Hey all, I’m back. Looks like I‘ve got an audience, thanks for listening to my experiences and thank you all for your nice comments. It took me a while to get the nerve to post on this site, and I’m glad I did. Its great to be connected with people that are and have been in the same situation as me. It felt kind of weird at first, the idea of digging up so many things about my personal life and relating it to complete strangers. Knowing that so many of you have been through the same and in some cases, worse situations, sharing mine with you just feels right. Its therapeutic.
Okay, so let me start the 2 nd part of my story at age 14-15. At this point in my life, my older sister had just moved out of my parents house and into my Grandmothers, who is also a witness. She wasn’t getting along with my Dad, (imagine that) so they gave her that option and she took it. She was still a pioneer at the time and remained one after she moved out. She’s still a witness, now. That leaves me and my youngest sister left. I think she was also a pioneer at that point, so I guess you could say that she wasn’t greatly affected by what John did to her. She was never attracted to him whatsoever and I don’t even think she ever really felt close to him, even when he was showing her all that ”attention”. She was mad of coarse, felt betrayed. Didn’t agree with the way it was handled. Still, it didn’t really make her question anything in the org. None of us lost faith in it. Its very weird to imagine yourself in such a blind state. We were always convinced that it was a perfect organization run by imperfect people, so there was always an excuse to let things slide. “Wait on Jehovah”. You know, you’ve heard it all before.
Also about that time I was starting to have a lot of heated arguments/fights with my Dad. I was pretty much just being the average obnoxious teenage boy. This time though, I didn’t accept any physical abuse from him. If he came at me swinging, I’d be swinging right back. I never started any physical fights with him but I certainly defended myself when he did. This pretty much got the point across to him and he didn’t try to get violent a whole a lot after taken a few blows. This, however led to a confession at a shepherding call by him, about some of the fights we had had. That led to me being removed as a publisher (I wasn’t baptized at the time) They announced it from the platform and everything. My Mom actually didn’t agree with this and felt sorry for me since she knew I wasn’t really completely responsible. My Dad didn’t get anything for it. They did counsel him a little, told him that he shouldn’t have been getting physically abusive. For the most part however, I was the one who was misbehaving and was the root cause of the problem. Disrespecting my father. You know back in Bible times I would have been stoned for that. Yup, that’s what one Elder told me. Imagine what everyone in the hall must of thought of me then. Who knew what sin I committed or what kind of juvenile delinquent I must have been to be removed as a publisher? Not that I really minded not being able to count my time. I figured “hey, I can’t count my time, why go in service”? I emphasize here the fact that I honestly didn’t do anything out of the ordinary for a 14 year old kid in regards to the arguments with my Dad. In fact My whole teenage life I was practically an angel compared to other kids, even a lot of witness kids. I don’t want to make myself look blameless, but I didn’t do drugs, I didn’t get involve with any girls until I was 21. I did have a few “worldly friends “,mostly just neighborhood kids and their friends, since I didn’t go to public school. Still never did anything really bad. Just did school work during the day, rode my skateboard with the neighbor kids when they got home from school. I did have one witness friend around that time that I regularly spent weekends with. He shared a lot of my same interests. He was in a different area about 30 miles from where I lived. He played drums, so we hooked it up musically too. We sounded pretty bad at the time, but we had fun. I felt pretty close to him, but I always got the feeling he was just a witness (he was baptized at 13 I think) because his parents wanted him to be. His actions and the way he talked about stuff he had done with girls in school, and other stuff he would tell me, showed that. I always felt bad when he’d tell me stuff like that. I’d even try to tell him if I thought he was doing something wrong. That’s when he’d usually change the subject. He’d be right back to talking about it before long though. He never really got into to many details. I think if he would have I would have told someone about it. I was kind of a “goody goody” like that. Actually I think it was more that I actually believed that’s what I should be doing. Like, that it would have been the best thing to do. Although, I failed a lot, (I think it’s impossible not to) I tried not to live a double life as a witness. I thought it was rather pointless to put so much effort into something and have it all be void because your just doing it for show.
My friendship[ with him, (We’ll call him Joe) went on until I was about 17.That’s about the time that he totally went all out ,got involved with serious drugs, and got Dfed. He happens to be back in the “truth” now, married with a kid. I have very little contact with him since he was reinstated, which was I guess about 3 years ago. Not much in common with him anymore. He a completely different person. Weird, huh.I did hearthat herecently relapsed and had a few incidents with heroin. It’s a shame. That’s one thing that nobody fully recovers from.
I was baptized at 18, I did feel a tad pressured into it. If I hadn’t been I probably wouldn’t have done it. Around that time in my life I made a couple more witness friends. Once again the ones I felt the closest to, faded out slowly until I lost contact with them. I did remain close with one friend I met at an assembly. He lived about 100 miles away. I would go over his house a lot. Actually I remained close to him until recently, but that’s a whole story in it self.( Good grief it’s hard to keep these posts simple!)
“Spiritually.“ I never really “progressed” to much other then getting baptized. I was in the TM school. I always knew I could give better talks then I did but I never put much effort into them. I went out in service. Averaged 2- 3 hours a month. So I guess that’s what? Once a month? I stayed pretty exemplary as far as conduct is concerned. Although since I wasn’t “spiritually” exemplary, I probably wasn’t viewed as such by others. I didn’t have any other, experience with elders until I was about 20.This involved watching Rated R movies. What happened was, a bunch of kids from my hall were watching them mostly together, I was there a few times. Anyway, one of the pioneer sisters involved who was dating an elders son from a neighboring congregation was also involved. Both of them were involved actually. Well they decided to turn everyone in. So we all got a little meet with the elders. I went in with 3 other brothers from my hall that were involved. Everyone but me had privileges to loose and so they lost them. Me, however, I had none. So one of the 2 elders says to me. ”Well, well, well, It looks like you don’t have anything to loose here, you must be just laughing this up …..Well don’t think your going to be getting any privileges any time soon!” Then a comment was made regarding the pioneer sister involved losing her precious title because of it,….”You guys should feel really bad about yourselves, that sister was a pioneer and now she isn’t because of this.” As if we were responsible. Oh wait, it gets even better. Later we find out that the reason this sister came forward was because she was involved in misconduct with this elder’s son, her boyfriend ,and was going to get reproved for it. so she came forward with this info also. That way it would look like everyone was getting in trouble for the same thing, Rated R movies. Yeah, we should have felt really bad about getting her privileges taken away from her….HAAAA!
My Attitude after going through that?....Unfazed. Still convinced. I was furious at the elders attitude and comments, but hey, “ I’m serving Jehovah. not men”. Right?
Well, I did change one thing, congregations. I switched to a neighboring one that my youngest sister went to . She had been there about a year since she had gotten married. So I was in a new hall, with new people. Some I knew. I didn’t know any of the elders though. So I thought it was like starting fresh.
Then I meet a girl (We‘ll call her Becky)…………..Not just any girl, a “worldly girl. I was 21. I met her online at a car enthusiast forum. I’m really into European Cars. I saw that she had the same exact car as me in her site profile, so I emailed her to talk about her car. We immediately hit it off with one another. I honestly didn’t have any intentions as to hooking up with her. It just kind of happened. I know it seems like a rather strange, maybe even risky( you don’t know who the heck your really talking to, in a way.) way to meet someone and start a relationship, but hey stranger things have happened. Anyway we had other stuff in common too. We both were into snowboarding, we liked a lot of the same music. Only problem is (I shouldn’t say only, since she was not a JW) was that she lived 300 miles away. Could’ve been worse I guess. Well we didn’t really get romantically involved, until 3 months after we had been emailing, talking on the phone,etc. (My work phone, not my parents) . It started right after I drove to visit her for the first time. Meeting each other in person got things going pretty quickly. Soon I was there every other weekend. Hmmmm. How did I pull this off, living in a strict JW house, as I still was? Well, my parents didn’t know at first. I told them I was going to other friends houses when I went to see her.
Becky knew I was a witness from the beginning. I hid nothing from her. I explained to her all of my beliefs and she said she accepted me for who I was no matter what. Deep down of course I was looking for any possible way to convert her . My parents didn’t know about her until about the 3rd time I saw her. This time Becky came to see me. Becky knew that I hadn’t told my parents about her, and although she accepted it I knew it made her feel bad, as it should have. I felt bad that I had to do it that way, but I wasn’t ready to deal with the consequences of telling them. I was sure I would be kicked out of the house and I was not financially ready at that moment to be faced with such a situation. Nobody knew about Becky, until the day after she came to visit me.
It was a Sunday. I had been feeling guilty about lying to them. Along with that it was exhausting living a lie. I knew most of all, it was unfair to Becky. I was being selfish. Something had to to change. So I told my parents about her. That I had been seeing her. They were shocked. That’s not all I told them, though. I don’t know where my mind was, but I told them that “loose conduct” had went on as well. They immediately said, ” call the elders.” If I didn’t they would. So I did. I told them. I know, you guys probably want to smack me now. I don’t blame you. Yeah, I told them. My intentions in coming forward weren’t to end my relationship with her. I guess I got talked into saying I would, with all that was going on. I told them that I would cut it off with her. Those were the conditions I agreed to when I accepted there counsel in the judicial meeting. As you’ll find out in a minute, though what the heart wants the heart wants. So….They reproved me silently. I went off. I then called Becky to call it off with her. I told her that it was never going to work. So we may as well stop trying to make it. She begged me to reconsider for 2 weeks, as I still kept in contact with her. After 2 weeks, I gave in ,and was back at her house.
At that point,as can be expected,things were continuing to get physical. Although , I told her that I was not going to be able to do certain things with her (the obvious) because of what I believed was right. You know, the whole marital arrangement thing. She respected that. We both decided that we were going to wait until we got married. Yes, at that point we had talked about marriage.I knew deep down however, that as long as I was a JW that this relationship was still not going to work. I talked to her a lot about the “truth” in the beginning of our relationship. At one point she even said she wanted to become a JW. My parents knew that I had gotten back with her this time. They were obviously not happy about it, but they didn’t kick me out, though they threatened a few times. They even threw some of my stuff out on the front lawn when we’d get in arguments about it. It definitely was not a good situation. It was completely emotionally draining at times. The only escape I had was seeing Becky.
She howeve,was beginning to tire of my parents attitude. They said that they accepted it one time ,while another time they would act totally opposite. Becky certainly felt the unacceptance at high levels. I always tried to make excuses though, saying that all JWs weren’t like them. That they were just very strict and eventually would tone down and accept her. I felt so bad for her. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to break up with her. I wasn’t ready to move out. I still believed in doing what was I thought was right, so moving in with her was not an option. I know it all sounds so hypocritical now, but I was completely blind back then. So now what?……
Well things went on for about 2 more months the same way. By the beginning of the 3 rd month things were getting so crazy. The issue totally controlled our relationship. She now hated the religion. After all, it wasn’t exactly coming off as loving. And what about me ,how could I still support it after all it did to me, her, us, etc. Besides that fact, I wasn’t even doing what I was suppose to according to their standards, so how could I believe it. I was torn to say the least. I still didn’t want to end it, but I still wanted to stay a JW. She finally broke down and gave me an ultimatum. “ Her, or my religion.”….But,I could not give it up. I was actually mad at her for making me choose. Now I realize how selfish I was. That she was the one being truly hurt for the way she had been treated from the start. Though, I never intentionally tried to hurt her. It was unavoidable as long as I was in the org. So we ended it. The day she made me choose , I left her house, driving 4 hours home. Shirt soaked in tears. I never cried so much in my life. It was a 4 hour car ride and there wasn’t 10 minutes that went by, that I didn’t break down……………..
Well, I dislike my actions at this part of the story the most,but here goes ……………….Brace yourself…..Please…Try not to attempt to reach through your monitor and strangle me……I went back to the elders and confessed my sins………………
So was I Dfed? No. Despite this being the second time, I was let off with silent reproof. I was certain I was going to get dfed. I was shocked. If I had gotten Dfed I was certain I would be back. But I wasn’t Dfed. This time though, they assigned a ministerial Seravant to study the Unity book I believe it was, with me.
So where am I today? I mean I was 21 then, I’m almost 24 now. Not a lot can happen in such a short period of time, right?…………………Well, I may try to finish this “ 1rst post” up today but in case I don’t get to because of lack of time,(Im at work,I figure I should at leist work a little before I go home.) Im gonna have to post a part 3 which will take us right to present. To those of you who haven’t lost interest. Thankyou,for listening……………..I’ll be back soon to finish up....................