Don't you just hate everything you've just read and think this is going on all the time in the organization in congregation after congregation, like some vicious cycle that never stops.
I remember being a traumatic experience that happened to me and it left terrible emotion and mental scars that have lasted even til this day.
I recall in 1974 the telephone rang and my ex husband answer it, he was in his little office and he was talking an awlful long time on the telephone so I went in his office and whispered who was he talking to and he printed out a friends name. So I left the room and after about an hour, my husband comes out of the office and says he has something he wants to tell me and he said please don't get upset by what I am about to tell you. I thought what the hell was this all about. He then proceeds to tell me that it wasn't a friend he was talking to but rather my father. He (my ex), said my dad called me a glutton and a big fat pig and that I was not allowed ever into their home until I decided to grow up and loss some weight as I was a disgrace and an embarrassment to our family name. Now we lived in Montreal at the time and they lived just north of Toronto. As my ex is telling me all of this I began crying uncontrolably. I said why would he say that about me, and my ex said, that your father has three witnesses that will testify about me being a glutton and that I was going to be disfellowshipped because of it. Well you can well imagine the pain that I was feeling it was as if someone had just stabbed me in the heart a thousand times.
So I told my ex I am calling my father, and he said don't bother he will hang up on you. I thought I can't take this, none of this is true, I am not a glutton or a big fat pig and I refuse to be called such. I got on the telephone to the overseer in our congregation and I was trying to talk to him but I was just crying. So I got dressed a walked over to his home, we were very close with this elder and his wife and we were practically neighbours. So it took a couple of minutes to walk to his home and when I got there I started to explain what had just happened. I told him what my father had said to my ex about me. Well he looked my straight in the face and said Terry how could he ever do that to you? Its not true, not one bit, he also said Martha and you are the best of friends and we know you intimately and wonder what would ever cause your father to say such terrible things. I told him he didn't say this to me but to my ex husband. Then the Brother said, Terry isn't your father a Jehovah's Witnesses and I shook my head postively and he said isn't he an elder also? To which I said yes. And he ,my friend and elder said what proof does he have? I mean they live so far away from you, how could they say this about you? And I told him I didn't know and I had no idea except that my ex husband said that my father had three witnesses who would go before a JC to tell them that I was a pig and glutton. I told him that my father said I am not welcome at his home anymore until I decide to lose weight. This elder was dumbfounded to say the least. He spoke with my ex and then after the visit they prepared tea and seen to it that I was okay. Yes okay to some extent. Then I went to our home a basket case to say the least.
Any way that is how things were and so to please and appease my family I went on a diet. I didn't realize at the time all this happened that I was also pregnant with my first child. I was constantly feeling dizzy and sick. Then I began hemorraging. I made an appointment with the doctor and they told me that I was pregnant, And then I thought shit my family will never see me and anyways I really didn't want to see them. Anyway I spoke at length with my specialist and told her what was happening in my live and as everyone else was appaulled so was she. How could a father do this to his child. Oh sure I was overweight, but I had been overweight almost my whole life until that point. But I sure as hell was no glutton or huge fat pig and a disgrace to my family.
She thought it be a good idea if I joined a group for support and to talk things out. So I did. I still had a terrible time to function and my nerves were on end and I was pregnant and I coulded get my act together. Any ways a couple of months passed and I was still bleeding and still the doctors said I would be fine. I was so weak and pail. I started having intense pain in my stomach and sides. I went to the emergency and they addmitted me right away as I was pregnant but it was in the fallopian tube. I was just standing there talking to the nurse and I collapsed. The next day in the hospital the on call doctor came over to talk to me and ask me why was I in the hospital. I told him the problem and he said your not pregnant who told you you were? I told him the doctor the evening before did a blood test and said I was pregnant and then he looked at the nurse accompanying him and then looked again at my chart and said oh I am sorry yes your pregnant. Then he said but your going to lose the baby. As I was hemoraging. With that hit or bolt of lightening I was now distraught. What terrible news to be told that I will lose this baby. I went to get out of the bed and all of a sudden I started to bleed all over the floor and fell down. The doctor rushed back and they picked my up and put me in the bed. Anyways to make this story shorter, I suffered an ruptured ectopic pregnancy. I had lost alot of blood. Of course this issue of blood came up and the elder that was helping me deal with my father rushed to my bed side and spoke to the doctors and he stayed with me until I was taken into the orperating room in the middle of the night. He also prayed to Jehovah to give me strenght to get through this ordeal. I made it, but they had to resusitate me three times on the table. I told my husband not to call my family I didn't want them to see me as they made their stance quite clearly about how they felt about me.
Well it was too late John my ex had called my parents and they rushed to montreal to see me. Our visit was standoffish but I wasn't going to let them know how terrible they had upset me. Even to the point of lossing the baby. I know they weren't responsible but so much stress from them made me very angry towards them. After a lot of hard months of losing weight I called my father and told him I was coming to talk to them about matters. So my dad said okay.
Well the visit really turned out more to be stressful to me rather then uplifting. I came home to Montreal a few days later and as with the passage of time, things seemed to mend themselves.
It wasn't until 1991 that i really found out the truth of that terrible day in 1974. I just said to my mother why oh why did you do that to me in 1974, why did you call me a pig and glutton and all kinds of nasty things. My mother said to me, You know terry I never lie and I am not lying now, but it was your husband who called your father and told him that you were a glutton and a big fat pig, and you were eating all the time, she said your father never ever said those things about you, but was concerned about health. I said so why didn't you want me to come to your home as I was an embarrassment to you and dad? She said it was all your husbands doing. He has lied to you for years and I said and you never thought for one minute to tell me the truth eh? She knew I was livid. I said so who were the three witnesses that were suppose to be my accusers. My mother refused to tell me as she said, so many years have passed and to let things be now and just try to forget it and get on with your life. Like hell. I will never forget it. You all destroyed me inside out and if you were truly a loving parent then why didn't they come clean along time ago.
When my ex came home from work that day I confronted him about this issuse and I told him what mom had said and he said to me, just for get it it was years ago, don't keep living in the past. I then told him , I don't live in the past and I said mom and dad said you were the one who instigated everything back then. He said no I did not. And what are you dwelling on it for. I said I want the truth. And I want it now. He said oh I forget what happened. I just looked and leered at him and he knew it was the beginnig of the time of the end for him and I . As I was going to get justice for what they all put me through all those years. There are several details I haven't mentioned but this was the stroy in a nut shell. I couldn't shorten it any more, as you wouldn't have understood the impact this had on me and my life. I hated them all for it. I think too that in 1991 I started having the thoughts of leaving the organization, but had to bide my time because of my son. I didn't want him to hurt and suffer the loss of having his father. That was a huge mistake in its self to. My life has been one big disappointment after another when it came to my ex and my parents for making me suffer all those years. They nearly killed me. Literally and that is a story for another time.
I think this was one of the single most tramatic experience I ever had, but I am here to tell you about it. That is the important thing.
I apoligize for this being so long too.
All my deepest love
Orangefatcat..
