It is sad to see the terrible abuse that has come out of religious socities and how well they have covered things up...So sad infact that I felt compelled to make an application to this commission this morning asking why the WTBTS has mangaged to stay out of the news.
I know this is a controversial subject but my story is just one of many stories.....I was a child raised in this religion, I never felt like a good person and was told that I was crazy by my father and the rest of my family, more times than I can recall. The fact is, I wasn't crazy. I was a child who would be driven to long meetings that were then held in a rented hall, my father would go out for a cigarette between breaks ( or if he couldn't wait he would just go out anyway) So now you can guess my age and it don't care. The problem was the sexual abuse that I endured between these meetings and shortly after these meetins. They would be followed up with the usual crazy making statements about how I WAS EVIL. I was nine years old....just a little girl. I had to try to protect myself so I would try to be as ugly as I could by scratching my face and pulling my hair out. I was an angry frightened little girl who wanted to please God.
My father never let up on me and I left home at 14 years of age or there abouts. I lived with a bit of peace for some time with a friend, but I had to go home in the end and it started again. By then I would fight for my dignity, my right to my body, my right to have some love and peace. I never, ever found it. The last time my father abused me sexually was incredibly public. I had married to get away from him and whilst my husband was getting a drink for us at a bar in a jazz club, my father tried to ............how can I say this? He grabbed me and said it ........."was okay, and just let myself go..." He told me I could not call him "father". I did not understand why he did this, and as he groped me (for the last time) I realised it was some tragic means to hide his identity.
I was horrified at him, I pushed him away and told him I had just lost a baby and needed love and support.............so on and so forth....My husband came back from the bar...(He was not a JW) and I asked him to take me away immediately...He did, but he was confused about my sudden panic. I told my mother about the secret life imposed upon me throughout my life and I believe that she "believed" me in the end. But it was too late. I was a problem child with a history of bad behavior and I had always been inclined to have an imagination....
That was my life...trying to please a God who seemed absent, trying to get away from a father who had a great personaltiy and could play great jazz. He eventually gave up the religious life, but when he died he was given a witness type funeral i.e. and elder decided my father was so great that he deserved it even at a private event. I wrote my father a letter, a certified letter that gave me the right to say what needed to be said to him quiet a few months before he died, and he showed it to the rest of my family, my sisters, my brother, my brother inlaw. They were religiously outraged at my Satanic attack on my father!!! They were certain that I was quite out of my mind and making it all up.
They threatened me with legal action but I said that I had told the complete truth and would never sway from it. I told them that my last experience had been as a nineteen year old woman grieving over the loss of her baby. I said that I had chosen to tell of what was absolutely concrete, that I had chosen the ages that were very very clear and above some "childhood memories" and this was my only way to claw out of the despair of misunderstanding. They said I was crazy because it did not happen to them.
The only joy I ever gained was at his funeral....I grabbed a pile of the hardest bits of pebble and rock and threw it hard on his coffin......
I have always carried this matter deep within. I have had to put up with an elder who tried to teach me by example...ie. He would try to show me how a man shoud kiss a woman....his wife in this instance...I could not refuse this bible study as he was what would be called an "elder" or what ever you call them. Then there would be these painfull joureys in this car on the way home as he plied me with questions about my personal feelings about .......boys. His name I will never forget Ray Brambles. He ended up getting a warning in the end, I have often wondered how far he went in hurting some other child of god in his personal agenda within religiously safe boundaries.....I hated him and my father. I wanted them dead. I felt wicked for thinking this....My father is dead and I still feel angry. Angrier than I realised as I awoke today to the truth of the damage done.
I can't hold this in. I feel like a threat to myself and my memories are terribe as I have striven for outward composure through my life. I have accepted rejection on a religious basis, and realise that this is just a way to shut people like me......up.
Sincerely readers.
Juliette.