I was a 3rd generation JW, half the congregation I attended was made up of my entire mom's side of the family, 2 of the 3 elders were my Grandpa and uncle. My first memory of the organization was when they announced my mom's name in the meeting saying she had been reinstated....it was 1988 and I was 6 years old....I didn't understand it then, but when I asked my mom why was she crying and why did they say her name in the meeting, she said "It's because I've been good!". What had happened was my mom had gotten disfellowshipped 2 years before I was born and for 8 years remained inactive till the 1987 Whittier, CA earthquake happened and she got scared straight believing for the first time that had it been Armageddon, she would've died along with me and my younger newborn brother. So she went back and after a period of time assisting constantly, she was reinstated. From then on, my life changed.
No more halloween or birthdays, which were the only 2 events she celebrated when she was df'd. No school celebrations for me. At age 9, i developed depression. I would wake up in the middle of the night crying and when my mom would ask me what was wrong and why I was crying, i would say "I don't know"...honestly, at that time I really didn't know why, I would just burst out crying for no reason.
Around this time I also started to become very observant. We would be at the meetings 1/2 an hour before it started because my grandpa was always there early to open the kingdom hall and start setting up. So what did I do with my time until others arrived? Interestingly enough, I did not run up and down the isles or play in the bathroom....I actually would go and read the old books they kept in the library. It was through this that as I got older I started to question what was being said. "Mom, how do anointed ones know they are anointed?"...."Well, how do you know you are a girl?"..."Um, idk, I just am"..."Exactly". huh?
At age 13 I got baptized, but unfortunately, it was for the wrong reasons. My mom was constantly comparing me to one of the elder's daughters who was my age, baptized and a regular pioneer. The pressure was on to please my mom and make her proud. But I also figured I'd learn to love Jehovah eventually especially after I was baptized.
When I was 15 I developed a relationship with a boy in the congregation. We later had the attitude that we were in love and wanted to be together forever and everyone was against us, blah blah blah. One day we ran away together and spent the night at a vacant home that was his dads (real estate agent) Needless to say, we did the hanky panky and we turned ourselves about.
Days later when the elders found out (at this point there were now 5 elders so 3 were not related to me) I was brought in for a meeting. This is the first time I found out they kept files on baptized members. Here...they proceded to write down what I did, how I did it, why I did it,etc. After hours of interrogations, they decided I should be disfellowshipped from the organization. I actually felt angry, not sorry. I couldn't believe this was my life. At 15 years old having commited fornication once, my life as a jw had no second chance...it was done until I decided to come back later, maybe 1 or 2 years said one elder.
My life changed again. No cousins, friends, no uncles and aunts, nothing. My grandparents lived next to us and they would hold the weekly bbq's at their house. While everyone sat in the yard, eating bbq ribs, potato salad, playing trivia games, I sat in my bedroom watching hours of I Love Lucy, loudly so I couldn't hear the chuckles and good times going on outside. And then finally, my mom would come in to my room and bring a plate of whatever goodies they had made and asked if I needed anything else or another plate to signal her from the front door. Nirvana, The Cranberries, my keyboard, my violin and I Love Lucy became my world. No family support.
School was also my world. I looked forward to going to school. Many years would pass and I would receive the perfect attendance awards for having missed not one day of school through the whole year. My plan was to go to college and show those idiots I was indeed not like them. But when I graduated HS, I was still 17, no car, no licence and my mom was not going to drive me. College was now not an option even as an exjw. The following year, I became a pregnant teen, going to trade school in the morning and working at a fast food place at night. My day started at 7am and didn't end till midnight. Again, no family support.
For the next 10 years, I would not give the WT a second thought. I got married, had 3 more children, bought a house and became a Christian. My life was perfect. Then 2012 happened. My grandfather, whom I was so close to and had a stroke in 2004, was now having complications and the doctors did not expect him to live past 3 days. So I went to visit him. This was the first time I had seen him since 1998. In the room were a few of my uncles and aunts. One went to hug me and said "Oh it's so good to see you. I've missed you so much, I can't wait till I can hold you in my arms in public again, please come back soon". My grandpa was on a ventilator, couldn't open his eyes. I leaned over, whispered goodbye and that I'd miss him and that I loved him. I left the hospital as most people there were staring at me like I was Satan himself. It wasn't until I got in my car, turned the radio on and drove home to the tune of Carrie Underwood's "See you again" that I felt the overwhelmingly painful 14 years of rejection that had been bottled up inside me. He died the next day.
After his funeral, I went to my mother's house to be there for her since she was having a hard time only to find out they were having a dinner at her home. 100 people were there. They had set up tables and chairs in her yard and everyone ate outside...My husband, my kids and I had to eat inside. During this time, one of my elder uncles pulled me aside, to my mother's bedroom and said "You know Jehovah is waiting for you. I can talk to you because I am an elder, and I really want to tell you that the end days are here. Armageddon is around the corner, and now you have to think about those 4 precious children of yours. Now it's not just you. You know this is the Truth, start attending your local congregation and you'll see that with faithful service you can come back". That did it for me. After 14 years, nothing had changed. I was still the 15 year old fornicator.
Now the even worse part of the story has arrived. My mom had always maintained communication with me, but never went to my babyshowers as that was a party for a df'd person. I shrug that off because other than that, she would visit with me, take my kids to the park, etc. But 2 months ago, she called me......and I couldn't believe what she was saying. She stated that I could no longer have any kind of communication with her because she needed to stand firm in her beliefs until I came back. No more texting, no more phone calls, no more lunches, no more visits, no more calling for help with recipes, nothing. I'm guessing it had something to do with the recent convention of 2013 where the topic of disfellowhipped people came up.
It's been difficult for me now because I find that I am angry that my childhood was what it was. My life was robbed, my family is being used as a weapon against me and there's nothing I can do about it. So here I am, venting, sharing my experience, talking with people like me so I don't feel like I'm invisible, but even through all this, strange as it may sound, I've never been happier to be free....free from opression, from anyone telling me I can't go to college, freedom to really live life and experience all it has to offer. It's been 16 years of freedom and that ladies and gentlemen is real TRUTH.
