by Jesika 31 Replies latest jw friends
What a great letter; I am so sorry you have to write it. I recognize all the sick characteristics of a witness congregation, got a little woozy from it.
Someone close to me was the victim of abuse from a baptized member of the cong, and 8 years later her father employed the man for a time!!
Can you identify with that? The cruelty of it makes me sick, and this is what i feel from your letter.
I am proud of you for dealing with your feelings, and putting them to paper.
pistoff
((((Jesika)))) Oh, the letters I've written in my lifetime thus far, that were never sent. Some were better not sent. Some were just ways for me to vent. Others were sent. Some I should have sent. Your letter was from the heart. Only you know how your young life has been affected by his actions towards you. It seems your father really doesn't know you. That's sad. Not that unusual. My dad didn't know me and didn't seem to care. He was only a baptized JW for a very brief time--long after I had left home, married, etc. He only did that to please mom, so it didn't work. I had already left, and it made no impression on me. I had learned not to care........So much of life was lived in this dream world of "if only's" and "what if's", and for the longest time I blamed myself, because I felt like he didn't love me and that I must have been me.
My dad was "mentally" injured by WWII, and he just never got the help he needed, and probably would have refused it anyway. When I was born "a girl", I was second-class, and I perceived it from the time I was little. Nothing I could have said or done, would have changed that. It had a profound affect upon me as a child, a teenager, a wife and a mother. Of course, in his later years, he finally did manage to tell me "I love you" and give me a hug. I had waited a lifetime for that........I'd settled for the scraps and it just didn't make that much difference anymore. It made me so sad for what could have been, had he just put forth the tiniest effort. He didn't.
I've learned that sometimes, there are people in our lives that do nothing but bring us down. Sometimes these are people we are related to. Living life to the full is so important, and we don't need added emotional baggage to drag us down. I think you are confronting a big issue for "you", and hopefully, your letter has long since gone to the mail box. As others here have said, you are doing it for all the right reasons. Not that you expect him to change. You've reached a turning point. You are growing. Feels good doesn't it?
