Hi all,
Ok I think it’s time I introduce myself… And sorry, it’s going to be verrry long.
I am 32, married, 2 children. I am French but I live in Scotland.
So let’s start from the beginning…
My parents met the witnesses when I was about 3 or 4 years old. My mum was a disappointed catholic and my dad was an atheist, even though he believed aliens had brought humans to earth for experimenting on us….
Anyway, the brother who came to visit them was a nice young man who just got out of prison because he had refused to do his military service, and that impressed them a lot.
They studied with him for 5 years. We always had witnesses at home. My parents were very busy with their bakery, and the witnesses were always helpful. My parents became publishers and then wanted to get baptised, but it was refused to them.
The elders had learned my dad was beating my mum. I guess having the police at home quite regularly didn’t really help keep their secrets. One day, the CoBE and another elder came to our home to tell my Dad he should stop beating my mum, that it wasn’t right, etc. And thanks to their tact, my Dad went crazy that day and broke everything at home. That was the end of their study. My mum continued to raised us - my sis and I - as Jehovah’s Witnesses though. (My mum was no angel and was responsible for most of the fights. My dad was a violent man reacting to continuous picking and silly arguments.)
The years went by, and my sister and I still were in the middle of their terrible fights. My mum was brought to the hospital a few times, once in a very serious condition (broken neck.) My sister and I used to pray together that it would stop. Well all this didn’t stop my parents having two other children.
At 15, I stabbed my Dad in the back whilst he was strangling her. From then, he stopped beating her. Thankfully my grand mother took good care of us and we didn’t become monsters… Well at least let’s say it could have been much worse.
When I was about 16, I went to live in the South of France in a home for sick teenagers (I had severe asthma). I lived 24/7 with “worldly” young people, and I found they were actually nice people. Over there, I became a dictator and became violent especially with younger kids (what an a###ole I was…). When I came back to my parents’, I was really down and felt I wanted to learn about God. I started reading the Bible and even the “Reasonning” book. One day, an Elder who actually never stopped coming to our house and giving the magazines to my mum told me I had to take a decision, that the world was coming to an end, that I now was 18 and I needed to start a study. And so I did.
This Elder quickly became a grand-father to me. During the 3 years we studied, he took care of my sister and I, he taught us to study the Bible (we were only studying 3 paragraphs at a time… he really wanted us to read and study the Bible properly). I started having doubts about the 144 000, but I tried to get over it…
My book study overseer was a former CO, a bitter disabled man who started to make my life miserable. I was refused twice when I asked if I could become a publisher. At the time, I was still at school and I was spending all my evenings working on my homework, and I did miss a few meetings, but that wasn’t enough.
Well anyway, in 2000 my mum (who had been studying with us, even though she seldom came to the meetings) got baptised. In 2001 it was my turn. My sister was baptised a few months later at the International convention in Villepinte.
At the time, my Dad was very opposed to us going to the meetings. He used to threaten us all the time. That’s why we were interviewed the day I was baptised at the convention. We talked about how hard it was to become “good” witnesses in such circumstances.
I opened a forum for young Jehovah’s Witnesses called JTJ soon after my baptism. It was a great place where I met many friends and even my wife. But in 2004, the CO and DO wanted to meet me at an assembly. They asked me to shut it down, and so I did. The elders then met me and literally shouted at me, asked me to “shut up and obey”. I was an obedient JW at the time, and I didn’t even respond to the elder, but from then on I understood that they couldn’t have been appointed by the Holy Spirit.
In 2002, I started going out with a sister. I liked her a lot. But at some point, I realised she had been lying to me on many things, including how more than 1000 euros had disappeared from her bank account, that was one year after we had started “courting”. She told the elders and my family that her family was beating her up. Her family started telling everyone that we were trying to get involved in their lives and that I was a terrible guy. Anyway, the whole congregation got involved, and as I was the only brother in both of families, I was blamed for the mess. I broke up with her, and it got even worse. The elders told me I had been “flirting”, that I was never serious and that I never intended to marry her (which was completely false). Of course, I lost all my “privileges” (I was taking care of the magazines and other small things).
Then I started having new doubts, about the organisation, the date 607, the UN thing etc..
I started to attend less and less meetings afterwards.
That’s when I met my wife online (She is from Quebec). After two years of online chatting, I moved over there and we got married.
The congregation was amazing, the people were very loving, even though I felt it was all a mask.
A few months later we came back to France in my old horrible congregation. My wife and I stopped attending the meetings.
2 years later, we were both hired in a call center here in Scotland, where my sister and her husband were also working.
We started going back to the Kingdom Hall, and I must say our congregation was very welcoming. The atmosphere was very different from the big horrible congregation I belonged to in France. It is a small congregation, around 50 publishers I think, and most of them are old people who have always known each other. There are a few foreign couples who like us came for working here.
As we had been inactive for a while, the elders met us and asked us a few questions, among which “do you still want to be a Jehovah’s Witness”. And suddenly I realised I didn’t. I said yes that day, but I knew that something had changed in me.
From that moment, all my doubts resurfaced and I started to suffer morally and mentally. I remember spending days lying on the floor and praying. I was very low. At each meeting, I felt like my heart was going to explode and had to hide in the toilets…
When I told my wife about my doubts, and that I didn’t want to be a JW anymore, she took it very badly. I said I would continue going to the meetings for her only.
Then my wife became pregnant with our daughter. That was the perfect opportunity to start fading… My daughter was born in 2010. I started missing meetings more and more, went to my last convention in Perth in 2011, and then stopped going to the meetings altogether.
I celebrated the memorial on my own last year, and that’s when I believe I was born again. I wrote my disassociation letter soon after (couldn’t bear the pressure even though I wasn’t attending the meetings anymore)/ My wife became pregnant again, with our little boy, and he arrived in December 2012.
When the elders came to invite us to the memorial this year, I gave them my letter. And that was it !!!!
My wife was actually happy when I gave my letter. She knew it would be a good thing for me. She is still a JW, but we have a very strong relationship (or so I hope).
At first my mum, my dad (who got baptised in 2009, after all…) and my younger sister shunned me, but we now have normal contacts.
I consider myself as a Christian but I reject all organised religions. Sorry, told you it would be long ;)
Bonus: the announcement at the Kingdom Hall: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZGUib9Tdp0