This is my story. It is my first time telling my story and a little intimidating. When I was 8 my adoptive family became JW's. When my mother died, her request before my brother and I were adopted was that we not be raised JW. At 7, I had already had my first crush (this becomes important later in my story). As a child, after losing my mother, losing holidays didn't really matter anymore, then as I grew up I started doing all the things that "good" Jehovah's Witnesses do. I was putting 60 hours a month in the door-to-door ministry, giving talks, etc. But I longed for what I considered a normal teenage life. As a result I started sneaking out of the house to go on dates and such. Of course I was caught and went through all the channels. I was privately reproved and my priveleges were taken away. People stopped letting their children do things with me even if their kids were doing worse things than I was. Eventually, I got back in touch with my first crush. We started writing letters, of course my step-mom intercepted them and the whole thing started all over again. My step-mom literally locked my bedroom door from the outside, put a baby monitor in my room so she could hear everything going on and nailed my bedroom window shut. I moved out of my parents house, got back in touch with my first crush and married him.
Things only got wierder after that. I only had 5 people at my wedding because I was afraid of what my parents would do. I got pregnant with my first child and before you know it the elders were at my door. I got disfellowshipped and shunned. I had a very difficult pregnancy, I was in labor at six months. I had to monitor contractions at home and take medication to keep labor stopped. When our first child was born, he had a birth defect. My grandmother was at my side, called my step-mother and pitched a fit. So, after the baby was airlifted to where he would have surgery the next day, my step-mother called and offered to come down to the hospitol the next day to be with us during the surgery. Of course she couldn't come alone, she had to call in reinforcements and during the surgery, I sat on pins and needles. Not only was I out of the hospitol 10 hours after having a baby, traveling four more hours to a new hospital, worried about what is going on in surgery. I had to worry about what was going to be said. I was given the impression that I had caused my child to be born that way for going against the church.
After the baby got home from the hospital, my husband and I started going to meetings. While I waited out in the cold car, people would keep the baby and him in the kingdom hall for an hour afterwards talking to him. It was too hard for me to deal with. The same people that would shun me would want to hold the baby during the meetings and keep him afterwards to enjoy. Neither my husband nor I could handle it. We quit going and had two more children.
We have been married for 10 wonderful years. We live our lives very uprightly. Yet, we are always considered wrong. My step-parents can do whatever they want, hurt us many times over, but we are supposed to kiss their butts to get back into their good graces. We finally had enough. My children may not know their grandparents well, but everytime we try all they do is hurt us. I refuse to have my children hurt anymore, so we quit trying. You can only imagine the amout of critisism we get for that decision. Thankfully, we moved out of state recently and can be more stable. Less trying to please everyone else, more pleasing our children.
Anyway that is my story, thank you for reading