Raised a JW... did you have a childhood?

by ignorance is strength 40 Replies latest jw experiences

• 

  Robdar

  Hi Ig,

  Personally I feel kind of cheated out of a childhood by an organization that forced you to think that "everything around you was going to be gone soon so you better grow up, start publishing, and giving talks." Did any of you experience a less than stellar childhood, especially because of the lack of holidays and socially-isolating religion gowing up?

  No, I didn't feel cheated until I got to be a teenager. Even then, it wasn't because I didn't celebrate holidays--I didn't mind that, it was because of social isolation. I was allowed no outside activities other than congregation get togethers.

  While attending a JW social at a skating rink, I met my future husband. He liked me enough to go to a few meetings with me so, upon occasion, my father would let me go out with him--chaperoned of course. I ran away and married him 4 days after I turned 19 and was pregnant 5 months later. But, hey, I got away from the JWs...

  That was over 20 years ago. Since then, I have made up for missed fun and I have lived my life the way that I want. You will too.

  If you are 16, as your profile says, be of good cheer. Soon you will be old enough to leave and start your new life. Do so. But you may want to consider other ways of doing it than I did.

  Robyn
• 

  maybesbabies

  I was raised a JW from birth, and did not have much of a childhood. I have to say though, it was much worse for my sister (Xandria), as she was older and took the majority of the beatings and such. It got much worse after she left home, but I am so glad she was able to get away from that life. Our life became better, sadly, after my mom died, because my father became essentially paralyzed by depression, so we were left to our own devices. Also, my mom was the main abuser, physically, so that ended along with her life, too. The mental abuse continues to this day, but I am lucky to be away from it. My little brother is still stuck there, as well as my other sister, who is old enough to know better, but still stays in contact with dad. Our childhood consisted mainly of being homeless and regular beatings, under the guise that the world will end any minute now, so we shouldn't be concerned about silly things like eating, or having a home. Even the JW's at our congregations were disgusted by my parents, but they still espoused their views on Jehovah, and felt that they were living the life God wanted them to live. Now perhaps this is being negative, but the truth is that we need to purge these demons, and that "focusing on the positive" is only denial for those of us who haven't yet had a chance to talk to anyone about our personal pain.
• 

  DFWnonJW

  I was going through old family photos last night and it's just so apparent. The early photos of me show a happy normal kid always smiling and just, well, normal. Then, when I was 5, my mom became a witness hook, line and sinker and there is just an obvious difference that I can see in my photos. All of a sudden comes the isolation that so many of us felt as well as the fear of watching the sudden destruction of everything in front of your very eyes "any day now". It takes it's toll.

  Now, I understand that there have always been those that have suffered infinitely more than I have and of course I don't mean just JW's. The suffering of people is an unfortunate constant but that whole "but for the grace of god...." thing only goes so far. Personal happiness and contentment can be based on the suffering of others. Well, unless you happen to be a serial killer I suppose. I'm rambling, shut me up!
• 

  talesin

  nope.

  Going to bed was a prayer to die and not wake up to another day of hell. Waking up was with the surety of another nightmare to live through.

  Not even going to bed was safe.

  Birth to 18 sucked until I escaped. Long live FREEDOM.

  t

  here's a link to the poem "A child of nine" that prompted me to my 1st post

  http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/7/54351/1.ashx
• 

  talesin

  {{{smack}}}

  don't feel bad, you made a good point!

  t
• 

  Euphemism

  First of all, my heartiest sympathies to Lady Lee and the others who had truly horrific things happen in their childhoods.
  

  There are many of us, however, who grew up with food, shelter, and love; our childhoods were definitely more positive than negative. But we were still permanently emotionally scarred by guilt, fear, and social isolation.

  For everyone who is urging us to 'look at the positive', I have a question for you. If you have a friend who has the flu, would you tell him/her: "Well stop complaining, at least you don't have cancer"? I certainly hope not.

  If you don't want to read negative experiences... then just don't read them! It should be damn obvious from the title of the thread that the experiences aren't going to be positive.

  But don't come in here and beat down people who want to talk about their experiences. The first obstacle that anyone overcoming childhood issues faces is denial. Most of us have a hard time admitting, at first, that our childhood was bad. In fact, we tend to feel guilty; we tend to rationalize and try to justify, saying: "My parents were doing what they thought was right... My life wasn't nearly as bad as that of other children I know." It's only once we get past this denial that we can actually grieve over what we lost, and thus heal.

  I understand that some who were raised JWs weren't as badly affected as others. If you're one of those, then I'm happy for you. But please don't let your own experience close your mind to understanding the rest of us.

  I had to go through the process of grieving myself, and I've had to help friends through it as well. So please, if you know anyone who is going through it... don't make things worse by telling them to be positive.

  P.S. I just want to add that I don't mean to pick on smack. I appreciate your apology, and I'm not trying to single you out. I just feel strongly about this point, and I had to throw in my two cents.
• 

  Lady Lee

  I did a study a few years ago on how people perceived their childhoods realted to abuse. One interesting and unexpected result was that regardless of how mild and infrequent the abuse or how severe and constant people's pereption of what happened and their feelings about it were a greater indicator of whether they had been abused.

  From that I realized that for those of us where the abuse was a constant, we tended to normalize it. Didn't everyone live like that?

  But if a person had a one-time incident of something abusive they could be traumatized by that and even more easily identify the abuse for what it was.

  I'm not saying here that one is better than the other or less important or less severe. But how we perceive what happens is just as important as what happened.

  Never discount anyone's perception of the difficulty in their childhood. Abuse is abuse
• 

  Ravyn

  I didn't know I never had a childhood until I was told by my husband that I didn't. However, if my parents were not JWs I still would not have had a childhood. It is a generational defect and dysfucntion in our family.

  Ravyn
• 

  Nosferatu

  I didn't miss holidays..................I really didn't. I didn't know the difference.

  That's where I was different. Holidays went out the door at age 5. However, I remembered Christmas. I remembered a couple of birthday parties. I remembered the excitement of "what's in this package?" This made growing up difficult. Age 5 is when my life changed drasticly. When I went through hell at school because of being a JW, I would remember how my life was once "normal". I kept asking myself the question "Wny did it have to change?" Therefore I was robbed at age 5. If I didn't do something "for Jehovah", I got a beating.

  It was at age 18 when I started enjoying my "childhood" again. That was when I felt free. However, it only lasted a year. It was my last year of high school. I drank beer, I got a girlfriend, etc. After that year of school was over, I had to go out and find a job. My childhood was finished. I was allowed to truly be a child for 6 years out of 19, 3 of which I don't remember since I was too young.

  You bet I'm pissed off about being cheated out of a childhood. However, I know that I can never recapture it all. Now, I still have trouble adjusting to holidays. I've been celebrating for 7 years and I'm still having trouble adjusting.
• 

  Pyrohectic

  Did any of you experience a less than stellar childhood, especially because of the lack of holidays and socially-isolating religion gowing up?

  Yes, I was so traumatized at not having presents given to me for commercially assigned days out of the year(never mind the fact that I usually got toys and other things on the days preceding and following). It always bugs me when I hear about how damaging JW children were that they couldn't celebrate holidays. One lady I met called it child abuse. Um, if the most damaging events from your childhood surrounded not getting toys for Christmas, count yourself most fortunate.