavy? well you are in regular rotation of of the good speaker/convetion assignments and you start to go on those zone and branch visits. See here is where the real perks and power of seniority kicks in. Whats better than going down to south america in january for a zone visit for a couple of months? Spending summer at the australian branch or france. Having access to the cars that are in the motor pool like the ones CO's have (or if your JR Brown get someone to buy you an Infinity when having an Infinity meant something!)

  IMO during that 6-10 yr period something happens to dudes that dont get married. I'm serious dudes that were there 10 plus yrs and not married had this unnatural weirdness about them. You could literally walk the halls of bethel and point out the 10 yr lifers as I called them.

  After 9/11 and they started the great purge as they looked to shrink the size of bethel and get the hell out of NY I thought of these poor slubs who had in truth given up their sanity to this F'd up organization. I knew one cat who was there like 20 yrs tried to get married and they told him he wouldn't be able to bring a wife to bethel. Dude scrapped his marriage plans only to be gutted in the purge years later anyway. SMDH!
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  exwhyzee

  I cut and pasted the following from an earlier post I made.

  I sat at the "A" table where the GB rotated and did the morning text and comments from. (Heard some interesting stuff there) Russ Kurzen was our table head. Most everyone in the GB and their wives seemed pretty regular except for Marina Sidlig who was a terrible snob,(sorry) but it's true, in my opinion.

  I enjoyed my time there (because of the guys I made friends with) yet couldn't wait to leave. It was truly an altered state of reality. I still have dreadful dreams where I suddenly realize I have signed up for Bethel again and there's no way out of it. It's such a relief to wake up and find out I'm free. There was this whole political/rank/seniority thing going on there that was very puzzeling, I thought I was imagining it.

  I had my whole months pay stolen out of my room one time. I had gone directly to my room after lunch when our pay envelopes were handed out ($40 cash) I hid it in my bottom drawer under my things. I didn't have a room mate at the time. I'm pretty sure it was my housekeeper who took it as she and her husband always looked very uncomfortable when ever I happened upon them in the halls. Or they would suddenly look away if I saw them across the dining hall. I hadn't even suspected her until many months later while trying to understand what was making them act so oddly. I went to the Bethel office to ask for help as this was all the money I had in the world. They were very suspicious of me and even indicated that I might be lying so they only gave me enough to get a few subway tokens for the meetings. I was already poor but now I was totaly broke. I couldn't tell the family back home because my Dad wasn't a Witness and this would have been a big reproach on the organization I felt. I was so disillusioned, I had gone through public school and never had a thing happen to me and here I was at Bethel the world headquarters and my room had been robbed. I only had enough money to get to Sunday meetings and quit going in service and no one noticed. If the Congregation back home could see their bright and shining Bethel Boy now.

  I went back years later with my wife and sons. It gave me the creeps just being there. The familiar smells and the glazed over look on peoples faces, I'd forgotten all about that. Someone in the group we were in group said " I know this sounds really bad and unappreciative, but I'm sorry I don't want to spend anymore time here"
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  Billy the Ex-Bethelite

  I occasionally have nightmares that I'm still slaving there.

  I look forward to reading your story.
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  Satanus

  Was anyone else at the 1980-1981 georgetown construction? This was the brand new canadian wt headquarters. It was the big move from downtown toronto, bridgeland ave.

  S
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  Julia Orwell

  Do they really use the term "Bethel Heavy" in Bethel, or is it a JWN term?
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  darth frosty

  I 1st heard the term when I arrived at bethel in 94. The GB frowned on the term but you KNEW there were brothers in their smugness who just relished having that term applied to them.