I've been "lurking" around here for a while now (on-and-off for a couple years). Today's the day I'm going to take "the plunge" into "apostacy" and introduce myself here. I am a 39-year-old single mom of 6, I live in the interior of BC, Canada, and work in a doctor's office. I have been df'd for about 3 years now.
I was "born" into the truth. My mother was 4 when my grandmother was baptized, and my grandfather, evidently, followed suit a few years later. My dad was baptized in 1964. I was taken from Vancouver to my first covention in Pasedena, CA when I was only 2 weeks old.
I'm told that as a child I had difficulty sitting through the meetings and that I regularly required discipline. Around 2 years of age I was asked, "why do you go to meetings," and my parents were shocked to hear my answer, "to get a spanking." No doubt they were expecting something more like 'because I love Jehovah."
Through my school years, I was ostrasized for my religious beliefs, for which I was quite committed and loyal to. In Grade 7, a teacher actually made fun of me in front of the whole class because I was not allowed to participate in the school play of "Tom Sawyer." Deep down, I really wanted to, and I was felt it somewhat a priviledge when my stuffed-toy cat got a role in the play, even though I wasn't allowed. Frankly, I never really understood why I wasn't allowed to participate - I mean it wasn't associated with any holiday or anything - but it took time away from "spiritual things."
My father was either a ministerial servant or an elder for most of the time I was growing up, and it seemed the organization took all of my father's time (when he wasn't at his secular work). I think of myself (and my younger brother) as 'spiritual orphans' and my mother a 'spiritual widow.' He was too busy looking after congregational matters to have any time for family things. Specifically, I remember this "mystery woman" who used to call my father at all times of the day or night for "shepherding." He'd always take the call. I always wished he had that sort of time for me. My mother, a very sweet, caring, woman, took to the bottle and prescription medications, I think to ease her loneliness and sense of abandonment. All-in-all, though, I have respect for my father. He was/is true to his convictions.
We never missed meetings or field service, and quite honestly, I never got enough sleep. We had many late nights. Our Tuesday night bookstudy went from 8 to 9 pm (often home by 10 or later), and home from our Thursday theocratic school/service meetings often at 11 or later. Saturday mornings were field service days (group at 9:15), and we always had 10 am Sunday meetings. I can honestly say that I had quite literally burned out from lack of sleep by the time I was 9 years of age, when I was no longer allowed to sleep during the meetings.
My mother was a registered nurse. I specifically remember her (during the early 1970s) going out and delivering babies "underground" (that was the term I remember her using) along with a witness doctor (whose name I can't think of right now - but I'm sure it it will come to me), when there was an issue as to the mom or baby needing a blood transfusion after the birth due to RH incompatibility. I remember my mother hiding the equipment, including an incubator, in our small Vancouver home. I remember her crying after one of those secret births, and she told me that the baby (a boy) had died. I remember that seemed to be the last time she did any of those births. I've tried to discreetly ask my mother about this a few times since - but it's something she won't talk about. I think she's afraid, but she doesn't deny it either. I got the feeling there was some sort of cover-up involved. Have any of you heard anything about this sort of thing going on before?
I know that at 14, most kids would be aware as to what "sex" is or isn't. But, as some of you well know, when you're raised in such a sheltered community, where trust amongst one another is unquestionable, you learn not to trust your own feelings. Doubts or questioning any feelings you may have, my be deemed "apostate" and evil, so you keep it quietly buried inside and "wait on Jehovah." I was sexually abused by two brothers, including one elder. It wasn't "penis in vagina" sex, so at the time, I didn't understand that it was still sex. One of these "brothers" claimed to be a "massage therapist," and when I tried to move his hand away from that area, he told me to relax, it was okay, it was a "normal part of a clinical massage." I believed him even though it felt wrong. Talk about the confusion I had as a teen-aged witness, being told that sex before marriage is wrong, not understanding that "that" kind of sex was also viewed as wrong, after being told it was okay by two brothers, including an elder who told me that "that" was a "normal part of a clinical massage." I felt crazy. I felt stupid. I felt guilty.
I didn't tell until a few years later. As many of you who have been sexually abused and have brought it to the elder's attention no doubt know, either the other party lies (making it your word against theirs), or I'm not even sure if they even talk to them about it in some cases, as nothing ever seems to get done. They don't even tell you that they've talked to them about it, or what was said or done. It's "confidential." They don't offer you any kind of support. It's almost like they either think you're lying about it, or, for whatever reason, the elders just don't want to deal with it. I was left feeling disbelieved, crazy, and guilty yet again.
I was 16 when I got baptized. I rarely get sick to my stomach and I've maybe vomited 10 times in my whole life. I was threw up more than once the day I got baptized. It should have been a sign. I was definately not ready. Yes, I knew the answers to the questions, but I really didn't know the full impact of what that would really mean to my future. I graduated and didn't go on to college or university. I wanted to, but could not get student loans, because my parents made too much money, and my parents would not pay because it was wrong (as a Witness) to get further education. Armaggedon was too close.
I was just over 20, and still "technically" a virgin, when I married my first husband, an elder's son. However, during the short (as with many witnesses) engagement period I learned that my future father-in-law, the elder, had a baby with his daughter, my soon to be sister-in-law. He was a pedophile, having had a child from this incest, and he was still an elder in the congregation! He had even had a baby with his wife one month before having had the baby with his daughter! The incest had apparently gone on from the time she was 4 (including during field service), until the baby was concieved when she was 17. It became common knowledge in the town they lived (Lake Simcoe, ON), and both she (the victim) and the father were df'd. They were later reinstated, moved to BC, and even though the incest was known about amongst the brothers, he was still made an elder! But we still got married. ~banging my naive head against the wall~
My husband and I were never as zealous to "the truth" as my parents were, but we were still very much involved. We had our problems. My husband lilked to drink (often puking drunk). Some of my husband's brothers had either left the truth, or were df'd. Some were into drugs. One of my brother-in-laws, married, and still in "good standing" in the congregation came over to my home after a family event where he (we) had been drinking. My husband had passed out drunk in the bedroom. His brother told me how beautiful I was and tried to kiss me. He had a hard-on for which he asked for some relief and pushed my down toward it. I reminded him he was married and my husband was sleeping in the other room. I didn't let it happen, and I told the elders about this event. He lied, and nothing ever seemed to be done about it. The elders offered no support. I'm left feeling crazy, disbelieved and guilty again. It pisses me off so much when I see him still wondering about the assemblies with his "attendant" label on as a ministerial servant, looking so judgementally down on me. He knows. I know. God knows.
Eventually my husband and I start popping out babies. 5 in 5 1/2 years. While pregnant with my 5th, my mother-in-law keeps calling on my husband to go "help" one of his brothers who is using Cocaine. I plead with my husband to stay with me and the kids. He doesn't. He shows his "headship" and goes to "help" his brother. My husband starts working very late and getting very skinny. I start worrying about him. I decide to take him his dinner (like a good christian wife). I pack my 4 kids and my pregnant self into the car and head out for the 25 minute drive to his work. When I get there, he's not there. I start checking into my brother-in-laws hang-outs and I find my husband's car at one of them - the local strip club (there with the brother he's supposed to be "helping" spiritually). Shortly thereafter, and just days before the 5th baby was born, my husband moves out of the house and into the home of a girl from his work. A few months later I find my husbands name in the local news paper's 'court docket' section. He had been convicted of Cocaine possession.
My ex was df'd, but we still maintained a (non-sexual) relationship for the sake of the kids. Although some in the hall looked down on me for my choice, I always had the belief that he was the kids' father, and that would never change. I encouraged him to maintain visitation with them, in spite of his now very "worldly" lifestyle. I let him see them at my home, and the elders would "talk" to me about it. I knew I was doing it for the kids, but the elders kept reminding me that if I slept with him again, I would have "technically" forgiven him for his adultery and could not have my "spiritual" divorce. They did not seem to understand that I had no desire to sleep with him, rather, I was just refusing to become guilty of parental alienation. I understood my ex-husband had come from a very messed up JW family.
I was now a single mom of 5 under 6. People at the hall were helpful when I was there, but had little time for me otherwise. It was not easy getting 5 small kids to the meetings. They would not invite me to their dinners, or get-togethers. One sister in the congregation went so far as to say to me, "who's going to want you now with 5 kids." So when 18 months later a fellow (not baptized but "raised in the truth") moved into the hall from Ontario showed interest in me, I jumped at the opportunity.
Shortly thereafter we were married (another ridiculously short engagement due to the guilt of having been "immoral.") It wasn't like I didn't try to say, "no" to marrying this man. I did. And, really, I should have known better, because not only did he literally cry and said he loved me too much to leave and find a place of his own, (he was staying with friends of his in the congregation and said he could not continue to stay there bcause of our immorality, using the very-ingrained guilt factor on me) when I told him that maybe we should wait, he was already using threats. He said he'd tell the whole congregation that we'd slept together, and that then they'd have no choice but to disfellowship me. (Up to that point, I had confessed to my 'sin', but no one else in the congregation knew, so as long as I kept it quiet, they said that they would not have to take any further action.) I married him, and quickly realized I had made a horrible mistake.
I didn't talk much about it to those in the hall, though, having learned the first time around that their "love" was conditional. I felt it was my mistake. "I had made my bed, now I had to sleep in it." It didn't take him long to isolate me from everyone I knew. He would talk to people in the congregation about me, telling them about all my indescretions, and then would bring back all these horrible things they had said about me. Sometimes I think he just made up stories of things they had said against me; I hope, because if they actually said some of the things he said they said, not only were some of them not true, they were outright cruel. He threatened to call the elders about pretty much everything. He would tell them I was unsubmissive because I didn't do this, or that. I joked he had the elders phone number on speed-dial to keep me in line. He would make me change the channel for watching certain TV show. Most the time I would. One time I refused while watching the TV show "America's Most Wanted" so he literally cut the cable cord. He wouldn't get a job, so I did. He told me I had to quit my job and tried to get the elders on his side by telling them that I had gone to a birthday party while at work. It wasn't true.
I had to put my children into daycare because I did not trust him with them (nor did he want to look out for them). They were getting unexplained bruises, welts, and marks. I knew I had to get out. That's easier said than done when you are "in the truth," you are the "baptized" one, and your husband is supposedly working at getting baptized. I had to finally quit my job (or be fired) because he was phoning me at work, bringing me to tears with his accusations, and I couldn't do my job. When I quit that job, I "kicked him out." I was ostrasized by the congregation for having done it. I had to. He was physically and emotionally hurting my children (and me). By then I had no one left. I had been completely isolated. Isolated from the brothers for being so "unchristian," and because he had made sure that he had isolated me from those in the congregation, and isolated from those on the outside. I had no one. I had no job, and with no job I had to sell my house.
I decided to move to the interior of BC from the Vancouver area. He cursed the ground I walked on for being so unsubmissive and selling MY home without HIS permission. He wanted me to stay. I refused because I had no other choice. It was either move or stay there and rent (at the time prices in this area were much less than where I was living, so I could get much more house for less money.) Only problem was, the day I left for my trip to find the new home, I also found out I was pregnant with his child.
I found a home suitable to raise my kids, and with no one to help, I packed up the home. However, I began to bleed. Frankly, I was a little relieved the the thought that I might miscarry this pregnancy. But he threw a fit, telling me I would be "blood-guilty" and a "murderer" if I continued to move boxes and lost his baby. I had no one else to ask for help. So, I took him up on his offer to help. This became my next mistake. If I hadn't have asked him to help, he might have stayed in Vancouver. I never agreed to have him move in with me once I got to my new home. But, thanks to my faith, that's what ended up happening. But not right away.
I went to the Congregation here, and received a somewhat warm reception. Of course, I still was not invited to any of their things - I had too many kids (even though I told them I could get a babysitter.) They helped me at the meetings, but that was all. I suppose that since I was separated from my 2nd husband I was deemed a very bad associate. Besides, he had come along to the meetings, and had started up the same campaign at this congregation that he had used at the old one. He put the new elders' phone numbers on speed-dial. I was isolated from both worlds yet again.
Somehow, he managed to talk me into letting him stay with me for 1 month after the baby was born to "get to know his son." Otherwise, he would let everyone in the congregation up here know all these indescretions about me, etc., and I believed that he would do it. He had put a wound on his leg, and showed the elders claiming that I had done it to him. They all believed him. No one seemed to believe me. It was the worst year of my life. Until the school called social services because of my children's wounds. It was not the elders, to whom I had tried to convince he was abusive and that was why I needed him out, it was not the congregation (even though some in the mother's room had seen the bruises on my children, including a serious bruising on my older son's back) who helped me get out. They wouldn't even take me seriously. Instead, they told me I was the problem for not being a submissive wife.
I could keep this story going on, but you're probably bored already. In the end, I got disfellowshipped (for allowing myself to get raped by a witness family member while drunk.) My ex-husband got a 30 day sentence and 1 years probation for Threatening Conduct and Harassment. The elders haven't even acknowleged the lack of care and understanding they showed with regard to how much they blamed ME for his actions. I was so brainwashed that I didn't even understand just how badly I was being treated until I read about what the judge said during his sentencing. The "truth" did not set me free, rather it entrapped me. It entrapped me in their silent "confidential" world. If the "world" hadn't have helped me out, I would not be here today. I can say with confidence, I would have committed suicide. I believed I was crazy.
I have since put myself through and graduated from college and I now have a great job. "Wordly" people have "adopted" us, and I finally am feeling what true, unconditional love is. I am finally happy. Yes, happy. I didn't think it was possible. My family (still in "the truth") with never understand, that my decision to remain out is because I am truly in a better place. As you all know, I'm not supposed to be feeling happy, or relieved, and I'm certainly not supposed to feel like God still loves me, but I do!
Thank you for reading, and I look forward to more of your stories,
Rose