I was raised a poor white child in the deep South...ok, Florida, where I still am. My mother found "the truth" when I was 2, so I consider myself raised in it. I have 1 older, 1 younger brother, and 1 "younger" sister. She likes me to emphasize that. My mother was attracted to this wacky religion because her family members were coming into it and they assimilated her...and us along with. My Dad was never a Witness, but he was happy to let Mom take all 4 of us kids to meetings and service because it got us out of the house!
I was the typical slightly self righteous witness, miss goody goody, left school at 16 to pioneer, which I did for 4 years, met a guy and married him. He had 2 kids from a previous marriage and we had 2 kids of our own. We were married 15 years, until his depression and alcoholism took so much out of me that I had nothing left to give. It was at this time that I began to wonder why Jehovah wasn't "blessing my efforts" since I went to the meetings, service, prayed, had the book study at my house...etc. My ex-husband was an elder, and we were considered the model witness family. So how come the problems of life just kept mounting?
I began reading some self help books and discovered that magic word "co-dependence", and I began to see what my whole life was all about! Actually, I have AA to thank for that. When my ex-husband was in treatment for his alcoholism, they made the spouses attend AA meetings, and then Al-anon meetings, which are for the families of alcoholics. I began to see how my Mother's example of co-dependence my whole life had programmed me to be that way, too. So I made poor choices in life....I subconsciously sought out a "needy" person as a mate, so I could take care of them. But after years of this, and when he quit taking care of the family and basically told me that if he had to choose between his music(yes, he was a musician) and me and the kids, well....big sigh....he just couldn't give up his music! So, I decided right then that I deserved more out of life than to be second choice for anyone. So I left, and though he tried everything in his power to take back those words, his actions proved nothing had changed.
At this point in my self-enlightenment, I saw that the religion I had always believed in was nothing but a conduit for co-dependence. Think about it! Jehovah will fix everything, you never have to do anything for yourself...you devalue yourself to a God who never accepts what you do as good enough any way!
So, at this point I was having my own crisis of conscience, and would you believe, I met another JW who was going thru the same thing! We worked together, his wife was an alcoholic, becoming increasingly worse, he had to move out for the safety of his son and himself! We began to talk about our doubts, and ask each other, why isn't Jehovah helping us? Doesn't he want to keep families together? The answer became painfully clear to us both, that God WAS NOT listening. And in this shared pain and questioning, a beautiful friendship was forged. And from that grew a love that I thought only existed in fairy tales, unconditional love and acceptance. At this same time, I was supporting my two boys by myself, the house I was renting was foreclosed on(the owners didn't pay the mortgage)even though I paid them rent. So I had 24 hours to find a place to live, so of course my love invited me to move in with him. The elders wanted to meet with us to discuss our situation, we met them at our office and basically told them we weren't going to discuss it, our marriages were over, we WOULD NOT take our dysfunctional mates back, hence, we were disfellowshipped.
It was very painful, especially for Doug, my sweetie because he is 4th generation witness, and was very close to his family. The shock waves are still resounding after 2 years. He still has nightmares about his family. I don't. My whole family (except my sister!)is so screwed up and dysfunctional I am better off without them. But the end result is: All three of our kids(Doug has 1 son) are now living in a peaceful, stable environment...and seem happy. Therapy for all three helped ease them over the hump of all these changes in their life
But the happiness, freedom, and peace of mind we now enjoy...was worth all the pain! And I would suffer it all again gladly to prevent my children having to grow up in that dysfunctional cult, where they would be warped adults, still searching for themselves in their 30's.
Not to mention, having no idea how to make a living or have real relationships with people.
So, there you have it. I know it doesn't seem like the short version, but trust me, it was. I didn't even get to start on how my brother molested me...or how verbally and emotionally abusive my Father was! I'll save that for another time and another forum. Thanks for your time and attention.
think41self.....aka Tracy