Posts by gladtobefree

14

Attn: Formidable Apostates

by Bubbamar in

jw
friends

i read the thread yesterday about apostates and started wondering about your families.

i am thinking about writing a letter to my mom and sharing with her some of the things i have learned about the jw's but also realize that this will make me an apostate and will worsen an already distant and painful relationship.

i am hoping that some of you will share your experiences on what impact your outspoken "apostacy" has had on your families - how have they reacted to you.

gladtobefree

My relationship with my mom was also strained, to say the least. She would not contact me but also would not hang up on me. When I went to Fl for my sisters wedding she actually told me that she felt that she had the right to talk to her own children. I was shocked and happy. After that I wrote her an 11 page letter and I told her that I was not trying to change her veiws but wanted her to understand why I felt the way I did. A lot had to do with the abuse I had endured and how the elders and the WTS responded. One of my sisters was there when she read it and she said that my mother said that I worte a lot of Apostate stuff. When my sister took it and read it (my sister has never been baptized) she pointed out that the only quotes that were there were directly from the WTS and the bible. My mom did not respond. After that I went to Brooklyn for the silent lambs March. My mom found out and was very upset. When I went to FL last she made it clear to me that she was dissapointed and she would not have any relationship with me. She did come to the beach on the last day I was there as we were having a family gathering, but she came just to see my kids. She did not even hug me goodbye. My sister said that after I left my mom broke down sobbing saying she should have hugged me.

I think my mom feels obligated to not speak to me because she has been taught that I am being wicked and she hopes that I will "come back to the truth" if she shuns me. I know this tears her apart but it tears me apart to think that she is so brainwashed to treat me in such a way. She knows of the abuse I suffered and she knows how badly I was treated and she KNOWS that I did nothing to be DFed over. All I did was went to the elders for help and answers. My "mistake" was not settling for "wait on Jehovah" , "have Faith" or "just pray more". But its the best "mistake" I have ever made. I just wish my mom could see that.

I guess you have to feel it out with your mom. If things are already strained you may want to take a lighter approach. Slip things in when she does not realize it. But be careful lest you lose her completely.

33

Ever start a BS?

by PopeOfEruke in

did anyone here ever start a bible study while out in field service?

from scratch, all by themselves?.

i had a couple of studies but never started one from cold.

gladtobefree

I started one in the field service when I was 18. The "householder" (remember that word?) was 17 with a small child. We studied for a few weeks and she moved away without a word. :) Guess that was the only way to get rid of me.

I had one other "bible study" with my best friend. She and I had both been brought up as JWs, but she was never baptized and did not want to be a JW. When I was 20 I asked her to study with me. I had been told we could not be friends if she was not a JW because she was bad association. I desperatly wanted to be her friend. She was the nicest, most kind and wonderful person I had ever met. She had been abused by her step-dad who was supposedly of the annointed and I figured that was why she did not want to be a JW. I figured God would surely understand her "emotional handicap". But if I did not study with her I would not be "allowed" to be her friend. So she agreed to study. We only had a couple of studies and she made it clear to me that it was just not her thing. She never tried to make me leave the JW's and she has always been there for me. When she had a child I offered to babysit for her just as an excuse to see her. (plus I love that kid!) I pushed her everytime I could. I tried so hard to convince her to be a JW. I made such an A** out of myself. I must of seemed SO self-righteous. But in the end, when I started to figure out something was wrong with the JW beliefs, I called her. She welcomed me with open arms. She never said I told you so. She listened to me and she helped me through being DFed. I am SO glad she did not listen to me, and ever so glad that she did not hate me for trying.

32

Would you marry not for love but for a visa?

by Atilla in

jw
friends

a friend of mine was approached by a asian family living here in the u.s. that wants to get a family member, a 18 year girl living in the south east asia region here to america.

they want my friend to get married to this girl for a year or two so she can eventually become an american citizen.

the family living here has offered to pay for all expenses; my friends air ticket over there and back along with any other expenses incurred plus a lump sum payment upon her successful immigration here to the u.s. my friend is maybe considering it but he hasn't even seen a picture of the girl yet and he is somewhat older(about 9 year difference) than the girl.. now if they fall in love or consemate the relationship, that's totally up in the air and i guess open to bargaining and my friend would totally be free to get a divorce once the girl gets to the u.s. i did ask some of my friends what they thought, and everyone pretty much said no.

gladtobefree

I had a friend who did it but her reasons were a lot different. She was close friends with an Italian family and they had been in the US since their son was 7. Before that they lived in Africa for a while so their son had not been in Italy since he was a baby. When the son turned 18 the INS was going to send the son back to Italy and make him apply from there to come back. In Italy you have to serve a year in their armed forces when you turn 18 (or at least at that time) so he would have been forced into the armed forces of a country he had not lived in since being a baby. The family asked my friend to do it and she did. Not for money, but to help her good friends. After a couple years they divorce and went about their lives. But the weird thing is that they did not seem to have much trouble with the INS. They did not even live together. Maybe they just did not care as much because he had been here for so long already and you could not tell that he was not a native of our country?

16

Did you ever defend the Borg?

by dorothy in

jw
friends

i remember when i first started studying i was always so quick to defend the borg if anyone said anything negative about them.

i didn't even have a reason to or had any business doing so because i was so new and didn't even really know anything about it.

and i absolutley refused to believe that they could be involved in child molestation, even going as far as refusing to watch the news shows exposing the real truth.

gladtobefree

Yeah, I Did. They train you as a kid to defend the Borg. It starts with holidays. They taught us to say that we did not miss the holidays because "our parents could give us gifts all year round just because they loved us". Of course, coming from a family with 10 kids that never happened. I think that my dad (who was not a JW) liked the fact that he did not have to borrow money and work all year to pay it back just to give us Christmas. The sad thing is it was not so much the gifts I missed out on, It was extremely hard not to be able to participate in school, and I wish I could have had memories of singing around the Christmas tree, or having birthdays so that I would have my own speacial day.

Then as you get older you have to defend against the blood issue, not believing in going to heaven, why we would not give blood or serve in the military. There was always something you had to defend, so I think anyone who was ever a JW felt they had to defend the Borg at one tme or another, With me, child molestation is what pushed me over the edge. I could not understand the elders defending the Borg on their stand and defending the child molesters over the children. I saw it first hand so I KNEW there was NO defending it!

39

Rumors started about you since you left.........

by avishai in

jw
friends

i've supposedly been.... gay.

dead.

a satan worshipper.

gladtobefree

Well, the rumors about me started before I was DFed, but while I was having elders over to "help" me because I could not understand why sexual abusers in the congergations were allowed to get away with it. The first rumor was that I was on the internet talking to apostates. That was untrue, At that time I had NEVER opened an ex-JW site or read about or talked to ANY ex-JWs. (after I was DFed for being an apostate I did decide to check out the internet site and have become very enlightened, Glad I was DFed now.) Then, when the elders heard that they said that that was why I was "questioning" them on abuse matters. I guess they did not think it had anything to do with my father in-law being arrested for sexual abuse and the elders doing nothing. It had nothing to do with one of my baptized brothers abusing me when I was a child and it had nothing to do with my sister-in-law having been repeatedly raped by her uncle who was an elder. He had been removed for a short time and then made an elder again. It also had nothing to do with my BEST friend's "annointed" step father abusing the family physically, sexually and emotionally. I could not get the elders to even look into that when I was 15. I told them I was going to childrens servvices and they told me not to because it would give Jehovah a bad name. I was so STUPID to have listened to them at the time. But now I was done. So I questioned. But of course to them none of these were the reasons. I was just becoming an apostate.

So while I appealed being DFed the rumors abounded that I was an apostate. Then, once I was DFed there were rumors that I must have cheated on my husband. NOT TRUE! I just wonder what they think now, since we both moved away together.

Oh and the rumors that I had talked to Dateline and helped them with the part of the story about my father-in-law. Oh, but that one is true.

At first the rumors hurt a lot. Now they just amuse me.

44

The Watchtower's Most Heinious, Vile Crime

by TMS in

jw
friends

i described myself recently as no longer angry.. that was a lie.. i am angry at the way jehovah's witnesses treat their most precious.

endowment; their young, developing, stumbling, exasperating, questioning, experimenting, growing,.

offspring.. at the very most urgent time in their young lives; when they need the.

gladtobefree

Thanks. My dad was far from perfect and the affects of PTSD (from Vietnam) have taken over his life now, but I am very proud of what he did for those young men.

44

The Watchtower's Most Heinious, Vile Crime

by TMS in

jw
friends

i described myself recently as no longer angry.. that was a lie.. i am angry at the way jehovah's witnesses treat their most precious.

endowment; their young, developing, stumbling, exasperating, questioning, experimenting, growing,.

offspring.. at the very most urgent time in their young lives; when they need the.

gladtobefree

My dad ran the "witness protection program". -

My parents were divorced while my younger brothers were in their early teens. My dad had never been a JW and my mom had been one since I was 3. My brothers moved in with my dad because they did not want to be JW's. My father ended up taking in 4 unrelated JW youths (at different times) ALL under 18 because their parents kicked them out. He called it the witness protection program. I remember one youth in particular. He was such a sweet kid. But his hair was a little too long and he had the "wrong" friends. That was his parents only reason for throwing him out. They did not want him to be a bad influence on his little sisters. His dad was a MS at the time and wanted to be an elder. He could not do that with a son who had long (still above his shoulders) hair. He was a real sensitive kid and that hurt him a lot. I think if it were not for my dad taking him in and and helping him get through school and get work he would probably have killed himself. He had nowhere else to go.

28

What sister elder said at the book study..........ARRRGH

by Pistoff in

hello all; my jaw dropped monday at the bookstudy.at the book study on monday, the only meeting i can stomach anymore, a statement was made that made my blood boil.

in asking the question "how does god protect us?

" sister elder answered this way: "well, one of the ways is like that abuse case that was filed in the (twin) cities, or wherever, (sic) it turns out it was thrown out because all the charges were false, or whatever.

gladtobefree

I have to say that in the case of Dateline, I worked with the producer Richard Greenburg for many months. I told him things that he could have used to REALLY nail the WTS and sensationalize the story. The Only problem was that I had no real proof of some of it. He would NOT USE ANYTHING I COULD NOT PROVE with some kind of documentation. He did use some of the info I gave him though and he talked to many, many people regarding Daniel Fitzwater Sr. He even flew to Yerrington Nevada to dig up court records and talk to some of the victims personally. This story was in the making for a long time. I had NO problem believing anything that was said on that show because I saw first hand the time and research involved for a part that ended up with just a few lines about Daniel Fitzwater, his picture and the copy of the letter belonging from the circuit overseer to the WTS stating that he knew of 17 girls that had accussed Dan of abuse.

I wish the JW's could know how true that news is......

26

Danish accuser admits it was all just lies!

by TheOldHippie in

the danish newspaper which has told so many stories about youths being molested in denmark by jws recently, today brings the story that the woman who came forth with the most sensational ones of these stories, how she and others were molested by groups of elders during baptismal preparations etc.

- to the police has admitted it was all nothing but lies.. i just wonder if silentlambs and the danish posters here will be as quick to bring these news and the translation out to the people just as quickly as they did when the original story was given by the newspaper?.

it is very boring to say "what did i tell you?

gladtobefree

I don't know about this case either, but in reading about the subject I learned that pedophiles often use codes phrases and such to identify each other. These are often phrases learned through internet porn groups and books for pedophiles. They watch for other men (mostly men) that seem to be alone at ball games and childrens events.

But there are signs we can watch for too. I don't advocate being paranoid, but I know all too well how cautious we need to be. Keep an eye on people that show up to skating rinks, and little league games alone, especially if they are there repeatedly. Watch for those adults that seem to pay extra attention to kids and always have kids around. Now, that doesn't mean that they are a pedophile, but if you notice them going off alone with children or placing unrelated children on their laps maybe it's time to step in. I wish that someone had done that for me. All the signs were there. I mean really, time after time would the adult male ministerial servant (and later elder, but not in my hall) take me to go "on service calls" with him alone. Not one other witness at the field service meeting ever stepped in or even told my parents. In fact my mother knew I spent time alone with him and she NEVER suspected anything. In fact, I was even allowed to spend nights out of town with this "brother" because his wife and little girl were there. Mind you his little girl was several years younger than I never spent time with her. She was usually at school ( I was home schooled at the time) or off with her little friends. My daughter is the age I was then and if there was a guy putting that kind of interest in her I would probably shoot first and ask questions later.

Lets just not forget, whether this case is true or not, it does happen. Mostly by just one man but sometimes it has been by multiple abusers.....

10

The Costco Parking Lot Was Filled With JWs!

by Swan in

jw
friends

after work tonight we swung by costco to stock up on some items.

it was filled with jws!.

i didn't realize it at first.

gladtobefree

But the merging traffic only worked at assemblies! My dad, who was not a JW but would at times attend conventions with us, used to say as a car passed us going well over the speed limit that it must be an elder. I remember one car passed us and he had to be doing close to 100 miles an hour and my dad said, as if impressed, THAT MUST BE THE DISTRICT OVERSEER! I rarely saw good traffic manners by witnesses other than that. Even at the kingdom halls as everyone was trying to flee the scene, I remember sitting and waiting as car after car would pull out and never let anyone cut in.