I am posting this story on this board with permission of the author. This is someone Barb Anderson and Bill Bowen have met, and permission was given to post the story because of their encouragement. Go Barb and Bill!!!
(I have changed a few personally identifying features of this experience, indicated by xxx).
Sorry this is so long.
Just a quick background...I was born in 19xx in xxxxx, xx. My parents had divorced already before I was born, and my mother couldn't raise me alone. I was given up for adoption at age 2. When I was 12, my adoptive cousins became Witnesses, and regulary brought me magazines and tracts. My adoptive parents were of no particular religion, and never attended services of any kind and did not read Bibles. When I was 14, I reported my adoptive father to authorities for sexual abuse of me, (from age 9-14)and I was placed in a group living arrangement for teens. Down the street from this place was a Kingdom Hall, and there I met a young brother. At 16 I was baptized and we were married (He was 21 and was baptized at 18). We proceeded to have xxxx children, and in 19xx we moved to xxxxx. In the mid 1980’s my husband became very ill with a rare and acute form of arthritis that left him, by the end of 1986 virtually bedridden. As I had left home and married so young, I had no job skills or work history and virtually had to start from scratch. In the winter of 19xx my husband decided to take himself and the children home to his Witness mother, who was wealthy by the standards of those days; she would care for the children during the day while my husband received medical treatment and looked for work, and I for my part would attend school. This arrangement was supposed to be for six months. But my husband did not recover from his medical condition, and his mother took custody of the children without me knowing about it.
While I waited to go to school (there were long waiting lists for classes and there still are in some cases) I lost the apartment we had been living in, so I lived in a motor home parked first on the street, then later on a parking lot. The elders had decided that since my living situation reflected badly on the congreagation, I was no longer sponsered for field service, then later was 'marked' so I had no association with the Witnesses of this congregation beyond the meetings. But the Witnesses of another congregation took an interest in me, and were very helpful to me. In fact, one of them lived in a motor home also. It just so happened that 2 of these Witnesses suffered from mental illness (one from bipolar disorder, one from chronic unipolar depression), they recognised the symptoms in me (social withdrawal, eating less and sleeping more, hopelessness, psychomotor retardation) and the sister and I went together to a mental health clinic, and she waited while they did an intake on me, and rode home with me afterwards.
One brother was conducting a 'home' bible study with a young man who lived out of state, locally visiting his aunt for a few months. We all met together for lunch/dinner a couple of times a week on non-meeting days. One night while I was asleep this person came into the motor home while I was sick with the flu and heavily medicated (with both flu symtom relief and psychiatric medications) and he had intercourse with me. In my condition I thought it was a dream. He came in again, repeated his actions, this time I thought something had happened but did not know what. I had been inside the motor home for several days now, sick and incummunicado and two neighbors and the brother/study conductor came by to check on me. I told them what happened to the best of my ability to remember,and they surmised the rest. The neighbor and the brother parked their vehicles in front of and behind me locking their bumpers with mine. They say they saw this person a couple of more times in the neighborhood, and then he apparently pulled up stakes and return to his home state.
A brother took me to the emegency room, and then to the police department to report the rapes (I didn't even know it was rape in my condition untill they told me...such is way with severe depression) and a sister took me back to the mental health clinic for more counseling. In the meantime we all agreed to say nothing to the elders of any congregation. Another sister came by to check on me a few weeks later, and I was nauseous and vomiting. She came by two weeks later and my condition was still the same, plus I had lost some more weight. She took me to the emergency room, where I found out not only that I was pregnant, but that the fetus was not viable. (This is about 12 weels along or so. They can tell with an ultrasound, a dead fetus looks different from a living one; apparently the edges are real blurry...plus eventually no hearbeat) The physicians there wanted to schedule a 'removal' but I did not want one. The sister took me home, and then, thinking I had committed 'fornication' reported me to my elders.
The fetus never expelled itself...it just 'disappeared' over time as they sometimes do. (I had been pregnant with twins once and one of the babies died this same way at around 4 months. Fortunately the other survived, that was my second child.) It takes a long time for this, and it means weekly ultrasounds and checkups because the risk of infection can be high. I was so afraid the other Witnesses would get in trouble over me, I told them not to come back. They reluctantly stayed away; their only social support system were Witnesses the same as me, none of us could afford to lose that. It didn't take long for 'my' elders to come to me. I related my experience to them, leaving out only the tremendous help the other Witnesses had given. They formed a committe, and of course in my mental condition I was able to tell them of the police, the medical and the mental health evidence in my support, but not actually go collect it all and bring it to the judicial committee. They asked me if I 'screamed' and I said I don't think so. The decision was disfellowshipping, and I was told I had seven days to appeal. Untill then I hadn't heard of any such 'rule' (they call it a 'principle' now) and I was made aware of the 1986 Awake, but not the reference to the Insight book of the 1988 'don't scream.' I had asked the brothers to wait for a 'decision' untill after my medical condition had improved, but they were in a 'hurry' and didn't want to wait. I did write a letter of appeal, but 2 days later I wrote a letter withdrawing the appeal because I simply did not want to proceed in my condition.
Because of that disfellowshipping action, my husband DA'd himself and then was df'd for apostasy, My mother-in-law got permanent custody of the children, All of them were not allowed to speak with me or their father because we did not live in the same house with them. I attempted to call them regularly, but then the phone number was changed; But I was able to mail money occasionally and packages. I was told if I attempted to step foot back in xxxx, My mother-in-law would seek adoption of the children and there was no way I could fight her. So I stayed put, which turned out to be advantageous. When my son turned 17 and a half, he asked to live with me and was told no by his grandmother and social services. I was threatened with arrest if I tried to 'take' this 6'2" 240 pound boy out of his legal home. One day I showed up at the door, my son and I came to xxxx, and I told them all to come and get us. We never heard from them again. My son's horror stories of growing up in a dysfunctional Witness home stagger the imagination and break the heart. I hope some day he publicly tells his story; mine pales beside his. Although he is doing better and has never been in serious trouble since the day I picked him up, he is ostracised by the Witness side of the family. He considers it worth the price. The up side of all this is, is that directly I believe due to the 'shunning' policy, the majority of my kids have adamantly refused to beome Witnesses. Children are so much smarter than adults sometimes.
I attended meetings off and on at that and other congregations up untill 199x, when I wrote a letter of request for reinstatement. The elders of that congregation met with me, after speaking with someone on the original committee, and told me that I simply must attend meetings and I would be reinstated. They said that whatever happened all those years ago, happened all those years ago and that they would be glad to have me as a sister and looked forward to seeing me in the KH. I wasn't ready tho to forgive and forget, and as time went on there has been a reorganization of this congregation. I do not know how my attempts to 'rejoin' are going to be viewed now. We shall see. There does seem to be a very great mix of races, age groups, and even nationalities; and the congregation appears over all to be in less than the middle income bracket, and in watching the Witnesses interact from my non-speaking back row during meetings, there seems to be a great deal of genuine affection expressed between the members. So it looks hopeful.
UPDATE: Right now, the congregation is taking in less than it is spending; The KH is badly in need of revamping; Publishers are 2/3 of what they used to be, At any given time 10 percent of the congregation is not turning in their time (and the bookstudy conducter is turning it in for them) I keep seeing the same small group of publishers giving parts on the ministry school over and over and over;(mostly elders wives)At any given time 1/4 to 1/3 of the publishers are INACTIVE, Parking is not a problem anymore; All the most recent baptisms are children (teenagers or less) of other Witnesses; During 9/11 attendance did not go up ONE SINGLE PERSON; Memorial attendance was down and the Elders are keeping quiet how many partakers there were (too many I gather).
This was worth coming back for.
Thank you for listening.