Anyone know exBethelites Who Went Off the Deep End?

by willyloman 10 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  willyloman

  This was inspired by Seven006's fascinating series on his consulting trip to Bethel. Wonder if anyone else has a story like this to tell?

  My first memory of questioning whether the revered bethel experience might be somewhat less than what was advertised was:
  
  A young man in our congo, son of an elder, not particularly bright, went off to bethel. This was decades ago and I was new in the "truth." We had a going-away for him and were all terribly impressed that one of our own as going to the show, as it were.
  
  Some 6-9 months later, he was back in our congo. He'd been sent home, apparently, but no one knew exactly why. I asked the elder who had studied with me, kind of a big-brother figure to me, and he literally whispered his response: "We really aren't allowed to talk about it. Let's just say, he didn't fit in there. Sometimes that happens and they ask you to leave."
  
  The rumors in the congo suggested some sort of girl trouble, but details were in conflict and it appeared there was a lot of guessing. When asked about it, the young brother's enigmatic response was something like: "It just didn't work out. I really can't say more." In time, we just all stopped asking.
  
  I did notice on his return that he had gone from his clean scrubbed appearance to a look I'd characterize as wordly wise. He had a moustache that probably pushed up against the boundary of what was considered acceptable facial hair by the elders at the time; he wore his hair as long as he could get away with. I really noticed his eyes; they were wary and averted my gaze; looking back, I suspect he had seen or was thinking things he did't want to discuss.
  
  After several months of sporadic meeting attendance, he just dropped out of sight.
  
  A few months after that, we were out in service in really crummy part of town, the kind of place where you instructed all the sisters not to go inside if invited and told the group to stick together and nobody turns a corner at the end of the street unless there are at least two other couples close to you. These were mostly old, run down trailers sitting atop bare dirt lots with no walks, no landscaping. Of course there were cars up on blocks and broken appliances sitting out back gathering dust. You get the picture.

  A teenager girl, maybe 16-17, answered the door. Her skimpy tank top revealed a belly that said she was many months pregnant. She had a beer in her hand, probably her breakfast. When she opened the door, the air floated out and reeked of stale cigarette smoke and brewer's yeast.

  Undaunted, we launched into our presentation, at which she just stepped back inside as though she didn't want to be in this conversation; as she did so, leaving the door open, she revealed a young man lying on the couch in his underwear. He sat up and it took a minute to recognize him because of the scraggly beard and dirty, matted shoulder length hair. He sat up on the couch, probably only 10 feet from the door in this single wide trailer, and made no effort to stand. Then I realized he was our former bethelite. I'm afraid I wasn't very tactful. I blurted out the first words that popped in my head. "What happened to you?" I said, calling him by his first name.

  He just grinned at me. "Do you need some help?" I asked. He shook his head. After a long silence we said our goodbyes and moseyed off to the next door, in search of sheep, I suppose, and filled with wonder.
• 

  Winston Smith :>D

  Ha! Great minds think alike I guess:

  http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/7/58191/1.ashx

  Or bored minds think alike.
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  blacksheep

  Sorry, third party story...but yes, a guy I knew who was a Bethelite, and whose brother is now an elder, and both renovated my parents house, jumped off a bridge to commit suicide (in NY). Not too much discussion on it. Whatever discussion there was, centered on his "personal problems", of course.

  Then another couple my mother and I visited many years ago while touring Bethel, for some reason got divorced and both left Bethel. Their fault of course. They were indeed characterized as "going off the deep end." They were some of the most warm, charismatic people I had encountered in my short JW life up to that point. I'm proud of them both.
• 

  Amazing

  Almost every Bethelite I have known was one can short of a six-pack before going into Bethel, and two cans short when they came out. Jim W.
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  willyloman

  Jim

  Almost every Bethelite I have known was one can short of a six-pack before going into Bethel, and two cans short when they came out.

  Dude, you're funny! Always enjoyed your many enlightening posts.

  There is an update: Someone who knows I posted this told me last night that the exBethelite under discussion recently started going to meetings again, after many years away from the org. Same source tells me the young man's father is no longer an elder and hasn't been to a meeting (nor has his wife) in a couple of years (these people all live far away and I don't get all the news when it happens). It's truly a revolving door for some people.
• 

  voltaire

  I temped for two weeks way back in '92. As a temp, you don't get to know anyone too well, at least not the crazy side. But I did accumalate a lot of interesting impressions.

  Anyone ever see the glass recycling bins? ROW UPON ROW of barrels full of beer bottles and beer cans and some harder stuff, too. I know there's a lot of people at Bethel, but to generate so many bottles and cans there's got to be some serious drinking going on there.

  I stayed in the hotel that was renovated, can't remember the name now, Standish???Anyway, the lobby was beautiful, a HUGE chandelier, a magnificient staircase and an interesting mural. VERY IMPRESSIVE. But once you got past the area that was public, the place was practically a dive. Clean, yes. But very barebones.

  One day, as I was leaving my room, I heard Eric Clapton's "Cocaine" coming from one of the rooms. That was surreal, to be walking through the halls of Bethel and hear that.

  Oh yeah, I watched the Cowboys kick Buffalo's but yet again for the Superbowl. that was fun, because there were six of us temps in the room. It was a veritable superbowl party. Plenty to drink, too!!!

  I visited the Italian congregation. We were invited to the house of a sister. I went out in service. It was WAY cool! No one answered the door in service(just as well), but it was fun to hang out with Italians and brush up on my Italian. Of course, we had a little to drink at the sister's house. She apologized for only having Budweiser, no Italian wine. I was happy, though.

  Did I mention there was a fair amount of drinking at Bethel?

  The life is very regimented, that's for sure. It struck me that regular pionerring is a strange precursor to Bethel life. When they talk about "grooming" someone for Bethel, they usually seem to mean pioneering, reading at the bookstudy etc. Then you end up doing laundry for eight hours a day. Actually as I think about, I do see the connection. TRAIN PEOPLE TO DO MINDLESS WORK, TO FOLLOW ORDERS UNQUESTIONING, NO MATTER HOW FOOLISH THEY MAY SEEM AND YOU'LL FIT IN AT BETHEL.

  All in all, my experience was an interesting one. I would say that I actually liked it. I spoke lots of Spanish, a little French with a brother from Haiti. I met interesting people.But I, too, was left with a ..well....queer feeling is all I can say. It seemed all so mechanical, regimented, suffocating. As someone in one of the posts remarked, I found myself thinking that if the new world is going to be like this...? I was a long way off from leaving. But I think it was definitely one of those things that plants a few negative seeds, waiting to germinate later.
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  Kaethra

  Voltaire,

  I, too, was left with a ..well....queer feeling

  heh heh heh...that's been said here before about Bethel. ;)
• 

  stillajwexelder

  I, too, was left with a ..well....queer feeling

  I thought Chitty and Greenlees had left?
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  Joyzabel

  Amazing! "Almost every Bethelite I have known was one can short of a six-pack before going into Bethel, and two cans short when they came out"!!!!!

  you should have seen all the empty cans & bottles every morning in the garbage cans lined up on Columbia Heights! hehe

  j2bf <-------not the brightest candle on the cake (but not short of a six pack ) class
• 

  Billygoat

  I hear that my regular pioneer brother is working to get into Bethel. A few years ago I would be mortified. But now? I WANT HIM to go. I WANT him to see the tarnished side of that stupid cult coin. I wish there was a way to speed the process up!